Sour Cream Noodle Bake

My Mom downloaded this recipe from the Pioneer Woman website and was going to make it for just her and my Dad, but I offered to make it and clean up if she would buy the ingredients so all four of us could enjoy it. It was a good deal! :)

I liked this casserole, but it ended up tasting like lasagna to me. Which is fine, but I guess I just expected it to have its own unique taste. I made some adjustments to the original recipe to make it a tad healthier.

Sour Cream Noodle Bake

as adapted from The Pioneer Woman, here

1 pound ground chicken breast

1 15oz. can tomato sauce

1/2 tsp. salt

black pepper

8 oz. weight egg noodles

1/2 c. light sour cream

1-1/4 c. low fat small curd cottage cheese

1/3 c. green onion

1 c. grated sharp cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Brown ground chicken in a large skillet. Drain any fat and add tomato sauce, salt, and plenty of pepper. Stir together, and simmer while you prepare other ingredients.

Cook egg noodles until al dente.** Drain and set aside.

Combine sour cream, cottage cheese, and more pepper. Add to noodles and stir. Add green onions to this mixture and stir.

With a prepared baking dish (need a big one here, like 9x13-ish size), add half the noodles to the dish. Top with half the meat mixture, then sprinkle on half the cheese. Repeat with noodles, meat, and cheese. 

Bake for 20 minutes, or until cheese is melted.

**I have this instruction starred because I don't want you to be like me. Usually when I cook pasta, I put it right into the water and then turn on the heat. Mostly because I think waiting for water to boil first is dumb. And I am impatient. I took this approach with the egg noodles, and I am here to tell you, DON'T. They turned out fine, but they were way over cooked. Like, incredibly soft. Not the way a noodle should be. It ended up being fine in this dish, and no one said anything about it, but for the future, definitely boil water FIRST, and then put in the egg noodles.