Chicken Cordon Bleu Pasta Bake

I had this thing with Chicken Cordon Bleu when I was a little girl. It was my ultimate indulgence when we went out for meals and if a restaurant had it on its menu, I would order it without fail. There was something so incredibly chic about it back then. The name, trying to pronounce it, the way the cheese oozed out of the hot, crispy chicken. All of it was just too much for my 10-year old self to handle. But I hadn’t eaten this childhood favourite in probably 15 years and when I went through an old cookbook of mine, I stumbled upon this classic once again. And even though Chicken Cordon Bleu is not a difficult recipe to master by any means, I just don’t have the want or will to stand stuffing chicken breasts before breading and cooking them. I wanted all the same flavours but in an easy, no-fuss way and that’s when I decided to do a pasta bake. Pasta bakes are a constant in my house. They are easy and they can feed a crowd easily so I knew this would be an instant hit. As if it wasn’t bad enough that I took shortcuts with the actual Chicken Cordon Bleu element, I also bought a rotisserie chicken to use instead of cooking chicken from scratch. But listen, you gotta do what you gotta do. And I am a big fan of using rotisserie chickens for dishes like these. Along with the shredded chicken, I added cubes of smoked beech ham and a few layers of mozzarella to emulate that oozy cheese. I topped the pasta with a layer of seasoned breadcrumbs to add that crispy crunch. I used a loaf of stale ciabatta which resulted in lovely chunky crumbs. So simple, SO delicious and a recipe my family gobbled up within minutes. The beautiful dish used in these photographs was gifted to me by the lovely people at Kitchen Aid South Africa. This post is not sponsored.