Chicken Alfredo Yummy AND Healthy!

I made this for dinner last night. Not only was it EASY it was very yummy! My sauce was a little thicker than I would like so I increased the milk (already accounted for here). This makes a yummy alfredo sauce and is healthy too!

I used a rotisserie chicken already cooked and seasoned. Chicken pieces are on sale this week BOGO at WD so if you have the time you can prepare it by baking your chicken with your own seasonings (how I would've preferred but time constraints called for drastic measures!) We only used half of the chicken so today the rest will be used to make chicken salad along with home made broth that will be frozen and used at another date! Overall, the $5 I spent on the rotisserie chicken provided dinner for last night, lunch for today and broth. Not bad.

Ingredients:

Chicken- either rotisserie or baked by you.
If you bake it yourself you can sprinkle some seasoning of choice, I prefer Nature's Seasoning, a little olive oil and toss it in the toaster oven or big oven @ 350 degrees until it is done and juices run clear. Breast will take approx 30 minutes, strips a little less.

Pasta- cooked al dente. I used Barilla Linguinie  1.00/each I bought 2 and used a $1.00 coupon! $0.50/each! Any other type of stringed pasta would work as well. Fettucini or spaghetti.

Sauce: (makes 4 servings)
1 1/2 Tbs reduced fat margarine (or butter if you prefer)
1 Tbs flour (I use unbleached all purpose flour)
1 1/4 cup non fat milk warmed, not hot    
1 oz nonfat/low fat cream cheese, softened      
1/2 cup finely shredded Kraft Italian cheese blend (or parmesan)    $2.50/bag
Salt/pepper to taste
1 tsp garlic powder (or you can stir some fresh minced garlic, 1 tsp into the butter at the beginning)
1 mushroom chopped (optional)

I would get everything together and measured before hand. It makes preparing the sauce much easier.

Heat a medium sauce pan over medium heat.
Add butter/margarine until bubbly.
Whisk in flour and stir until it starts to foam (approx 2 min). The lower fat margarines may not "foam" so just cook about 2 minutes.
Remove the pan from heat. When the mixture stops "foaming" (approx 1 min) slowly whisk in the warm milk.
Place the pan back on the heat and continue stirring until sauce begins to thicken. This should only take about 2-3 minutes.
Slowly whisk in the cream cheese.
Once the cream cheese is melted stir in the shredded cheese.
Stir in salt, pepper and garlic powder.
I added 1 chopped mushroom to mine for some added texture/flavor.

Place the pasta on your plate, throw some chopped chicken on top and cover with the sauce. Mmmmmm, enjoy!