An allergen-free take on chicken tetrazzini

It “took a bit of fine-tuning” to get the correct cooking time for the brown rice spaghetti, says Parham. The gluten-free product retained more water than traditional pasta, so cooking too long resulted in mush once it was sauced and baked. After three tries, the chefs figured out that six minutes of boiling worked best, she says.

 The original tetrazzini recipe uses sour cream and cheese as the base for a rich sauce; the substitution of rice milk and vegan cheese didn’t produce a similar texture and flavor, Parham says. So the dining hall chefs created a mushroom cream sauce, starting with a roux made from quinoa-rice flour and vegan butter. A mixture of rice milk and chicken broth is whisked into the roux to finish and smooth the sauce.

 In the classic recipe, the next step is to stir shredded mozzarella and Asiago into the thickened sauce until the cheeses melt, but vegan cheese tends to separate. Instead, the mushroom sauce is mixed with the cooked spaghetti and chicken, transferred to a baking dish and topped with vegan mozzarella cheese. “The tetrazzini takes a little longer to bake, but the cheese melts nicely and the finished dish is very close to the original,” says Parham.