I would like to tell you I made this out of pure sentiment. The truth is I had too many olives in the refrigerator.

But it was my birthday, and I was missing my mom, and those two facts were sitting in the same room whether I admitted it or not. This was the one I asked her for every birthday when I lived back in Ohio. The olives just gave me permission. I lost my mother in 2024. You would think being an older adult daughter would soften that. It does not. Making her recipes brings a piece of her back.

My mother started making this light lasagna for Cursillo weekends, a three-day Christian retreat my parents stayed involved with for years. When I say she made it, I mean pans and pans of it. Enough to feed fifty people or more.

I scaled this one down to a 9×5 loaf pan, since I am not feeding a retreat. If you’re interested, I put the original measurements at the bottom.

Serves 4 (or 2 if you like a second meal)

Ingredients

• 4 oz. lasagna noodles (about 4)
• 1/2 can cream of mushroom soup (about 2/3 cup)
• 1/3 c. milk
• 1/4 t. salt
• 1/4 t. poultry seasoning
• 1/2 c. small curd cottage cheese
• 6 T. cream cheese (3 oz.), softened
• 3 T. sliced pimento-stuffed green olives
• 3 T. chopped yellow bell pepper
• 2 T. minced parsley
• 1 1/2 c. diced cooked chicken
• 3/4 c. buttered soft bread crumbs (about 1 1/2 T. melted butter tossed through)

Let’s Do This!

1. Trim the noodles: Heat the oven to 375°. Break each noodle down to fit a 9×5 loaf pan, about an inch off the end. There’s a note at the end of this post on how to do it without shattering them.
   
2. Warm the sauce: In a small pan, stir together the soup, milk, salt, and poultry seasoning. Heat over low just until it loosens and comes together, a couple of minutes. Do not let it come to a boil. You’re not cooking it, only getting it pourable.
   
3. Beat the cheeses: With a hand mixer, beat the cottage cheese and softened cream cheese until smooth. Keep going until the curds disappear. If you leave them whole the mixture sits in lumps and the water comes out in pockets during the bake instead of spreading evenly through the noodles. Stir in the olives, bell pepper, and parsley.
   
4. Layer it up: Spray a 9×5” loaf pan with food release spray. Lay two noodles side by side in the bottom. Spread with half the cheese mixture, then half the chicken, then half the sauce. Add another layer of noodles and repeat: cheese, chicken, sauce. Scatter the buttered crumbs over the top.
   
5. Bake: Cover with foil and bake 35 minutes. Pull the foil off and give it another 15 so the crumbs toast and turn gold. It’s done when the center is hot all the way through, not just bubbling at the edges. The loaf pan packs everything deeper than a 9×13 does, which is why it needs the extra time.
   
6. Let it rest: Move the pan to a rack and let it sit 10 minutes before serving. It firms up enough to cut cleanly instead of sliding apart.

Happy Eating!

Additional Notes

This is good with a leafy green salad and a lemon, oil, and garlic dressing. The acid does something for the richness of the cheese, and the whole plate feels lighter than the pan suggests.

It also travels well, which is the reason it ended up feeding retreat weekends in the first place. You can assemble the whole thing the night before and hold it in the refrigerator until you’re ready to bake. It freezes for weeks, too. Move it to the refrigerator 24 hours ahead and let it thaw slowly before it goes in the oven.

A Note on breaking the noodles: Standard lasagna noodles run about 10 inches and your loaf pan is about 9, so each one needs an inch off the end. Lay the noodle flat with the extra hanging past the counter edge, press down on the part that’s on the counter, and snap. If it breaks unevenly, that’s fine, the ragged end gets buried under filling. If the snapping fights you, lay the noodles in a dish, cover them with the hottest tap water and leave them 5 to 8 minutes, then cut them with kitchen shears. They soften enough to bend without actually cooking, which is the point.

Which brings up the boiling. My mother boiled her noodles and rinsed them in cold water before layering, the way most people were taught. I go in dry. The cottage cheese and the soup give up enough liquid during the bake to bring the noodles to al dente, and the noodles pulling that moisture out is what keeps the pan from going soupy. If you want to make it her way, boil and rinse and the rest of the recipe holds. Neither one is wrong. Hers fed fifty people at a time, so she had earned the right to her method.

A Note on scaling this recipe: My mother multiplied it until it filled every pan she owned and borrowed. I cut it down to a loaf pan. Take it whichever way your table needs.

Original Ingredients for a 9×13” pan at 375° for 30 minutes (or heated through): 

8 oz. lasagna noodles

1 can cream of mushroom soup

2/3 c. milk

1/2 t. salt

1/2 t. poultry seasoning

1 c. small curd cottage cheese

Two 3 oz. packages cream cheese

1/3 c. sliced pimento-stuffed green olives

1/3 c. chopped green pepper

1/4 c. minced parsley

3 c. diced cooked chicken

1 1/2 c. buttered soft bread crumbs