Lemon Garlic Chicken & Noodles

No intro tonight. Just something I whipped up and enjoyed the other night. (The noodles w/sauce were my favorite part if I'm honest.)

Ingredients:

5-6 Chicken Thighs or Breasts

1/2 - 3/4 cup of Broth (Chicken or Vegetable)

1 cup Cream

2 Tbls Grated Parmesan

1/2 cup Ricotta

Egg Noodles

Spice Marinade/Coating

2 tsp Paprika

1 tsp Minced Onion

1 Tbls Italian Seasoning (or mix of Rosemary, Thyme and Oregano)

2 tsp Minced Garlic

1 tsp Anchovy Paste (completely optional, but it truly adds a nice umami flavor)

2 Tbls Lemon Juice (use less if you don't like lemon juice)

2-3 Tbls Olive Oil (use just enough to help the seasonings coat the chicken)

1 tsp Black Pepper

1 tsp Salt

Mix the Spice Coating ingredients together in a large bowl or bag. Add the chicken and coat with the coating. Let marinate while your oven is pre-heating; no need to marinade for a long period of time because this will all go into the baking pan.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a 9x13 casserole dish, prepared with cooking spray or butter, add broth. The amount is up to you, you want it to cover the bottom of the pan but not be filled halfway. Evenly, place chicken in pan with broth. Bake for 20 minutes.

At 20 minutes, the chicken will be almost done-if you have a thermometer test the temp here, so you don't overcook your chicken. Take the chicken out of the pan and baste with broth, you will put the chicken back in the pan!

In the pan with the broth, whisk in the cream, Parm and ricotta. Taste, if you think the creamy base needs something, add it. Just remember before you add more salt here, that the chicken is seasoned and is going back in. Also, the sauce will thicken as it bakes. Add noodles to pan in sauce. I failed to measure, I just made sure that the bottom of the pan was covered. Not all the noodles will be covered with the liquid, that's okay!

Put the chicken on top of the noodles. Cover, tightly, with aluminum foil and bake for 15-20 minutes; until noodles are cooked and the chicken is done. If you think the chicken is done before the noodles, take the chicken out and replace the foil over the noodles. The foil will help keep the steam in and provide less dry air to the parts of the noodles not covered by the sauce.

I have tweaked this recipe since I made this, because while delicious, I had originally added too much lemon and pepper. The noodles were also so good the next day for lunch! I heated them up with a few tsp of liquid (water or broth) and it was perfect!