Crockpot recipes are always the way to go! They make things so much more efficient; you put everything in and then you come home from school or work and dinner is ready for you! I especially love my new crockpot because it has a “Delay” setting so I can have it start cooking once I leave. This is extremely helpful in my situation because I’m out the door by 7:30am and sometimes I’m not home until closer to 5pm so I don’t want my food to over cook. It’s also a pressue cooker, but I haven’t tried that feature out yet. If you have any good pressure cooker recipes, leave them in the comments below!

So back to the actual recipe at hand…This dish is extremely simple and similar to the other crockpot recipe in that you cook the pasta separately and mix it in.

Ingredients

• 1/2 small yellow onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 1/4 lbs boneless skinless chicken
• 25oz marinara of your choice
• 12oz cream cheese
• 2 tsp italian seasoning
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 lb gemelli pasta
• Salt and pepper

Feel free to buy whatever sauce you like or use homemade sauce! The sauce is going to end up giving this dish the bulk of the flavor so I opted to get one packed with plenty of flavors.

Directions

1. Chop the onion and mince the garlic, cube the chicken
2. Add the onion, garlic, chicken, marinara, cream cheese and seasoning to the crockpot
3. Mix to combine and then place the two bay leaves on top
4. Cover and cook for about 3 hours on high
   • I checked mine around 2.5 hours, and the chicken tasted nice and tender so I turned my crockpot on the warming setting and let it sit while I cooked the pasta
5. When it’s close to being done, cook the pasta based on the package instructions
6. Remove the bay leaves and add the cooked pasta to the crockpot. Stir everything so it’s combined
   • Feel free to let it sit for a few mintue with the lid on so everything gets to the same temperature
7. Season with salt and pepper and serve

This is a delicious dish that you could make any day of the week! Make some dinner rolls to go along with it and that’s a mighty fine dinner.

Test Kitchen: Opinion and Changes

I originally found this recipe on Lauren’s Latest. I made a few changes that I think made this dish significantly better. The first time I tested this recipe, I follwed the recipe and I added the strips of chicken and then shredded it, but by the 3 hour mark it was very dry. It had lost all it moisture and the sauce wasn’t helping very much. Instead, I recommend that you cube the chicken because that method tends to work better. I also increased the amount of italian seasoning used.

A quick PSA: bay leaves should never be grinder up and mixed into a dish. I saw multiple comments on the original recipe where people had left the bay leaf in and ruined the dish so for the sake of the dish, please remove it so you can have a delicious dinner!

Happy Cooking!