This ridiculously easy, no-pasta lasagne-style chicken bake uses chicken instead of pasta.
The only stovetop step is making a simple white sauce — everything else goes into the dish raw and the oven does the rest.
Table of Contents
- 📋 What do we need?
- 🔪 How to make this Chicken Bake
- 🍽️ What to serve it with
- 🍲 More Chicken Bake Recipes
- 📺 Watch how to make it
- Lasagne-Style Chicken Bake Recipe
I love lasagne, but it can be time-consuming. This version gives you all the familiar flavours with far less prep. It’s one-pan comfort food: layers of seasoned chicken, tomato passata and a creamy white sauce, topped with cheddar and baked until golden.
📋 What do we need?
- Chicken – 4 chicken breasts, sliced in half horizontally to make thin, wide cutlets. This yields 8 large portions; slice each breast into three pieces (12 slices) if you need to serve 6.
- Passata – 500 g of passata for a smooth tomato layer. In the US, passata is similar to tomato puree. If you only have canned chopped tomatoes, use them but simmer the sauce a few minutes longer to thicken.
🔪 How to make this Chicken Bake
Full recipe with detailed steps appears in the recipe card at the end of this post.
- Make the white sauce on the stovetop first — this is the only pre-cooking step required.
- In a large casserole or baking dish, combine raw chopped onion, mushrooms, garlic and red pepper with a little olive oil, a crumbled chicken stock cube and some seasoning. Leave these vegetables raw; they’ll cook underneath the chicken while the dish bakes.
- Arrange a layer of the sliced chicken across the vegetables. Spoon over half the passata, sprinkle with dried Italian herbs and dollop half the white sauce.
- Repeat with the remaining chicken, passata, herbs and white sauce, then top with grated cheddar cheese.
- Bake until the cheese is golden and bubbling and the chicken is cooked through. Finish with a pinch of dried parsley if you like.
Pro tip: Use store-bought bechamel if you want to save time. The result is all the lasagne flavour with very little fuss.
🍽️ What to serve it with
This bake is saucy and satisfying. Serve with something to mop up the sauce, for example:
- Crusty bread
- Easy garlic bread
- Oven-baked fries
- A simple green salad
🍲 More Chicken Bake Recipes
British Classic Recipes
Hunters Chicken
Dinner
Creamy Chicken and Potato Bake
Chicken
Easy Baked Pesto Chicken
Dinner
Creamy Chicken Alfredo Pasta Bake
Pasta
Cheesy Pasta Bake With Chicken And Bacon
Chicken
Chicken Parmesan
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📺 Watch how to make it
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Lasagne-Style Chicken Bake
Ingredients
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 6 medium mushrooms, roughly chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
- 1 red bell pepper, chopped
- 2 tsp olive oil
- 1 chicken stock cube, crumbled
- ¼ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp pepper
- 4 chicken breasts (about 700 g/1.5 lbs), sliced in half to make 8 thin, wide pieces (or slice into 12 pieces to serve 6)
- 500 g (2 1/4 cups) passata (tomato puree for US)
- 1 tsp dried Italian mixed herbs
- 100 g (1 cup) Cheddar cheese, grated
White Sauce:
- 4 tbsp (60 g) unsalted butter
- 4 tbsp plain (all-purpose) flour
- 400 ml (1 2/3 cups) milk (full or semi-skimmed)
- ⅛ tsp salt
- ⅛ tsp pepper
- pinch ground nutmeg
- 25 g (1/4 cup) Cheddar cheese, grated
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F (fan).
- Make the white sauce: melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat.
- Add the flour and whisk to form a roux; cook for 1 minute.
- Gradually add the milk in splashes, whisking until smooth. Continue until all the milk is incorporated and the sauce thickens (about 3–4 minutes).
- Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg, stir in the 25 g grated Cheddar, then remove from the heat.
- Take a large baking dish or casserole pan. Add the chopped onion, mushrooms, garlic, red pepper, olive oil, crumbled stock cube, 1/4 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper. Stir together — the vegetables remain raw; they will cook in the oven.
- Place half the chicken slices in a single layer over the vegetables.
- Drizzle over half the passata, sprinkle half the dried herbs and spoon over half the white sauce.
- Layer the remaining chicken, pour over the rest of the passata, sprinkle the remaining herbs and add the rest of the white sauce.
- Top with the 100 g grated Cheddar.
- Bake for 40 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through, the cheese is golden and the sauce is bubbling.
Notes
*Passata: Passata is a smooth tomato purée commonly used in the UK. In the US it’s similar to tomato puree. If you only have canned chopped tomatoes, use them but simmer a few minutes to thicken.
Can I make it ahead? Yes. Assemble the dish, cover and refrigerate for up to 24 hours. Remove from the fridge about an hour before baking and then cook for 40–50 minutes at 200°C/400°F until piping hot.
Can I freeze it? Cook the dish first, cool, cover and freeze. Defrost overnight in the fridge, take off the chill for an hour, then reheat covered for 40–50 minutes at 200°C/400°F (remove foil for the last 10 minutes).
Scaling the recipe: Halve all ingredients to serve 2–3 people and use a smaller dish; cooking time remains about 40 minutes.
Nutritional information is per serving (serves 6) and provided as an estimate.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated and should be used as an approximation.
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