Chicken Tetrazzini Casserole Recipe

Chicken tetrazzini is the baked pasta that turns three cups of leftover chicken into dinner for eight: linguine, sauteed mushrooms and shredded chicken in a creamy garlic sauce, layered with mozzarella and baked until the top browns in patches. It takes about seventy minutes, most of it in the oven, and it is the kind of dish people go back to the pan for.

There are two ways to build the sauce, and this post covers both. The recipe card is the classic weeknight version with cream of chicken and cream of mushroom soup, sour cream and Parmesan, which is the tetrazzini most of us grew up on. The dish in the photographs was made with the from-scratch sauce from the Variations section: butter, flour, broth, cream and Parmesan. Same pan, same bake, and you choose based on what is in the pantry.

Pictured: the from-scratch sauce version, made with butter, flour, broth and cream instead of canned soup, with the peas left out and baked in a smaller glass dish. The full method is under Variations, and the recipe card below is the classic condensed-soup version.

What Makes a Chicken Tetrazzini a Tetrazzini

Tetrazzini is an American dish, named after the opera singer Luisa Tetrazzini in the early 1900s and built around long pasta, poultry and mushrooms in a cream sauce, baked with cheese on top. The name has stretched to cover almost any creamy baked pasta with chicken or turkey, but the mushrooms and the long noodles are what set it apart from a plain chicken pasta bake.

What separates it from chicken Alfredo is the bake. Alfredo is a stovetop sauce tossed with pasta and served at once. Chicken tetrazzini goes into a dish with a heavier sauce, gets a layer of cheese in the middle and another on top, and comes out of the oven set enough to cut into a square. The edges crisp, the middle stays creamy, and it reheats far better than Alfredo ever does.

The Mushroom Council’s guide to varieties describes crimini as having a richer, more savory flavor than white button, and either one works here. Crimini give a slightly deeper sauce; white buttons are what most of us have in the fridge.

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Ingredient Notes

The flat lay above shows the from-scratch version, which is why you see flour, cream and broth rather than cans of soup. The classic version in the recipe card swaps those three for the two condensed soups and the sour cream. Everything else is shared.

• Linguine or spaghetti. Twelve ounces, cooked two minutes short of the package time. It finishes cooking in the oven, and pasta that goes in fully cooked comes out soft.
• Cooked chicken. Three cups, shredded or chopped. A rotisserie chicken gives about that much, and leftover roast chicken or poached breasts work the same way.
• Butter and garlic. Four tablespoons and three cloves, for the mushrooms. The garlic goes in first for thirty seconds so it flavors the butter without burning.
• Mushrooms. Eight ounces, sliced. Cook them until they have given up their liquid and browned, or they water down the sauce in the oven.
• Chicken broth or dry white wine. One cup, to deglaze the pan and loosen the sauce. Wine adds a little acidity that cuts the richness.
• Cream of chicken and cream of mushroom soup. One can of each. They make the sauce thick enough to hold its shape after baking with no roux to stir.
• Sour cream. One cup, at room temperature so it blends smoothly. It gives the sauce a tang that plain cream does not have.
• Frozen peas. One cup, thawed, and optional. They add color and sweetness; the pictured batch left them out.
• Parmesan and mozzarella. Half a cup of Parmesan in the sauce for flavor, two cups of shredded mozzarella for the layers because it melts and browns without going oily.

Chicken Tetrazzini from Cans or from Scratch?

Both work, and I have made this chicken tetrazzini both ways more times than I can count. The canned-soup sauce is faster, it is nearly impossible to break, and the flavor is the one most people are expecting when they hear the name. It is the recipe card for that reason.

The from-scratch sauce takes ten more minutes and one more pan, and it tastes cleaner, with a lighter texture and a fresher mushroom flavor. It is the version in the photographs, and the method is written out in full under Variations. If you have never made a roux, it is simply butter and flour stirred for a minute before the broth goes in, and the steps below for the classic version apply exactly the same way once the sauce is made.

How To Make Chicken Tetrazzini

Heat the oven to 350°F and grease a 9-by-13-inch baking dish. Cook the pasta while the mushrooms brown, and the rest is assembly.

First, boil the linguine in well-salted water until just al dente, about two minutes short of the package time. Drain it and set it aside. If you are starting with raw chicken, season and cook it now, then chop or shred it.

Next, melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat and cook the garlic for thirty seconds. Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring now and then, until they release their liquid and turn golden at the edges, about five minutes.

Then reduce the heat to low and pour in the broth or wine, scraping up the browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Let it simmer for a minute so the mushrooms drink some of it back.

After that, stir in the cream of chicken soup, the cream of mushroom soup, the sour cream, the peas if you are using them, and the Parmesan. The mixture will be thick. Add the pasta and the chicken and toss until everything is coated, then taste and season with salt and pepper more generously than seems right, because the pasta absorbs a lot.

Layer and Bake

Finally, spread half of the pasta mixture into the dish, scatter over a cup of mozzarella, add the rest of the pasta and finish with the second cup. Cover with foil and bake for thirty minutes, then uncover and bake ten to fifteen minutes more, until the cheese is golden in patches and the edges bubble. Let the chicken tetrazzini rest for five to ten minutes before cutting, and scatter over parsley if you like.

How To Tell When Chicken Tetrazzini Is Done

Look at the edges first. Done chicken tetrazzini bubbles steadily all the way around the dish, not just in one corner, and the sauce at the edges has darkened a shade where it has caught on the glass. If the middle is still flat and quiet, give it five more minutes uncovered.

The cheese is the second tell. It should be melted through and browned in patches, not evenly golden like a pizza, because mozzarella that has fully browned has also gone tough. A few spots of color and a mostly white top is exactly right.

Everything in the dish is already cooked, so the bake is about heating it through and setting the sauce. A thermometer in the center should read 165°F if you want to be sure, and it will after the covered and uncovered time given here.

Make It Ahead

Chicken tetrazzini is a good make-ahead dish because nothing in it suffers from a night in the fridge. Assemble it completely, cover the dish with foil and refrigerate for up to twenty-four hours. Bake it straight from cold with the foil on for forty-five minutes instead of thirty, then uncovered for the same ten to fifteen.

The sauce can also be made a day early on its own and kept in the fridge. Warm it gently in the skillet before tossing in the pasta and chicken, since cold sauce will not coat the noodles evenly.

Storing Chicken Tetrazzini

Cool leftovers within two hours, cover and refrigerate for up to three days. Reheat single portions in the microwave with a spoonful of milk or broth stirred in, or reheat the whole dish covered at 350°F for twenty to twenty-five minutes. The sauce thickens as it sits, and a splash of liquid brings it back.

To freeze, either freeze the assembled unbaked dish, wrapped tightly, for up to two months and bake it from thawed with fifteen extra covered minutes, or freeze baked squares individually and reheat them covered. Chicken tetrazzini freezes better than most creamy pastas because the pasta and sauce set together into something that holds its shape.

Variations and Substitutions

The From-Scratch Sauce Version (Pictured)

This is the chicken tetrazzini in every photograph on this page. It replaces the two cans of soup and the sour cream with a roux-based cream sauce, and it leaves out the peas. The pictured batch was baked in a smaller glass dish, which is why it looks deeper than a 9-by-13 would; the full quantity below fills a standard dish.

Ingredients. Everything in the recipe card except the two soups, the sour cream and the peas, plus 1 small onion, diced; 1/4 cup all-purpose flour; 2 cups chicken broth; and 1 cup heavy cream. Keep the 1 cup of broth for deglazing, the 1/2 cup Parmesan and the 2 cups mozzarella.

Method. Melt the butter in the skillet and cook the onion for four minutes, then the garlic for thirty seconds. Add the mushrooms and brown them as above. Sprinkle over the flour and stir for one minute, then whisk in the broth a cup at a time until smooth. Simmer for three minutes until it thickens, stir in the cream and Parmesan, and season well. Toss with the pasta and chicken, layer with the mozzarella and bake exactly as the recipe card says.

The result is a lighter, more savory sauce with a clear mushroom flavor. It is a little less thick than the canned version, so let the finished dish rest the full ten minutes before you cut into it.

Other Ways to Change It

Turkey. The classic use for leftover Thanksgiving turkey. Swap it cup for cup; there is a full turkey tetrazzini written for it, and a ham tetrazzini for the week after Easter.

More vegetables. A handful of spinach wilted into the sauce, diced zucchini cooked with the mushrooms, or a cup of steamed broccoli florets tossed in with the pasta.

Richer. Two ounces of cream cheese melted into the sauce, or half a cup of Gruyere in place of half the mozzarella.

Lighter. Whole-milk Greek yogurt in place of the sour cream, added off the heat, and one can of soup plus a cup of broth instead of two cans.

Different pasta. Any long pasta works, and so does penne or rigatoni. Egg noodles turn it into something closer to a chicken noodle casserole.

What to Serve with Chicken Tetrazzini

It is rich, so the side should be sharp or green. A lemony Caesar salad is the obvious choice, and a plain green salad with a vinegar dressing does the same job. Steamed green beans or roasted broccoli work if you want something warm.

Bread is not strictly needed, but Olive Garden breadsticks alongside chicken tetrazzini is a pairing nobody has ever complained about. For a bigger table, million dollar spaghetti is the red-sauce cousin and the two together feed a crowd.

Chicken Tetrazzini FAQ

More Questions About the Recipe

Buy a rotisserie chicken on the way home and dinner is forty minutes of oven time away. Make it once from cans and once from scratch, and you will know which chicken tetrazzini is yours; either way, there will be a square left for tomorrow’s lunch alongside a Caesar salad.