Chicken Florentine Lasagne

Hello my friends!! Hope you are all having a lovely weekend. Today is the ONLY day on our monthly calendar where we have absolutely nothing on the calendar!! I am so excited to be able to sit in my house with my littles and do as close to nothing as humanly possible. We had a lovely family dinner last night celebrating Miss E's birthday - can you believe she turns SIX this week??

So we would be able to have a chilled out, relaxed dinner with the fam, we went with an easy dinner - lasagne, salad and of course, cake! I made two great big lasanges and a big tray of cheese tortellini with alfredo sauce (for the kiddos). For the lasagnes, I made my favorite beef lasagne, a Tex Mex Lasasgne I have shared with you on the blog in the past.

Since not everyone loves meat, I also wanted to make a chicken lasagne for the crowd. I hunted around on Pinterest and found a link to this recipe from tastykitchen.com. I immediately knew that this recipe would be a huge hit, and I was right! It was the first dish completely scraped clean from the pan and it was gone so quickly I didn't even have time to actually take a photo of the completed, cooked slice of lasagne.

The original version of this recipe was cooked right away and served. I needed this for the weekend, so I prepped it on Thursday and froze it until I needed it.

Chicken Florentine Lasagne
Recipe adapted from Tasty Kitchen

Ingredients
9-12 whole Lasagna Noodles
½ cup Butter
1 whole Onion, Chopped
1 clove Garlic, Minced
½ cups All-purpose Flour
1 teaspoon Salt
2 cups Chicken Broth
1-½ cup Milk
4 cups Shredded Mozzarella Cheese, Divided
1 cup Grated Parmesan Cheese, Divided, Plus Additional 1/4 Cup For Topping
2 cups Ricotta Cheese
2 cups shredded, cooked chicken (I used a rotisserie chicken)
2 cups fresh baby spinach

Instructions
Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook until the onions are translucent, strirring frequently. Stir in the flour and salt and simmer until mixture is bubbly.

Add the chicken broth and milk and bring to a boil, stirring constantly for approximately 1 minute. Stir in 2 cups of mozzarella cheese and 1/2 cup parmesan cheese. Remove from heat and set aside.

In a separate pan over medium heat, cook spinach until wilted. Transfer the cooked spinach to the sauce and mix until combined.

In a medium bowl, mix the ricotta cheese with the shredded chicken.

Assemble your lasagne by spreading 1/3 of the sauce mixture in the bottom of a 9x13 pan. Layer with 1/3 of the noodles and 1/2 of the ricotta cheese/chicken mixture. Repeat these layers again, finishing with the final 1/3 of the sauce mixture on top.

Sprinkle the remaining 2 cups of mozzarella cheese and 1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese on the top of the dish.

You can bake this dish right away, at 350F for 40-45 minutes. I prepped this dish in advance of Miss E's party, so I froze it and on the day of the party, allowed it to thaw and cooked for about an hour. I put tented tin foil on top for the first 45 minutes of the cooking time, removing for the last 15 minutes to allow the cheese to get all melty and delicious.

I hope you enjoyed this recipe, I know my family did!! Thanks for stopping by, I hope I have inspired you a little today!