I’m a planner at heart, but some nights I have no clue what I’ll be cooking for supper. It’s these nights that lead to many of our Foodie Friday recipes. “Necessity is the mother of invention” as the old English proverb says. When I looked in my fridge a few days ago at supper time, all I had was a rotisserie chicken, mushrooms and parmesan. Since my family isn’t too keen on “plain old” rotisserie chicken, I knew I needed to dress it up. This recipe for Creamy Parmesan Chicken and Mushrooms went over so well that it will become a regular in my household!

The recipe is basically a Béchamel sauce with chicken and mushrooms mixed in. (If I’d had them, I would have added in both onions and green peas.) For the starch portion, you can use rice or pasta. I used brown rice with quinoa because that’s what I had on hand. This sauce turned out to be so rich and creamy that I can promise you won’t be disappointed!

Ingredients

• 10 mushrooms, sliced
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1.5 tbsp all purpose flour
• 1 cup milk
• 1 to 1.5 cups cooked chicken, diced
• 1/2 cup Parmesan, shredded
• 1 tsp thyme
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Spray pan with olive or vegetable oil and saute mushrooms and garlic for 3 minutes or until tender. Add in the flour and mix thoroughly, cooking another 1-2 minutes.

2. Add in milk and cook on high until the sauce becomes bubbly, then immediately turn down to low. Let simmer for 5 minutes then add in the chicken and stir.

3. Add in the thyme and Parmesan cheese and mix until cheese is melted. Serve over rice or pasta.

If you have more than two adults eating you’ll probably want to double the recipe. And, as always, use real Parmesan cheese and not that powdered stuff in a canister.

~Laura Owens, Maggie Bags

If you have ever posted a Facebook comment, retweeted a Maggie Bags™ tweet or seen one of our super cute sets on Polyvore then you have “met” Laura. Laura is all things social media for Maggie Bags™. Her passion is to connect with our customers in interesting and creative ways. When she is not connecting at work she is connecting with her family, relaxing with yoga or blogging from her cat’s point of view.