Elevated Chicken Tetrazzini Recipe

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I love putting a gourmet spin on old-school recipes. These cozy comfort dishes are ideal for classier modifications, with baked Tetrazzini being a prime candidate for a modern culinary makeover. As a rule when rehashing recipes, I make sure that my modifications do not sacrifice core appeal (or drastically increase your prep time — I am a culinary realist). As such, this elevated chicken Tetrazzini recipe was crafted using homemade components, tastier ingredients, and a little gastronomic flair, making it approachable for the home chef while still providing a little something special.

Tetrazzini, often featuring turkey or sometimes chicken, started off as a restaurant-worthy meal, with popular 20th century establishments prominently featuring the dish on their menus. With its rise in popularity, the easier, at-home versions of chicken Tetrazzini became very popular, too. These at-home versions were where we started to see the inclusion of canned cream soups and leftover turkey or chicken — less classy, high-end restaurant vibes and more weekday-appropriate casserole vibes.

In this adaptation, I merged the restaurant-worthy with the weekday casserole. Instead of leftover turkey, I included seared and seasoned chicken breasts. Instead of canned creamed soup, we are going to create a wild mushroom cream sauce infused with woody herbs, white wine, Italian cheeses, and buttery aromatic vegetables. These simple upgrades make for a truly elevated Tetrazzini, and one that might even be better than those restaurant versions.

This recipe is essentially divided into two parts, combined, and baked into one. For the first component, the seared chicken breasts, you will need four boneless and skinless chicken breasts, salt, pepper, sweet paprika, and olive oil. For the second component, the creamy mushroom sauce and pasta, you will need salted butter, sliced wild mushrooms, garlic, shallot, fresh rosemary, fresh thyme, fresh oregano, white wine, all-purpose flour, chicken broth, mozzarella cheese, fontina cheese, parmesan cheese, and al dente linguine noodles.

Preheat the oven to 400 F.

Spritz a casserole dish with cooking spray.

Pat chicken dry with paper towels.

Season the chicken with ½ teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon pepper, and paprika.

Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium-high heat.

Once hot, add the chicken breasts and sear until golden, about 3 minutes per side.

Remove the seared chicken from the pot and set aside on a clean plate.

Reduce the heat to medium. Add the butter to the pot and melt.

Once melted, add the mushrooms and sauté for 5 to 8 minutes, or until tender.

Remove ⅔ cup of the sauteed mushrooms and set aside.

Add the garlic, shallots, ½ teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon pepper, ½ teaspoon rosemary, ½ teaspoon thyme, and ½ teaspoon oregano to the pot. Stir to combine and sauté for 2 minutes, or until the shallots are tender.

Deglaze the pot with wine and bring to a simmer. Simmer until the wine has mostly evaporated, about 3 minutes.

Sprinkle the veggies with flour and stir to combine the roux.

Cook the roux for 1 minute more, stirring frequently.

Add the half and half and chicken broth to the pot, whisk to combine, and bring to a low simmer. Simmer, whisking occasionally, for 10 minutes or until the sauce has thickened slightly.

Remove the pot from the heat and sprinkle with 1 cup mozzarella, ½ cup fontina, and ½ cup Parmesan. Whisk until melted.

Add the cooked noodles to the pot and toss to combine.

Twirl and transfer the noodles to the prepared casserole dish.

Ladle the noodles with any remaining sauce left in the pot.

Sprinkle the casserole with the remaining cheeses and the reserved sautéed mushrooms.

Nestle the seared chicken into the noodles.

Transfer to the oven and bake for 15 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through and the casserole is bubbly.

Remove from the oven and sprinkle with the remaining rosemary, thyme, and oregano before serving.

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Creamy sauces are the capstone of so many recipes. Whether you're making casseroles, soups, or pasta sauces, having a good grasp on creamy sauce-craft is essential (and a brag-worthy culinary skill).

The first tip involves the roux, and more specifically, avoiding common roux mistakes. Most creamy sauces call for a blonde roux (almost white, slightly straw colored). This is a lower heat roux that doesn't toast or brown the butter and flour. Just gently cooks the two together to strengthen the thickening and remove any raw flour flavor. This step only takes a minute and requires consistent whisking or stirring to keep our ingredients from burning.

The second tip involves the milky, creamy, cheesy ingredients. These can be touchy and, if left unattended (or under high heat) can burn. Add the liquid, milky ingredients to your roux and immediately whisk to combine. Lower the heat if your sauce begins to boil. We only want a low simmer and make sure to whisk or stir occasionally to keep any milk from burning or sticking to the bottom. For the cheese, remove the pot from the heat entirely. If the cheeses are added to a pot that is too hot, the cheese will break and become oily, clumpy, and separated. Whisk frequently to prevent any cheeses from sticking to the bottom of the pot until they've successfully melted and merged into the sauce.

There's virtually no wrong answer when it comes to questioning what mushrooms to use in a given recipe. Nearly all mushrooms types are welcome and, when crafting this recipe, it largely boils down to what you have available. When it comes to wild mushrooms, the term "wild" doesn't necessarily mean "wildly foraged." Mushroom marketers created this term to distinguish these gourmet varietals from the readily available button, portobello, or cremini mushrooms — just a clever way to say that these mushrooms are special and occasionally offer a more robust flavor profile.

Wild mushroom varieties that you'll most likely find at your local grocer are: oyster mushrooms, maitake, trumpet, or shiitake. Fancier mushroom varieties might also include porcini, morels, or chanterelles (these are also more expensive mushrooms). All are exquisitely earthy and savory, and work very well in this recipe.

Many grocery retailers have begun offering a blended pack of several wild mushroom varieties. These are great, if you can find them. If not, feel free to amass a collection of your favorite. Or, round out the limited supply with some cremini mushrooms. I do not recommend button mushrooms or portobello mushrooms for this recipe. Buttons are very mild in flavor and won't infuse our sauce with that robust flavor we are looking for. Portobello mushrooms are flavorful but they will drastically darken our cream sauce (even if you remove the gills).

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