- Today I'm gonna show you how to make
an amazing leftover chicken, bacon, and mushroom cacciatore.
(dramatic music)
Hey, everybody, welcome back to The Average Kitchen.
Marc here, with a C,
or C, whichever one's not backwards.
Anyway, so what I have here is some leftover chicken.
I had a whole chicken
that I smoked on my Traeger Grill.
Leftover here.
I got some bacon crumble,
some mushroom, and some fresh marinara
that I made yesterday,
freshly picked tomatoes from my garden,
fresh basil, unbelievable.
So we're gonna boil up some penne pasta,
we're going to give the chicken, bacon,
mushroom, and onions a quick pan fry,
and we're gonna throw it in the oven, load it with cheese.
Super-quick and easy, affordable,
middle-of-the week kinda meal.
So I'm just gonna slice up some onions here.
And now I'm gonna dust some mushrooms.
Please, don't wash your mushrooms, just dust them.
So just a piece paper towel,
give 'em a quick cleaning here, wipe 'em off.
And these are like a brown cremin-style mushroom,
and I'm gonna cut them kinda chunky,
'cause I find if you cut mushrooms super thin,
if you love mushrooms, like I do,
they kinda just go away.
They kind of, when they cook,
they get small and they become insignificant.
So I wanna make sure that I cut them big enough
so that when you grab a bite of this amazing dish,
you know you have a mushroom on board.
- [Jamie] Why don't you wash it?
- So I don't wash these
'cause I don't want them to get saturated with water
and get all soaked.
So I just give them a quick wipe with a paper towel,
more than sufficient to clean them up.
(mellow music)
So pasta's on a nice rolling boil,
as you can see behind us here.
Salt your water, please.
And add a little bit of olive oil,
it'll help your pasta from sticking.
So it's in the cast iron pot, it's going.
So I'm just going to maximize my time here,
and chunk up some mushrooms.
So like I said, you know, pretty good size.
I just kinda lop off the end there.
And really this dish is a super universal,
versatile kind of dish,
where you can add whatever you want.
Do you wanna add peppers to it?
Go for it.
You don't like mushrooms,
you don't have to add 'em.
We love mushrooms, so we're gonna throw them in here.
So we're almost done with our mushrooms.
Then we'll get the pan,
heat it up,
and give all of this
a bit of a quick fry.
Add our marinara to everything to help de-glaze our pan.
By that time our pasta should be ready.
We'll give the pasta a quick rinse.
Back into the pot with everything,
cover it in cheese,
throw it in the oven.
Whoa, that one got away from me there.
All right, let's fry 'em up.
Welcome to the stove.
So got the heat fired up here on this pan.
I'm gonna start with some bacon.
This way here gonna give us a little bit of fat,
so that we don't to add too much, or any, oil at all.
We may have that a little bit, but.
So get our bacon in,
and we'll just give that a few minutes to start cooking.
All right, now I'm gonna add the mushroom and onion
to the bacon here.
(sizzling)
And I think I might add
just a little bit of avocado oil.
So I got that on full heat.
So we're just gonna give it a stir.
Break down those onions a bit.
So you don't necessarily have to preheat all of this.
You could throw all your stuff into a pot.
I just really find it really helps bring out
all those nice flavors of the bacon,
mushroom, onion and chicken.
So that's starting to cook down.
Now we're gonna add our chicken.
So now I'm gonna just start spooning in some marinara.
(sizzling)
We're gonna start with a couple of ladles,
and see how we're looking.
Gotta reduce my heat down,
'cause obviously I don't want anything to burn.
So I'm just gonna start mixing this up.
And you have to keep in mind as well
that your pasta is gonna soak up
a lot of your marinara as well
when you put it in the oven to bake,
so more is always a little bit better,
unless you are low on sauce.
I would always say don't be shy with the sauce.
So that was two good sized ladles.
I'm probably gonna add a third,
and probably even gonna add a fourth.
So we're gonna give that a good mix.
And then we're gonna wait
and give that a few minutes to sort of simmer,
everything warm up together.
Our pasta's almost done.
We're gonna get it drained.
We're gonna rinse it.
And then we're gonna throw it all back into
that cast iron pot.
I hope it fits.
And top it with cheese.
Into the oven.
(water pouring)
All right,, moment of truth.
Is this gonna fit in this pot?
So we got roughly two-and-a-half cups of our pasta cooked.
Now I'm just gonna start spooning in our mixture.
Gonna be tight.
Let's go for it.
All right.
It fit.
Barely.
I'm gonna give this a good stir.
I always worry about the pasta versus your sauce
versus your chicken ratio,
but I think this is actually gonna be really good.
I'm just gonna continue to kinda flip this over
and bring some of that pasta up to the top.
And I think we've got a good dish here.
Everyone's favorite part,
let's add the cheese.
Just joking.
All right.
We got some parm and we got some just regular old cheddar.
So I'm gonna add some cheddar to start here.
Little pro trick here.
If you leave the wrapping on your cheese,
it should never mold.
The oils off your hands get onto the cheese
and causes it to break down.
So just basically peel it back a little bit,
and give it a grate.
So this is a super quick, easy, budget-friendly meal,
in my view,
We've got a nice big chunk of parm,
and I've got a micro planer here,
and I'm gonna give that a.
So I think what I'm gonna do
is give this a bit of a quick stir,
help move around some of that cheese,
and then maybe we'll put a bit more on top.
(upbeat rock music)
All right.
Oven's preheated at 375,
we're gonna throw it in, 20 minutes.
Everything's already cooked,
but you want everything to kind of come together.
So let's do that.
Jamie, do you mind?
- Not at all. - Oh, thank you.
All right, we'll set that timer 20 minutes.
I'll see you in 20.
- [French Accent Narrator] Twenty Minutes late.
- Time to pull it out.
Let's do it.
All right.
There you have it.
A nice chicken cacciatore,
loaded with cheese,
ready to be dished out and eaten.
And I should add,
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