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This might sound like a strange combination, but I guarantee that if you make this barbecue spaghetti casserole for your next get-together or church function, it will be a hit.
This recipe pairs BBQ chicken with cream cheese, green onions, and spaghetti to make a cheesy, delicious casserole that you can make in bulk ahead of time to heat and serve later.
Depending on how spicy the BBQ sauce is, your final dish will be more or less spicy, so keep that in mind as you choose which sauce you want to use. If you’re going to have a lot of little kids who don’t like spicy food or BBQ, you might want to go with this version of the recipe that’s less spicy: Italian Spaghetti Chicken Casserole For A Crowd.
Basic BBQ Chicken spaghetti casserole recipe.
The basic one-dish recipe is as follows. This makes a 9×13″ dish, and 8-10 servings.
Ingredients needed:
- 1 lb. cooked spaghetti noodles (one 16-oz box)
- 1 pound (about 2 cups) shredded cooked chicken (you can use bbq pork as another alternative)
- 1 1/2 cups BBQ sauce, or a separate 1 cup BBQ sauce if you’re using already-sauced chicken
- 1/2 cup green onions, chopped (about 4 onions)
- One 14 oz can diced tomatoes, drained
- 4 ounces cream cheese cut into chunks (half an 8 ounce package)
- 1/2 yellow onion, diced
- Garlic powder to taste
- Olive or vegetable oil for sauteing the onions
- 1 green pepper, diced (optional)
- 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
To make the basic recipe:
- Grease a 9×13 casserole dish and preheat the oven to 375.
- Cook the spaghetti as usual in a pot of boiling water until it’s ready to eat. Drain and reserve the spaghetti to use in the next steps.
- In a large saucepan, heat the oil.
- Saute the green and yellow onion until they soften. If you want to add green peppers to the recipe, add them now and saute them with the onions.
- Add the cream cheese, half of the BBQ sauce, and diced tomatoes to the pan. Stir until the cream cheese melts.
- Stir in the chicken until everything is mixed thoroughly. Add the garlic if you want to add it now.
- Remove the pan from the heat.
- Add the spaghetti into the saucepan and combine it with the sauce ingredients. If the pan isn’t big enough, you can combine everything in the casserole dish by putting the spaghetti in and pouring the sauce over it instead.
- Put the mixture into the casserole dish. Pour the rest of the barbeque sauce evenly over the top of the mixture.
- Sprinkle the cheddar cheese evenly over the top of the dish.
- Bake uncovered until the cheese is melted and bubbly and the mixture is heated through, about 25-30 minutes.
You can also use less chicken if you’re using up leftovers, but try to get at least a couple of cups of protein in the mix!
Tips on storing the pans for later.
That’s the basic recipe, and you can make this up ahead of time and either bake it then store for later, or wrap it and leave it to cook when you need it.
Since everything’s fully-cooked when you combine the spaghetti and sauce, you don’t need to worry about storing meat that’s raw, so it’s a matter of heating things up, not cooking raw meat.
If you have a larger group, you can use disposable aluminum pans and make this recipe in bulk. This recipe makes 8-10 servings depending on how large they are, so if you plan for 10 servings per pan these are the ingredients you’ll need.
If you want to make the basic recipe for a smaller number of people you can also do that. Bake the mixed ingredients in two separate pans, or divide it into two pans after cooking it. Serve one pan for dinner, then freeze the second pan to have a ready-made dinner the following week.
BBQ chicken spaghetti casserole for a crowd
Here’s a serving chart to plan the amount of ingredients for the number of guests you’ll have. This assumes that each pan will give you about 10 servings, so if your group will be eating larger servings you should plan to make an extra pan or two. If you don’t need them you can freeze the leftovers for a meal later on.
You can also check out this article about how many servings of spaghetti you’ll need for a large group if you want to plan on how many servings you mgiht need: How Much Spaghetti For A Crowd
| Ingredient | 10 servings (1 pan) | 25 servings (3 pans) | 50 servings (5 pans) | 75 servings (8 pans) | 100 servings (10 pans) |
| Spaghetti | 1 pound (1 box) | 3 pounds (3 boxes) | 5 pounds (5 boxes) | 8 pounds (8 boxes) | 10 pounds (10 boxes) |
| Chicken, cooked and shredded | 1 pound (2 cups) | 3 pounds (6 cups) | 5 pounds (10 cups) | 8 pounds (16 cups) | 10 pounds (20 cups) |
| BBQ sauce | 1 1/2 cups or 1 cup if the chicken is already sauced | 4 1/2 cups or 3 cups if the chicken is already sauced | 7 1/2 cups or 5 cups if the chicken is already sauced | 12 cups or 8 cups if the chicken is already sauced | 15 cups or 10 cups if the chicken is already sauced |
| Green onions | 4 | 12 | 20 | 32 | 40 |
| Yellow onions | 1/2 | 1 1/2 | 2 1/2 | 4 | 5 |
| 14 oz can diced tomatoes | 1 | 3 | 5 | 8 | 10 |
| Cream cheese | 4 oz. | 12 oz. | 20 oz. | 32 oz. | 40 oz. |
| Garlic powder | to taste | to taste | to taste | to taste | to taste |
| Green pepper (optional) | 1/2 | 1 1/2 | 2 1/2 | 4 | 5 |
| Cheddar cheese | 2 cups | 6 cups | 10 cups | 16 cups | 20 cups |
| Vegetable oil | 2 Tbsp | 6 Tbsp | 10 Tbsp | 1 cup | 1 1/4 cups |
Tips for making this recipe.
I didn’t use salt and pepper in this and it was still seasoned perfectly because of the barbeque sauce. It does the heavy lifting for the flavor in this dish. The person in my household who likes to put a lot of hot sauce on everything didn’t even need to do that, the BBQ sauce seasons it really well.
When you make this recipe, keep in mind that you can add more or less of individual ingredients if you want to.
If you use barbeque chicken that’s already got the sauce on it, you won’t need as much separate BBQ sauce, for example. But if you really like the barbeque flavor, you can add a little more when you pour the sauce over the mixture before adding the cheese..
I know a lot of people who don’t like green peppers, so I made them optional in this recipe. If your family does like them, adding them to the pan when you’re sauteing the onions will add some extra flavor to the final mix.
You can also substitute BBQ pork for the chicken if that’s what you have on hand. This is a good recipe to use to use up leftovers and turn them into a new meal that your family and guests will love.