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Mexican-Style Chicken Pasta Bake
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Mexican-Style Chicken Pasta Bake
Mexican-Style Chicken Pasta Bake is a perfect one-dish meal that helps busy guys solve all the leftovers in the fridge. Tasty chicken, beans soaked in cheesy cheddar! A combination full of flavors!
Recipe Description
Day 4 started out with another scrambled egg & tomato sandwich for breakfast. I’m a little sad that my breakfasts weren’t as fun as last year’s, but again, I was trying not to dip too far into the bare bones staples I have in my cupboards, which eliminated the fun of quinoa or wheat berry breakfast bowls. I’ll have to fix that for next year’s challenge for sure!
I did end up taking a couple of bare-bones staples from ye olde cupboard for Day 4, though. After a relatively light lunch of spinach salad with salmon and tomato ($1.35), I decided to have something a little heartier for dinner. By this time my chicken had finally defrosted, so I figured I might just have that with some pasta. Then I remembered I had some black beans that I’d cooked up for some meatless protein during the challenge and thought I might just have the chicken with the beans and some of the Herdez salsa I’d procured at G.O. instead. Then I figured, why not throw them all together, top with some cheese, and throw it in the oven? And that’s exactly what I did.


Details Recipe Information
- Prepare: 10 Mins
- Cook: 25 Mins
- Difficult: Easy
- Serving: 4-6 people
- Cost per serving: $0.95
- Nutrition: for each serving
- Calories: 302.8
- Fat: 11g
- Cholesterol: 14.3mg
- Sodium: 419.1mg
- Potassium: 463.7mg
- Carbohydrates: 33.7g
- Protein: 11.1g
Ingredients
- 2 cups cooked egg noodles (or your favorite short cut pasta)
- 1 cup black beans
- 1 cup cooked chicken, cubed or shredded
- 1 cup prepared salsa
- 3/4 cup cheddar or Monterey jack cheese, divided*
Method
*Hunger Challenge Tip: Just because they’re in small snack form doesn’t mean cheese sticks can’t be used in cooking! If you can’t afford a full block of cheese, grating a couple of cheese sticks into a dish that requires grated cheese works just as well.
So Day 4 was filled with variety, which made me quite happy. However, I do have to admit that I couldn’t take the raisins anymore, so I polished off the rest of my blueberries instead. Bad move, considering I was planning on having cereal for breakfast on Day 5, but I suppose naked cornflakes will have to do. After all, was said and done, the grand total for Day 4 came out to about $3.85. My most “expensive” day yet, thanks to the blueberries, but still under the $4 challenge budget! Not bad, Poor Girl, not bad at all…
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