PEMBERVILLE – Lasagna can be more than ground beef and tomato sauce.

Shonna Haas has a Chicken Lasagna recipe she has been making for at least 20 years.

She said it started as a stuffed shell recipe that she tweaked by using lasagna noodles.

“When the kids were younger, I was all about easy,” she said.

Stuffed shells take time, she explained.

“Everybody just loved it,” she said.

The stuffing adds smoothness, and the soup contributes a creaminess to the lasagna.

Haas’s Chicken Lasagna

Marie Thomas-Baird | Sentinel-Tribune

Haas said she supposed you could substitute canned chicken, but it’s not something she has ever tried. She also prefers Hellman’s to Miracle Whip.

What she does want to experiment with is adding spinach, although she is unsure what her husband will think.

“He’s a meat and potatoes guy,” she said.

She and Jamie have been married 43 years.

Haas’s maiden name is Spicer. She graduated in 1979, her husband in 1976, both from Eastwood High School

“He loves it, and my kids love it,” she said about the lasagna.

The couple have three sons.

Haas said she did not cook a lot when she got married, depending mostly on quick-to-prepare meals.

She learned a lot about cooking from aunts.

Her mom was a good cook but that wasn’t her forte, she said.

She now cooks mostly from scratch. Jamie Haas is a hunter and fisherman, and with the economy on the downturn when they got married, she learned very quickly to cook deer, fish and rabbits.

“That led me to making stews and soups,” she said.

“In the 43 years that we have been married, I bet I have not bought 20 pounds of hamburger.”

They butcher their own deer, and she uses venison for anything that uses stew meat or hamburger.

The only hamburger she buys is patties.

“If I’m going to have a grilled patty, I’m going to buy it,” she said.

Her go-to recipes include traditional lasagna, cheese enchiladas and enchilada casserole.

Doing the chicken lasagna for the Cook’s Corner was a joint decision. She and her husband talked about what was their favorite and unique dish.

“This was one of his choices,” she said about the chicken lasagna.

Haas will take the lasagna to church when someone needs a meal.

It’s something we can eat, she can take to others or put in the freezer, she said.

Since she does day-care in her home, supper is often in a Crock-Pot.

She is now seeing the babies of former children she took care of.

“It makes me feel really good because it makes me feel like I made a good impression on them,” Haas said.

She used to watch her three grandsons, who are now 8, 10 and 12.

While she does a lot of baking around the holidays, Haas said she refers to cooking.

She said has not mastered homemade pie crusts, and store-bought work just fine. She bakes a lot of pies and just recently made a round pear pie.

She is a member of the Pemberville United Methodist and contributes desserts – usually cheesecake – for the monthly community meals.

Chicken Lasagna

Ingredients

4 cups cooked chicken breasts, cut up

2 packages chicken Stove Top Stuffing, prepared

1 ½ cups Hellmann’s mayo

2 cans cream of chicken soup

1 cup warm water

9 lasagna noodles, cooked

Parmesan cheese, grated

Directions

Mix the stuffing with chicken and mayo.

In a separate bowl, mix soup and warm water. Whisk.

Put a little sauce in the bottom of a 9×13 inch dish. Layer cooked lasagna noodles, chicken mixture, then sauce. Repeat three times, ending with sauce on top. Top generously with grated Parmesan cheese.

Bake uncovered at 375 for 40-50 minutes.