Bathtub Chicken 101

First let me say that I made enough of this stuff yesterday to feed 100 people, it was over kill. So the recipe has a lot less ingredients than is show here but basically they are:

spaghetti

Velveeta Cheese

canned chicken

Cream of Mushroom soup or Cream of Chicken or Cream of anything

pimento

water chestnuts

mushrooms

celery

onion

milk

(can also add fresh broccoli or asparagus...endless)

These are the ingredients but I can't for the life of me remember the exact amounts cause it is a feel kind of thing here for me. This is extremly easy and my mother made it for us ever since I can remember. You can add or delete or change most of the stuff, just tweek it for your use as I have here in gargantuan amounts!

Boil your spaghetti according to package directions, probably a little al dente to account for cooking time.

Chop onion and celery

Drain the spaghetti

I like water chestnuts and mushrooms but I omitted the mushrooms today as some are not fond of them. Roughly chop the water chestnuts just to break them up a bit.

Add the pimento. Pimento I never used to like because it was a pepper, but I've since learned to like peppers. It is great color too.

Okay, here it gets a little creepy doesn't it. Usually my mother would buy canned chunk chicken and sometimes would stew here own, but I'm a lazy cook. I could have purchased roasted chickens at the store but I didn't have the room in the fridge or the inclination to debone them on Thursday night when I bought for the party. So, as I was in the canned tuna and chicken aisle I spied the whole canned chickens. Well, curiosity got the best of me...kind of reminds me of the Alien movie doesn't it...chills...

I still had to debone these suckers and let me tell you after the first can, I learned. When I dipped my hand into that first can the whole chicken just fell into pieces, which meant lots of bones to find.
This first mass looks smushed because I was hunting for bones to make sure not a one found its way into my casserole...

Now, that is much better. I learned to slowly pull the leg/thighs out very easily and then it went quick and boneless! Smelled delicious too.

The cans were half full of wonderful chicken stock so of course I poured it in a ziploc bag and stored it in the freezer for the next soup in the fall...

The Cream of Mushroom soup is prepared according to can directions, EXCEPT that I use milk. It is much creamer. I have used Cream of chicken, asparagus, celery, just any kind will do but my fav is the Cream of Mushroom. I also found a couple of cans of the Cream of Roasted Garlic Mushroom which I used...yummy!

Pour the soup into the mixture.

Now the Velveeta. I know it's kind of not really cheese but it is great in this recipe. In my Mother's day there was only one kind but now there are a myriad of flavors so I used some Mexican and Pepper Jack for a kick along with the original. You cube it up for ease of melting while baking. I believe the original recipe called for canned or stewed tomatoes but my mother never used them, instead opting for the pimento. My sister used Rotel tomatoes sometimes. See this is a very adaptable recipe.


I then poured it over the spaghetti and mixed. You can do it in a very large bowl, which I didn't find until this morning while putting stuff away...thump head!

Now comes the cleanup. It would have been a much quicker process if I had found the bowl and used already deboned, cooked, canned chicken but it was fun. I almost forgot...bake @ 350 degrees for 30 to 45 minutes depending on the size of casserole pan. You just want it bubbly, melted and the veggies done. Delicious with a green salad and garlic bread.


Yes it was overkill for only 21 people but I don't care. I love to cook for people and I'll take some home, some to neighbors and they will all enjoy. You can also freeze them for a later meal. We only dove into one of them so one may make the freezer.