Barbecue Pasta Bake

This easy weeknight dish takes about 40 minutes to prepare and only requires six ingredients. The simple combination of ground chicken, barbecue sauce, whole wheat pasta, and cheese is great for picky eaters!

Good morning, folks! Was anyone else up early watching the super blue blood moon? I woke up feeling kind of tired, but then I remembered the lunar eclipse and I was wide awake. I leaped out of bed, ran out to the car in my pajamas, and drove around the neighborhood in freezing temperatures with my window rolled down so I could catch a glimpse of the moon. There was a good spot to watch it a short distance from my house, so I was able to park and enjoy the eclipse without a lot of trees obstructing my vision.

Jump to Recipe!

Unfortunately, living on the East Coast means that I didn’t get to see the eclipse reach totality before the moon dipped below the horizon, but I have been enjoying seeing all the pictures on Instagram from viewers farther west. Wow! The beauty of it is unbelievable. God’s creation never ceases to fill me with amazement.

In sharing today’s recipe, I’m trying to think more about families who may have kids who are picky eaters. I don’t fully understand the dilemma because I don’t have kids yet and was never a picky eater myself. There were really only a handful of things that I wouldn’t eat when I was young. (And of course those dislikes just had to be the things that other kids would usually devour, such as watermelon, potato chips, and ice cream.)

Yes, I know. I don’t like ice cream. Let’s just get this discussion out of the way right now. Never liked it. Probably never will. Now, if you make a batch of really good homemade vanilla ice cream, I’ll devour that. It’s the only kind I like. When I went to birthday parties as a kid, adults would ALWAYS try to put ice cream on my cake. Every time. I couldn’t understand it. Why would anyone ruin a perfectly good slice of cake by topping it with a melting, gooey mess of ice cream?

Whatever.

I’ve gotten really sidetracked; my apologies.

Anyway… Barbecue Pasta Bake! This dish is made with 6 simple and generally likable ingredients: ground chicken or beef, dried onion (which you can leave out if necessary), barbecue sauce, mozzarella cheese, whole wheat noodles, and milk.

So simple! I like to cook a vegetable to go along with it.

Barbecue Pasta Bake

Servings: 6
Time: 40 minutes
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Ingredients

1 lb ground chicken OR beef
1 Tablespoon dried onion
1/2 cup barbecue sauce
8 oz whole wheat macaroni noodles
1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella OR cheddar cheese

Directions

Cook chicken and dried onion in skillet over medium heat until chicken is browned/cooked through. Drain off grease. Add barbecue sauce and cook chicken mixture for 1-2 more minutes over low heat. Remove from heat.

Meanwhile, boil macaroni noodles according to package directions until tender. Remove from heat and drain off water. Stir 1/2 cup milk into noodles.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and spray a 13×9 inch pan with cooking spray. Pour one half of the macaroni noodles into pan. Sprinkle with one half of the cheese. Top with barbecue chicken mixture. Pour remaining noodles over chicken and sprinkle with remaining half of the cheese.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until heated through and cheese is bubbly.

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~K in the Kitchen