Chicken and Broccoli Mac and Cheese

I hit upon a winner for dinner tonight!  OOOH…this was sooo yummy, and VERY easy.  I just made a basic  homemade mac and cheese, and added precooked chicken and some broccoli and baked it.  MMMMM….we ate way too much!

I was making enough for 4 of us plus leftovers.  So here is what I used. (I make homemade mac and cheese often enough that I don’t really use a recipe.  If you have a favorite recipe that you follow, use that.  If you don’t…here’s my basic amounts (more or less, LOL)

• 2 HUGE chicken breasts (cooked and cubed)
• 1/2 or 3/4 of a large package of frozen broccoli (under cooked a little.  Cook just long enough so that it isn’t frozen any longer)
• 4 cups of uncooked macaroni (bow tie or rotini or other shaped pasta would be good, too)
• 1/2 stick of butter
• 1/4 cup or so of milk (add more to make it runnier if you need to)
• 1/3 block of Velveeta-more or less (I used Fareway brand)
• 2 cups shredded cheddar—more or less (I used taco cheese because it is what I had tonight.) 
• 1/2 cup breadcrumbs (I made homemade, and I added some onion powder and garlic powder.)

Boil the noodles and drain.  Chunk up the Velveeta type cheese and butter and stir til it is all melty.  Add the milk and keep stirring.  (If it doesn’t melt very quickly, you can stir it over a low/medium burner.  I usually don’t need to do this, though).  Then stir in 1 to 1/2 cups of the shredded cheese (if I don’t have it, I sometimes leave this out.  Just depends on how cheesy you like it.  We like it best when it is REALLY cheesy)

Add the chicken (when I cooked mine, I added some pepper and garlic.  You can keep your chicken plain or spice it up with whatever flavors you like)  and broccoli.  Stir it up really well, and then pour into a greased 9 x 13 pan.  Sprinkle with the rest of the shredded cheese (if using), and then toss some bread crumbs on top (for a crispy topping….you can leave this part off, too, if you want…but I can’t imagine why you’d want to.)

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 30-40 minutes, or til the bread crumbs are nice and toasty brown and crunchy on top. 

Ethan took one bite and said “mmmmmmmmmm……..”  And that’s all I heard from him for the next 10 minutes or so.