cooking with kids Archives - Too Busy Livin'

This post was written in a paid partnership with Manitoba Chicken Producers. As always, all opinions are my own and I only promote products and services that I use and love.

Spring break is just around the corner and that means kids are home from school and will at some point be a) hungry and b) bored. These Chicken Ricotta Lasagna Rolls are a great way to get the kids in the kitchen to keep them busy AND feed them.

a pan of cooked lasagna rolls in white sauce — These Chicken & Ricotta Lasagna Rolls are perfect for Spring Break: An activity for the kids and a meal for the family.

60-Second Recipe

As I mentioned in How to prep Chicken – One Pan Chicken Souvlaki, Manitoba Chicken Producers has 60-Second Recipe videos on manitobachicken.ca to teach you how to make over 50 of their recipes. There is a video for these Chicken and Ricotta Lasagna Rolls too, so if you have older kids who are independent in the kitchen, you can set them up with the groceries and the link and let them have fun cooking dinner.

Bake One, Freeze One

This recipe is a great one to double and freeze for another meal. You can divide it in portions that are suitable for you. I like to use foil containers to freeze these, so that I don’t have to freeze my everyday baking dishes.

Versatile & Adaptable

Chicken & Ricotta Lasagna Rolls are adaptable, and you can tweak the flavors based on ingredients you already have on hand. For my take on this recipe, I substituted the swiss chard with sundried tomatoes and the thyme for my Three Herb Pesto. You could also use spinach, shredded zucchini, or mushrooms instead of the swiss chard. If using zucchini or mushrooms, be sure to sauté them first, to release some of the moisture.

ingredients in a bowl being mixed with a spatula

Since I doubled the recipe, I made half with the cream sauce, as stated in the original recipe, and used marinara sauce for the other half. You can also use different pasta shapes for these Chicken & Ricotta Lasagna Rolls. I tested this recipe using fresh lasagna sheets and oven-ready cannelloni shells. You could also use jumbo shell pasta or regular lasagna noodles (be sure to cook them and cool them before filling).

lasagna rolls in red sauce in a baking dish

Tips for Assembling Chicken & Ricotta Lasagna Rolls

This recipe is so easy to prepare. Younger children can help mix the ingredients and dollop the filling on to the lasagna sheets. When I was using the oven-ready cannelloni, I used a piping bag to fill the tubes. This technique might be tricky (but fun!) for tiny hands but will make filling them a breeze for a teen or an adult.

a hand holding a canneloni bring filled with a piping bag

Also, be sure to cover the rolls completely with whichever sauce you choose to use. I made the mistake of leaving some of the edges uncovered and they got a bit crispy.

cream being poured from a pitcher over lasagna rolls

Tips for Freezing and Storing Chicken & Ricotta Lasagna Rolls

There are two important food safety tips you need to know for making and freezing these lasagna rolls. First, when you bring the ground chicken home from the store, be sure to use it within two days. Second, when freezing the lasagna rolls, they will keep in the freezer for up to three months. Be sure to label your foil pans with the name of the recipe and the date so you know how long they have been in your freezer.

foil pans with cooking instructions written on the top

When thawing the rolls before cooking them, be sure to thaw them in the refrigerator the night before you would like to cook them.

These Chicken & Ricotta Lasagna Rolls are delicious leftover as well. I thought they were even better the next day! Be sure to consume leftovers within two days. For more chicken-related food safety tips, head to the Cooking School section at manitobachicken.ca and click Cooking, Storing or Handling in the dropdown menu.

How to Serve Chicken & Ricotta Lasagna Rolls

a plate of food beside a baking dish of cooked lasagna rolls

These lasagna rolls pair well with a Caesar salad and garlic or focaccia bread. Which variation will you make? Head to manitobachicken.ca for the recipe and to watch the 60-Second video.

This is part two of a two-part series and a paid partnership with Manitoba Chicken Producers. As always, all opinions are my own and I only promote products that I use and love.

If you caught part one of last month’s Cooking with Kids post, we made Bruschetta chicken from the new Now You’re Cooking with Manitoba Chicken Youth Education Booklet. Although my daughter had fun making that recipe, her request when we were done was to “just make chicken strips next time.” So that’s exactly what we did.

We made the Crispy Parmesan Chicken Strips, also from the Now You’re Cooking with Manitoba Chicken Youth Education Booklet. The recipe comes together quickly (even quicker if you apply some meal prep strategies that I will fill you in on.) and is super simple for the kids to help with.

If you’re interested in receiving your own copy of this brand-new resource, contact Manitoba Chicken Producers at: consumerrelations@chicken.mb.ca Please provide your name and mailing address and they will be happy to send you one.

I knew that convincing my little helper to eat the chicken strips wasn’t going to be a challenge, so we focused on working together, learning and having fun. I did however run into a few obstacles when she realized that we weren’t making “the ones we usually have.”

Tip 1: Use cooking with your kids as an opportunity to learn and develop skills

We started by reading the recipe. What better way to develop reading skills than with an authentic situation where they can apply their reading strategies? It went something like this:

“Preheat oven to 425 F…What’s F?” Cue an additional learning opportunity that we applied later when we checked the temperature of the cooked chicken strips using our meat thermometer.

Food safety tip: The internal temperature of cooked chicken should read 165°F.

“1/2 cup mayo…Ewww I hate mayo!” But guess what? The mayo is the best part of this recipe, because it does two things: 1) Allows the breading to stick to the chicken, 2) Crisps up the chicken strips without any additional oil or butter. I took the opportunity to explain that mayo is made with eggs, and since we usually use eggs for chicken fingers, this time we are going to try eggs in a different way. She was sold and we moved on.

Tip 2: Teach about food safety

Before we got started, we washed our hands and talked about why that is important. We also talked about how poultry and other meat can make you sick if it isn’t cooked so that we shouldn’t, for example, sample the breading while we’re making the chicken fingers. (This was important to mention because it almost happened!) When we were finished, we made sure to put everything that came in contact with chicken in the dishwasher and used soap, water and antibacterial spray to clean out the sink and all surfaces, and of course, we washed our hands again.

Tip 3: Make it fun! Let them use all of the tools.

I’m pretty sure what my daughter liked most about making these chicken strips, was using all of the tools. Whisks, tongs and spatulas are fun for kids so bring them all out, even if it means having a few extra dishes to do afterward. You can save time in other ways, with these meal prep tips.

Meal prep tips for this recipe

Slice, portion and freeze your chicken

When I did last month’s post, I bought a club pack of chicken, used four breasts for the Bruschetta Chicken and sliced the four remaining breasts for the chicken strips and froze them. That is one strategy that will save you at least ten minutes, because you won’t have to slice the chicken or have extra dishes to do. If you were making this recipe with a new package of chicken, you could also consider cooking the remaining breasts in your slow cooker, shredding them and freezing them for other meals like I did in this Back-to-School Meal Prep post.

Reduce the number of steps in the breading process for the chicken strips

Another time-saver we discovered while making this recipe was to coat all the chicken in the mayo parm mixture, instead of dipping each strip individually. Combine the ingredients, then pour over the chicken and toss with tongs until all the chicken pieces are coated. That makes breading a one-step process. (This is also great for when cooking with kids, because everything seems to take longer.)

Improvise and use what you have on hand

This recipe called for basil, but when I reached for it, I realized that the grocery clerk who assembled my order, had given me mint instead. We swapped it out and used dill. You can add any seasonings or spices to these chicken fingers. Don’t have mayo? Use eggs, or mustard, or milk. Anything that will allow the breading to stick to the chicken. If you choose to use a liquid other than mayo, be sure to brush the breaded strips with butter or spray with canola oil to crisp them up. No panko? Try corn flakes, breadcrumbs, potato chips or pretzels. Anything to get that crispy texture.

There are so many great recipes on manitobachicken.ca that you can try with your kids and you can search them by cut or by preparation technique. There are a lot of basic recipes that call for ingredients you most-likely already have on hand under the Kid Friendly section of their recipe page. You can also check out the chicken section of my recipe index for other great recipes using Manitoba chicken.

What is your family’s favorite way to enjoy Manitoba chicken? Comment below and let us know!