Easy Chicken & Pesto Pasta

A quick and easy chicken and pesto pasta dish with Philadelphia which can be cooked on the hob in under 15 minutes. This money saving recipe is great for when you need to eat quickly.

This is a money saving recipe for a chicken and pesto pasta dish with cream cheese. This shows how to make the dish in under 15 minutes and ingredients can be omitted or added to suit what you have in the cupboard.

If you like quick and simple dishes like this you might want to try my no crust one cup quiche or this simple nduja chicken and naan bread recipe.

Contents

• 🍽 Ingredients
• 📖 Instructions
• 👩‍🍳 Variations
• 🥘 Other Chicken Pesto Pasta Ideas
• ❄ Storage
• The Recipe
• Your Comments

🍽 Ingredients

This is a simple dish to start with and while there are a lot of ingredients shown here, the variations are endless and parts can be omitted or added as you wish.

• Chicken breast - I use free range chicken breast however you can choose to use any part of the meat. Chicken thighs often have a fuller taste to them. Be sure to remove any bones and then slice them into pieces around 2cm to 4cm long thin sliced. Bite sized pieces is what you are aiming for.
  
• Paprika - Paprika powder can be purchased from the herbs and spices counter. Fun fact: Paprika is actually made purely of dehydrated red peppers and then ground up.
  
• Pasta - You can be as brave or bold as you like with the pasta choice. In the pictures on this post I have opted for Penne pasta. You can even make your own pasta using 00 flour, egg and water mix - something I covered in my chicken and philly with pasta post.
  
• Chicken stock - While you can use left over juice made into a stock with some boiling water after cooking a chicken, you can also just use a chicken stock cube. This is to add to the pasta water. I like to vary between a chicken stock cube or a vegetable stock cube when making pasta. The choice is yours.
  
• Garlic - This recipe calls for 2 cloves of garlic. Make sure to choose 2 cloves and not 2 bulbs. A clove of garlic is one section of a garlic bulb.  To make a garlic into a paste, this is done by chopping it finely and then using the side of the knife or a back of a spoon to squish it into a paste.
  
• Philadelphia soft cheese - This is the key ingredient to a chicken pesto pasta with cream texture. To end up with a creamy philly dish you need to add this as late as possible in the preparation and then stir it in gently.
  
• Pesto - My favourite pesto to work with this dish is a red pesto. I much prefer this pesto as in a chicken pesto pasta bake and other chicken pasta dishes. You can also use green pesto for this dish too. This is all down to your personal preference.

Optional

While I recommend using all the ingredients, if you don't have any of the below in you can still make the dish without them.

• Cherry tomatoes - Tomatoes are a staple ingredient in a lot of pasta dishes. For this dish you can use regular tomatoes and cut them into smaller chunks or use the cherry tomatoes and cut them in half.
  
• Courgette - known in the US as a zucchini but here in the UK we use the name courgette. These should be washed and then sliced according to the recipe.
  
• Salt and pepper - You can use any sort of salt and pepper that you would regularly have on the table at meal times. However in recent weeks I have found this Cornish Sea Salt Salt & Peppery which is a mix of the two and made from real peppers. It can be sprinkled onto various types of food such as a chicken pasta fajita for some extra flavour.
  
• Chilli flakes - The heat level is individual to everyone's taste so it is up to you how much and what type of chilli flakes are used (if any). Go for birds eye chillies if you want more spice, for less heat just use some mild chilli flakes. Both types come in a jar from the spice aisle in the supermarket.

For the quantities of ingredients have a look at the pesto pasta recipe card at the bottom of this post.

📖 Instructions

👩‍🍳 Variations

Having a selection of veg in stock will help make this dish much more varied. You can have the same base dish but try swapping out the halves of tomatoes for a tin of chopped tomatoes.

Herbs and spices are quite freely swapped over too. You can make this as hot or as mild as you wish by adding or leaving out the chilli flakes.

Creamy Pesto Pasta with Salmon

The dish does not have to be made with chicken either. You could have a pescatarian philly recipe by making pesto pasta tuna or pesto pasta with salmon. Use some of the left overs from my oven baked salmon recipe to have another dish for another evening.

BBQ Pesto Chicken Recipe

If you wanted to BBQ the chicken in advance then you can add the pesto later. Take a look at my BBQ chicken skewer recipe for more information.

🥘 Other Chicken Pesto Pasta Ideas

This dish keeps on giving and there are so many variations which will work for it. It is also a dish which can be served cold so having chicken pesto pasta cold for your lunch the day after is quite fine too.

Cold pasta dishes like this and also my feta summer pasta salad are great for when the weather is warmer.

You can add some more flavour by increasing the chicken pasta garlic intensity and doubling up the garlic cloves. Instead of using two, use four. If you have over indulged on the garlic then use a bit of lemon in the sauce to tame it down. Maybe even chicken pasta with lemon might be a dish to try?

❄ Storage

This pesto pasta recipe will store in the fridge for a few days but are best eaten the next day ideally at the latest. It can go a bit soggy if left longer than this.

The recipe won't really do well for freezing, I never have much success defrosting frozen pasta. However the chicken can be prepared as per step one in the recipe and then frozen. Please take care when defrosting chicken and it must be reheated thoroughly once defrosted. Never re-freeze meat that has already been frozen.

The Recipe