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Creamy French onion chicken pasta bake

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Everything old is new again, with our re-discovery of the flavour bomb that is French onion soup mix. Although the mix has been around since the 1950’s, it came to recognition when mixed with sour cream to become French onion dip. Since then it’s made its way into other iconic dishes – we’re looking at you apricot chicken and now into this crowd-pleasing pasta bake. 

I think of this recipe for creamy French onion chicken bake as one of our “new” classics. Where a few of our favourite recipes have been on our website for years, this is a reasonably new recipe and in a short time has garnered more than 50 favourable reviews, being described as a “new family favourite.”

Why we love this French onion bake recipe

Let’s face it – it’s a cheesy pasta bake – and we all love that, but our recipe also makes use of pre-prepared ingredients that add so much flavour with very little effort. Not only the packet of French onion soup mix, but we also use supermarket-bought bbq chicken and three cheese mix. We also love that it can be assembled earlier on in the day and cooked just before serving. And, despite being a bake, there’s no turning on the oven, instead a short stint under the grill is all it needs to become bubbly and golden.

What you’ll need for our cheesy French onion pasta bake

  • Pasta: We use penne but other short pastas like fusilli, rigatoni or casarecce can be used. 
  • Mushrooms: if your button mushrooms are super small just halve them or keep the whole. You could also use sliced cup mushrooms, but I’d avoid large field mushrooms as they tend to turn the sauce an unpleasant grey colour. 
  • Thyme: Thyme and mushrooms always work well together, but could also use rosemary or a pinch of dry tarragon.
  • Chicken: A supermarket barbecue chicken is loaded with salty spices and a great dinner shortcut ingredients. You could also use chopped pan-fried chicken thigh fillets. 
  • French onion soup mix: If watching your salt intake you can buy a low salt one.
  • Pizza cheese: This handy product combines cheddar, mozzarella and parmesan cheeses that are already grated for you!
  • Parsley: We us continental parsley, but there’s nothing wrong with using curly as we are being a bit retro.

Bought barbecue chicken is a great time saver that turns up in many of our favourite recipes, like this chicken and leek pie and quick pesto pasta. It also stars in a warm lentil salad and provides the shortcut for these cheats tostadas, chicken nachos salad and smokey barbecue pizza.

How to cook our French onion pasta bake: full recipe below

Ingredients (11)

  • 250g penne pasta
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 200g thickly sliced button mushrooms
  • 6 fresh thyme sprigs, leaves removed
  • 1 barbecue chicken, bones removed, meat and skin shredded
  • 40g packet French onion soup mix
  • 60g baby spinach
  • 375ml (1 1/2 cups) Coles Dairy Full Cream Milk
  • 125ml (1/2 cup) Coles Thickened Cream
  • 155g (1 1/2 cups) grated pizza cheese
  • Chopped fresh continental parsley, to serve