Off-the-cuff Creamy Chicken Polenta Casserole

The last time I made lasagna, I made double the amount of béchamel and had about 1/2 a quanity left over. Now, I couldn’t possibly let all of that creamy goodness go to waist. Really, it doesn’t require all that much imagination to come up with something to do with a cream sauce. What doesn’t taste good enveloped in creaminess?

The recipe for the becahmel is included in the link to lasagna recipe from The Silver Spoon, but here it is on it's own.:

Béchamel Sauce (beschiamella)
Serves 4
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2-1/4 cup milk
pinch of freshly grated nutmeg (optional)
salt and pepper

Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat. Whisk in the flour. Pour in all the milk, whisking constantly until it starts to boil. Season with salt, lower the heat, cover, and simmer gently, stirring occasionally, for at least 20 minutes. Béchamel sauce should not taste floury. Remove the pan from the heat.Taste, add salt if necessary, and season with pepper and/or nutmeg. If the sauce is too thick, add a little more milk. If too runny, return to the heat and add a pat of butter mixed with an equal quantity of all-purpose flour. Making this delicious sauce, considered a basic sauce because of the numerous variations to which it has given rise, is an essential skill for anyone keen to cook. For a richer béchamel sauce, replace half the milk with the same amount of heavy cream; for a lighter béchamel sauce, add half milk and half water

I took the need to use up this béchamel as one of those opportunities to use up anything else that happened to be lying around. I had some mushrooms that needed to get used up soon or risk spoiling. I also had a bunch of frozen spinach hanging around in the freezer, along with some onions, garlic, and chicken. Additionally, I had a tube of polenta from Trader Joe’s. Those polenta tubes an awesome pantry staple. You simply slice up the polenta, grill it up and top it with some protein and whatever vegetables you have around to sauté. So really, I already had the basis of a good meal. Adding the béchamel made it something a little more special.

I simply grilled up the chicken, and then shredded it into pieces once it cooled. While the chicken cooled, I sautéed the mushrooms, onions and garlic. Once the mushroom were cooked through and the onions were translucent, I added in the spinach (which had been defrosted and drained).

I let that cook together for a few min, then added the shredded chicken back in along with the béchamel, and stirred it all gently to combine. I also stirred in salt, pepper, and little garlic and onion powder. Add whatever you have that you think will go well.

I then coated the bottom of a shallow, oven- safe pan with olive oil and layered the polenta rounds at the bottom. (This time I didn’t grill or fry them. I just sliced it and put it straight into the pan.)

The spinach, chicken and béchamel mixture went right on top. I capped it all off with a little parmesan and popped it in the oven at 350°.

I started it out covered, and took the cover off half way through, checking in on it every so often. After about 30 min, it was nice and a little bubbly, with hints of brown on top.

Completely delicious, creamy dreaminess.