Crockpot Cooking Tips
Cooking is something people do everyday in one way or the other. Whatever meal we are cooking, making a sandwich or baking a cookie, we need a recipe to follow. Sometimes we may not think that we are following a written recipe because the food is something that is very simple and we have it memorized, like making a sandwich, but in actuality we are following a recipe even though it is one that is in our subconscious. People are also more health conscious these days. A lot of people are on a healthy diet and they prefer to cook healthy diet food. Most people know that a complete meal should contain every food group such as meat, carbohydrates, vegetables, fruits, and so no. The healthy diet pyramid tells you what you should have in your ingredients.
Here is a wonderful crockpot recipe for a pasta dish main course that consists of ingredients from almost every food group. This pasta dish is chicken lasagna. It sounds like a simple dish but it is exceptionally tasty. It serves 4 people and takes about 5 hours to prepare. It is not difficult to cook but not that easy either. However, the resulting dish is so tasty that it is well worth the effort.
Ingredients needed for the Chicken Lasagna
You need approximately 1 pound of cooked, shredded chicken breasts or more if you like more protein than an average person. Then, you need 1 large onion, finely chopped, 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped, 2 jars (17 oz.) of spaghetti sauce, 1 package (18 ounce) “no-cook” lasagna noodles, 1 package (9 oz.) of shredded mozzarella cheese, 1 container (9 oz.) of ricotta cheese, 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese, 1/4 cup milk, and 1 egg. Now, if you have a type of vegetables that you really like, such as eggplants, you may add some too but make sure they are finely chopped.
Let the process begin..
First you need to brown the onions, any other vegetables, and garlic in a non-stick pan. Then you will add the spaghetti sauce and mix everything together very well. In a separate bowl, you will mix the cheeses, milk and egg. It is best to grease the crockpot a little. Place 1/4 of the meat sauce mixture in the bottom of your crockpot then, 1/3 of a layer of noodles. You can break the noodles to fit your crockpot. After that, you can place approximately 1/3 of the cheese mixture on top. Then, repeat the process of: sauce, noodles, cheese for two more layers. Put the remaining meat sauce on top. Cook in the crockpot on low setting for approximately 6 hours until the noodles are soft.