Chicken Bacon Ranch Pasta

We are playing Survivor What's for dinner this week.  I gave my husband a choice of four different dishes for dinner this week and he got to choose which one he wanted for dinner tonight.  This is the recipe he chose.  All I gave him were titles and we had not had any of these meals previously.  I must say he made a good choice.

Starts with some basic things.  Most of them you probably have already at home except maybe the heavy cream and the recipe says you can use regular milk.  I think the heavy cream added a richness to the sauce.

Melt a 1/4 c of butter and add 1/4 c flour.  Mix this together to form a roux.

Mix the flour well.  You do not want the heat to be very high on your eye while you are doing this.  You do not want to burn the flour.

  Stir it well. You want all the lumps out of the flour.

Add the 2 cups heavy cream or milk.  Stir well.  Keep stirring until it begins to thicken.

Add a teaspoon of onion powder, 1 teaspoon of garlic salt, 1/3 c ranch dressing to the sauce.  Remove it from the heat.

While you are making your sauce cook your 10 to 12 oz of penne pasta according to the directions.  Drain.  The directions said that she drizzled a little bit of olive oil over the pasta to keep it from sticking.

Add two cups cooked and chopped chicken to the pot of drained pasta.

Crumble up about 3/4 cup cooked bacon.  You can add more or less depending on what you like.

Pour the sauce on top of the ingredients in the pot.

Stir it well to coat the pasta and chicken.

Add 3/4 c shredded cheddar cheese to the mixture and stir it well.

Pour it into a casserole dish that has been sprayed with non stick spray.  Place in a preheated 350 oven for about 15 minutes.

The fully baked casserole.

I fixed green beans to go with it.  I must say our first night of Survivor dinner turned out pretty good.  I might let him chose again.

Chicken bacon ranch pasta recipe

10-12 oz penne pasta
2 c cooked and chopped chicken
3/4 c cooked and crumbled bacon
1/4 c butter
1/4 c flour
2 c heavy cream
1 t onion powder
1 t garlic salt
1/3 c ranch dressing
3/4 c shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 350.  Place the casserole into the oven for 15 minutes.