Creamy Chicken Lasagna Recipe with White Sauce
This creamy chicken lasagna recipe layers shredded chicken and spinach in a from-scratch white sauce. No canned soup, plus make-ahead and freezer notes.
The result is creamy without being heavy, with real chicken flavor instead of the salty flatness you get from canned soup shortcuts. It takes under two hours, and about 25 minutes of that is hands-on.
Why You'll Love This Recipe
- The white sauce is made from scratch in one pan and takes 12 minutes, no canned soup and no jarred alfredo.
- Rotisserie or leftover chicken works, so it is a good way to use up what you already have.
- It feeds 12 and assembles up to two days ahead.
- Spinach folds into the ricotta layer, which means the vegetable is already handled.
Here's the one thing nobody tells you: toss the shredded chicken with a cup of the white sauce before you layer it, not after. The chicken in this dish is already fully cooked.
Baking it a second time for 50 minutes is exactly the situation that dries poultry out. Coating each shred in sauce first puts a layer of fat and liquid between the meat and the oven heat, so it stays tender instead of turning into dry threads.
Layering plain chicken and then pouring sauce over the top does not do the same thing, because the sauce sits on the surface and never gets underneath.
Read Before You Start
Squeeze the spinach until it feels almost dry, then squeeze again. Thawed frozen spinach holds a shocking amount of water. Wrap it in a clean kitchen towel and wring it hard over the sink. A 10 oz block should give up close to a cup of liquid. Every drop you leave in ends up pooling under the noodles.
Take the pan off the heat before the Parmesan goes in. Cheese proteins tighten and separate when they hit a sauce that is still bubbling, and that is what turns a smooth white sauce grainy. Off the heat, stirred in a handful at a time, it melts into silk.
Ingredient Deep Dive & Notes
Cooked chicken, about 3 cups shredded. Rotisserie chicken is the fastest route and the meat stays moist. Poached chicken breast works if you shred it while still warm and toss it straight into sauce. Avoid chicken that has been in the fridge for days, since it is already dried out before it starts.
Whole milk for the béchamel. Do not substitute skim or low-fat. This is the swap that will visibly fail. Fat is what keeps the sauce stable through a long bake. Low-fat milk makes a thinner sauce that separates in the oven and leaves a watery layer at the bottom of the pan.
Chicken broth, not wine. Plenty of white lasagna recipes use a splash of white wine in the sauce. A cup of chicken broth alongside the milk gives the sauce savory depth and thins it to the right consistency without it.
Whole-milk ricotta. Part-skim holds more water and less fat, so it breaks under an hour of oven heat and leaks between the layers. With an egg beaten in, whole-milk ricotta sets into a soft custard that cuts cleanly.
Low-moisture mozzarella, in a block. Shred it yourself. Bagged pre-shredded cheese is coated in starch or cellulose to keep it loose, and that coating stops it melting smoothly, so the top goes grainy and weeps oil.
Nutmeg. A quarter teaspoon, and no more. It is traditional in béchamel and you should not be able to identify it in the finished dish. It just makes the dairy taste rounder.
If you want the red-sauce version instead, that is Easy Lasagna. For a low-carb take that drops the noodles, see Zucchini Lasagna.
Equipment Needed
- A 9x13-inch baking dish at least 3 inches deep. A shallow 2-inch dish will overflow with this much sauce.
- A heavy-bottomed saucepan for the béchamel. Thin pans scorch a milk sauce fast, and scorched milk taints the whole batch.
- A whisk. A spoon will not break up flour lumps at the roux stage.
- A clean kitchen towel for wringing the spinach. A fine-mesh sieve and a lot of pressing works too, but the towel is faster.
- A rimmed baking sheet to sit the dish on, since it usually bubbles over.
Ingredients for creamy chicken lasagna including shredded chicken, spinach, ricotta, mozzarella, milk, butter, and seasonings
Detailed Step-by-Step Cooking Guide
Preparation & Setup
Whisk lifting thick and silky béchamel white sauce in a saucepan
Prep the chicken and spinach
Make the roux
Hands layering shredded chicken and spinach over ricotta in the baking dish
Build the white sauce
Whisking creamy garlic Parmesan béchamel white sauce in a saucepan
Mix the fillings
Boil the noodles two minutes short
Layer it
Layering lasagna noodles with shredded chicken, spinach ricotta, and white béchamel sauce
Bake covered, then uncovered
Rest 20 minutes
Getting the Creamy Texture Right
A good slice holds its square shape with visible layers: pasta, a pale green-flecked cheese layer, chicken, sauce, repeating. The sauce should look creamy and cling to the noodles, not sit in a puddle beside them.
The Parmesan went in over heat, or the sauce boiled hard after the cheese was added. It is still edible and tastes fine, but there is no fixing it after baking. Next time, off the heat.
Almost always under-squeezed spinach, or low-fat milk in the béchamel. Tilt the dish and spoon the liquid off, then rest another 10 minutes.
It was layered plain instead of tossed in sauce first, or the bake ran long. Check the center temperature at 45 minutes rather than assuming.
White sauces need more salt than people expect, since there is no acidity from tomatoes carrying the flavor. Taste the béchamel before it goes into the dish and correct it then, because you cannot season the inside of a lasagna afterwards.
Spatula lifting a slice of chicken lasagna from a baked white casserole dish
How to Use This Chicken Lasagna Recipe Beyond One Dinner
How to Serve, Store & Reheat
Cut into 12 squares with a thin sharp knife, wiping the blade between cuts. This dish is rich and has no acidity of its own, so serve it with something sharp: a lemon vinaigrette salad, quick-pickled red onions, or roasted broccoli with a squeeze of lemon. Cracked black pepper over the top right before serving helps too.
Cool to room temperature within two hours, then cover tightly or move squares to airtight containers. Refrigerate up to 3 days. Cream-based bakes have a shorter fridge life than tomato-based ones, so do not stretch this to four.
Individual squares: microwave covered at 50% power for 2 to 3 minutes. Low power matters more here than with a red sauce, because high heat makes the béchamel separate. Add a tablespoon of milk over the top first if it looks dry. A whole pan: cover with foil and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 to 40 minutes. Heat until the center reaches 165°F (74°C).
Yes, with one caution. Freeze it unbaked for the best result: assemble fully, wrap in plastic then foil, freeze up to 2 months, thaw overnight in the fridge, and bake as directed plus about 15 minutes. Freezing after baking also works, but flour-thickened white sauce can turn slightly grainy when frozen and reheated. It still tastes good, the texture is just less silky. Baked portions keep up to 2 months.
Fork lifting a bite of creamy chicken lasagna with melted cheese pull
Dietary Variations
Use gluten-free lasagna noodles boiled 1 minute short instead of 2, and swap the flour in the roux for an equal amount of a cup-for-cup gluten-free blend. Rice flour works too but needs an extra minute of cooking to lose its texture.
Make the roux with olive oil instead of butter and unsweetened oat milk instead of whole milk, which thickens better than almond. Use a dairy-free mozzarella and skip the ricotta layer in favor of a puréed white bean and garlic spread. The sauce will be thinner and the top will not brown the same way.
Replace the chicken with 1 pound of cremini mushrooms sliced and browned hard in two batches until they squeak and stop giving off water, plus a cup of roasted cauliflower florets. Toss them in the reserved cup of sauce exactly as you would the chicken.
If your béchamel goes lumpy at the milk stage, do not throw it out. Pull it off the heat, whisk hard for thirty seconds, and if lumps remain, pour it through a fine-mesh sieve into another bowl.
It comes back completely, and nobody will know once it is baked. The more common problem is the opposite: a sauce that seems too thin in the pan. Resist the urge to add more flour at that point, since it will taste pasty.
A thin béchamel keeps thickening as it cools and again as it bakes, so judge it by the spoon-coating test rather than by how it pours.
Allergen Notice: This recipe contains dairy (milk, butter, ricotta, mozzarella, Parmesan), eggs (in the ricotta filling), and wheat/gluten (flour and lasagna noodles). Reasonable substitutions: a cup-for-cup gluten-free flour blend and gluten-free noodles for the wheat; the olive oil and oat milk route above for the dairy; 3 tablespoons of aquafaba whisked into the ricotta in place of the egg, which binds less firmly and needs a longer rest. I cannot verify any brand or production line for you, so read labels and treat this as a starting point rather than a guarantee. Anyone cooking for a serious allergy should confirm every product independently.
Frequently Asked Questions
Recipe Visual Gallery (6 Full Photos)
Recipe Card & Steps
Ingredients Checklist
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- 6 tbsp (85 g)unsalted butter
- 3 clovesgarlic, minced
- ½ cup (65 g)all-purpose flour
- 4 cups (950 ml)whole milk
- 1 cup (240 ml)chicken broth
- 1 cup (85 g)finely grated Parmesan
- 1¼ tspkosher salt
- ½ tspblack pepper
- ¼ tspground nutmeg
- 15 oz (425 g)whole-milk ricotta
- 1 largeegg
- 10 oz (280 g)frozen chopped spinach, thawed and wrung dry
- ½ cup (40 g)finely grated Parmesan (for ricotta filling)
- ½ tspkosher salt (for ricotta filling)
- ¼ tspblack pepper (for ricotta filling)
- 3 cups (about 450 g)cooked chicken, shredded
- 9lasagna noodles (about 7 oz / 200 g)
- 3 cups (340 g)low-moisture whole-milk mozzarella, shredded
- ½ cup (40 g)finely grated Parmesan, for the top
Step-by-Step Instructions
Follow along and mark each step complete as you cook
Shred the chicken into bite-sized pieces. Wrap the thawed spinach in a clean kitchen towel and wring out as much liquid as possible.
Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook 30 seconds. Whisk in the flour and cook 1 full minute, whisking constantly.
Add the milk in three additions, whisking smooth after each. Add the chicken broth, 1¼ tsp salt, ½ tsp pepper, and the nutmeg. Simmer 5 to 7 minutes, whisking often, until the sauce coats the back of a spoon.
Remove from the heat. Stir in 1 cup Parmesan in three handfuls until smooth. Taste and adjust salt.
Toss the shredded chicken with 1 cup of the white sauce until every piece is coated.
In a separate bowl, stir the ricotta, egg, wrung-out spinach, ½ cup Parmesan, ½ tsp salt, and ¼ tsp pepper until evenly combined.
Boil the noodles in well-salted water for 2 minutes less than the package's shortest time. Drain and lay flat in a single layer.
Heat the oven to 375°F (190°C). Spread 1 cup of white sauce over the bottom of a 9x13-inch baking dish.
Layer: 3 noodles, half the ricotta and spinach mixture spread to the edges, half the sauced chicken, about 1 cup white sauce, ¾ cup mozzarella. Repeat once. Top with the last 3 noodles, all remaining white sauce spread into the corners, the last 1½ cups mozzarella, and the ½ cup Parmesan.
Tent with foil so it does not touch the cheese. Set on a rimmed baking sheet and bake 35 minutes. Uncover and bake 15 minutes more, until golden with browned patches and slowly bubbling at the edges. The center should read 165°F (74°C).
Rest 20 minutes before cutting into 12 squares.
Recipe Card Notes & Tips
- Add the Parmesan to the béchamel off the heat. Cheese stirred into a bubbling sauce is what makes it grainy.
- To assemble ahead: build it, cover, and refrigerate up to 2 days. Bake from cold and add 10 to 15 minutes to the covered stage.
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