Chicken Tetrazzini is a creamy baked chicken and mushroom pasta dish with chunks of chicken and mozzarella cheese you can make ahead or get it in the oven in just 15 minutes.
We love easy baked pastas like Baked Million Dollar Spaghetti and Ultimate Meat Lasagna and this Chicken Tetrazzini is no exception to that. It’s creamy, cheesy and has a deliciously browned topping that makes this easy dinner a huge hit!
Chicken Tetrazzini Recipe
Baked Chicken Spaghetti with a creamy cheesy sauce is a guaranteed hit with your kids. The most difficult part of the prep is cooking the chicken and pasta ahead of time, so if you’re meal prepping or even making another pasta dish for dinner earlier in the week this would be a good time to cook that pasta!
If you’re wondering how do you make chicken tetrazzini then I’ve got a lot of info for you below. We cover meal prepping it, making it homemade with no condensed soups and even substitute noodles you can use.
What to serve with Chicken Tetrazzini:
We love serving this with Garlic Bread, Olive Garden Italian Salad Dressing (Copycat) and Rainbow Roasted Vegetables.
Can you use different pasta?
Yes, classically the dish is made with spaghetti, but you can certainly alter the pasta to suit your tastes or needs. If you have younger children a shorter pasta that is easy to eat, like rotini, would be a good option. If you’d like you can even swap lasagna noodles into the dish and make it into a lasagna of sorts (you may need to double the non pasta ingredients though.
Meal Prep Chicken Tetrazzini:
This meal requires the use of cooked chicken and cooked pasta. So if we are meal prepping or even just thinking ahead while cooking food for another meal you can easily turn this dish into a 2 minute prep time with only baking needed.
- Cook extra chicken: Are you cooking chicken any other time this week? Or maybe picking up a rotisserie chicken for dinner? Eat the dark parts and leave the white meat and a bit of the thighs for this recipe. Easiest adjustment, when cooking chicken for another meal add in an extra pound. Once out of the oven just chop it up and put it in tupperware.
- Cooking extra pasta: I don’t recommend using the same water as a previous pound of pasta but you’ll already have a dirty starchy pot needing a wash so just rinse and add fresh water to cook an extra pound of pasta. Let it cool slightly and add it to a tupperware or even to the chicken tupperware if you’ve also prepared that.
- Assembly: Once you have the chicken and pasta cooked you’re 99% of the way there. Simply toss with the rest of the ingredients and bake. I would caution against adding the liquids to the pasta the night before baking only because pasta is like a dry sponge waiting to soak up anything it can.
- You can toss the pasta with a bit of olive oil before adding the other ingredients if you’d like to prep the whole pan ahead of time, but be aware that oil will interact with the other ingredients during baking which may result in a slightly less creamy mixture.
Use of canned soups:
This recipe classically used canned soups that are pre-made. I can tell you I did not use them, instead using Cream of Chicken Soup (Condensed) and Cream of Mushroom Soup (Condensed) and it tastes just as nostalgic but even tastier than the original. I’ve even conducted side by side tests of this recipe using my homemade versions vs the pre-made.
Now, this is significantly more work to use the homemade versions. What I do is batch cook a bunch of the homemade condensed soups when I have time and freeze them. This allows me to just defrost them overnight when I am preparing the pasta or chicken and add it to the recipe as easily as I would the canned variety.
The actual process of cooking those condensed soups is actually really easy too. Most of them take just 10 minutes to cook. I also have a Cheddar Cheese Soup (Condensed) and Cream of Celery Soup (Condensed) in case you need substitutes for those in other recipes you have.
Chicken Tetrazzini
Ingredients
- 1 pound chicken breast cooked and chopped
- 1 pound spaghetti cooked 2 minutes shy of directions
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1 can cream of chicken soup
- 1 can cream of mushroom soup
- 2 cups chicken broth
- 1 tablespoon Better than Bouillon chicken base or chicken bouillon
- 3/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Add the chicken, spaghetti, garlic, cream of chicken soup, cream of mushroom soup, chicken broth and better than bouillon into a large mixing bowl and mix until well combined.
Pour into a 9x13 pan and cover with mozzarella cheese before baking for 25-28 minutes.
Half my family loved this, the other half said it was okay. I put the minced garlic and chopped onion in with the chicken and cooked it together. I used one can of cream of chicken and one can of cream of bacon. I also threw cooked bacon over the top of it before adding the cheese. It was soooooooooooo good.
This was very yummy, my family loved it!!
My husband and I dont like mushrooms but it sounds like an amazing dish…do you think it would change the taste too much if we used cream of bacon soup instead of cream of mushroom?
I’ve not tried it but I don’t see why not. Enjoy!
Saw your suggestions said cream of celery soup my bad.. what about adding dried cranberries to this?
I’ve never tried that but it sounds delicious!
Can you make this and freeze it?
Yes, but I would recommend preparing it and then freezing. Once you’re ready to use, pull out to thaw in the refrigerator overnight and bake the next day. You may need to add additional bake time if it’s not completely thawed. Hope this helps!
When I reheat a cooked meal from the freezer, I use a 275 degree oven. You determine how long to leave it in. I usually allow about an hour.
By doing this, the meal does not cook any longer but does warm it to serving temperature.
I sautéed onions and mushrooms and it was great.
So trying to follow the recipe, but never says when to add the cream of mushroom soup…..figured it went with the cream of chicken…..ya forgot to mention it in the instructions
Thanks for catching that! You were right with adding it in with the cream of chicken soup. I edited it to read correctly now.
I took the time to make this and I had high expectations and I am disappointed.
It was very salty even though I have to buy reduce salt broth and soup. It needs more, maybe onions and extra mushrooms, I’m not sure.
All I know is I spent money on the recipe, spent time a lot of time making it just to throw this all away.
Hi Lorrie, I was thinking about your comment and would love to troubleshoot. If you bought low sodium broth and soups where did the excess of salt come from? I don’t call for any additional salt in the dish. Granted some of the ingredients are inherently higher in sodium but with all that pasta and chicken I would hope it would balance it out to a pleasing amount. Would love to help more.
Why not get some onion and mushroom and peppers chop and sauté and add to the left overs. Why toss it all out?
I love your recipes but it is only myself and my husband and sometimes it isn’t easy to cut the recipes down – can this be made in smaller dishes (suitable for two) and frozen before baking? That way I can simply defrost and bake…
So glad you’re enjoying the recipes. You can adjust the serving size in the recipe card by hovering over it. You’ll notice a sliding scale will pop up for you to adjust. If you’d like to make a reg batch and freeze in smaller portions after baking, that would be a great idea for future dinners all ready to go.
HELP!
Want to make this btu I don’t have the “ better then bouillon” what can I use in place of it?
Add the better than bouillon base boosts the flavor so there’s really no substitute for it. I would just not add anything knowing it will adjust the flavor a bit.
Hi! I am planning to make this tomorrow as some comfort food for our snowy weekend ahead. I bought but have never used Better than Bouillion. How much of a cube is 1 tablespoon? It doesn’t list on the package and I don’t want this to be over salty. Thank you!
Sorry for the delay. From what I can find online, 1 cube is equal to 1 teaspoon so I would recommend using 3 cubes to equal one tablespoon of base. I hope this helps.
I also don’t use bouillon, so I use a similar quantity of a generic chicken broth powder (I buy mine a jar, though I have seen it in the bulk sections of some supermarkets). I typically undershoot the amount, as it’s easier to add salt later / add more powder the next time I make the recipe. As a fan of this site for years, I can say this strategy is successful.
Can’t wait to make my own cream of chicken soup! Maybe there’ll be leftovers for this tetrazzini…
This looks SO good! And like the perfect weeknight meal!
Definitely, Kristy!
We’re trying to do some meal planning around here for the first time ever. Handy to have this easy recipe to add to the list. It sounds fabulous! My son goes crazy for anything with cheese!
Cheese is always a winner in our house too! Enjoy!
This looks perfect for dinner any night!
Thanks Erin!
This looks so good! I can’t wait to try it!
Enjoy!
This looks so good and cheesy! A great make and bake later dish!
I had to make this the second I saw it… and WOW it does not disappoint! SO GOOD!! Thanks for sharing your recipe!
So awesome to hear!! Thanks for coming back to let me know.