This quick and easy chicken pasta recipe takes 30 minutes or less from start to finish. It’s loaded with a creamy homemade alfredo sauce, sliced chicken breast, and al dente noodles for a simple weeknight comfort food your family will love!
Ingredients and Substitutions
- Chicken – The options for chicken in this recipe are endless – if you use thighs, breast or leftover rotisserie chicken is your choice! If you want to make this dish vegetarian, you can skip the chicken all together but it’s such an easy way to get some extra protein in your meal!
- Herbs & Spices – Dried oregano, garlic powder, and paprika add a variety of warm and savory flavors. You can also add dried thyme and dried sage.
- Pasta – I love using fettuccine pasta for recipes with creamy sauces because the long noodles have hold onto the sauce, but you can use any pasta that you have on hand. Linguine, spaghetti, rotini, pene, bucattini or rigatoni will work well too!
- Butter – Butter helps flavor and thicken the sauce. I like to use unsalted butter so that I can adjust the sodium level of the sauce myself.
- Garlic – Garlic always adds a lot of fantastic flavor to recipes, and if your not a fan of chopping you can buy garlic paste to save time.
- Flour – All-purpose flour helps thicken the alfredo sauce, and the thicker the sauce, the better it will coat the noodles and chicken, so don’t leave this out.
- White Wine – White wine adds a delicious layer of flavor to the creamy sauce. I like to use a dry white wine like sauvignon blanc or chardonnay. Sweet wines will not work well in this recipe. All the alcohol will cook off so this is still a family-friendly dish but you don’t like to cook with wine, use chicken broth instead.
- Heavy Cream – I recommend using heavy cream for this chicken pasta recipe for the best texture and flavor. If you use half and half instead, just note that the sauce might be a little thinner, so I’d recommend adding an extra tablespoon or so of flour to help thicken it up.
- Parmesan Cheese – As always, I love grating my own cheeses, so I typically buy a block of Parmesan to grate myself. It’s fresher, has more flavor, and melts better in my opinion and experience. Grab an 8 ounce wedge, shred it yourself, then use about 6 ounces for the sauce and garnish the pasta with the remaining 2 ounces.
Parmesan Chicken Pasta
Description
Pasta and chicken are always on rotation in family. If I can whip up a dish super quick, it's even better! To cut down that time I use leftover roast chicken. This is a recipe that is always a hit in my house!
Ingredients
Instructions
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Cook the Pasta
Bring a large pot of water to a boil over high heat. When water is boiling, add salt and toss in your pasta. Begin cooking pasta according to package directions. -
Prepare The Sauce
While pasta is cooking, heat a large skillet over low heat.In the skillet, melt butter, add garlic and flour and cook for one minute.Turn the heat up to medium and add chicken stock and cream.Bring to a boil, then simmer for 4-5 minutes until sauce begins to thicken.Stir in grated parmesan cheese and chicken (or protein of your choice) into the sauce.Cook for 2-3 minutes until chicken is heated through.Season with salt and pepper to taste.
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Combine the Pasta
Drain pasta carefully into a colander.
Add hot pasta right into the pan a little at a time.
Toss with tongs until all pasta is generously coated with the sauce.
Taste and adjust seasonings as desired.
pasta, creamy pasta, chicken pasta, parmesan
