Creamy Cajun Chicken Pasta
Rich, creamy, restaurant-style · one pan
A creamy Cajun chicken pasta that's rich, flavourful and surprisingly easy — tender seasoned chicken, penne, colourful red pepper and a Parmesan cream sauce, all in one pan. Made on the channel by Maya.
Ingredients
- Chicken: 1¼ lb (570 g) boneless, skinless chicken breast · 1½ tbsp Cajun seasoning · 1 tsp smoked paprika · ½ tsp garlic powder · ½ tsp onion powder · ½ tsp black pepper · salt to taste
- 12 oz (340 g) penne pasta
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tbsp butter
- 1 small yellow onion, diced
- 1 red bell pepper, sliced
- 3–4 garlic cloves, minced
- 2½–3 cups low-sodium chicken broth
- 1 cup heavy cream
- ½ cup freshly grated Parmesan
- ½ tsp Italian seasoning
- Fresh parsley, 1 lemon, red pepper flakes (optional)
Nutrition is an estimate per serving.
Method
- Season the chicken with Cajun seasoning, smoked paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper and salt.
- Sear: heat olive oil in a large skillet and sear the chicken until golden brown. Remove and set aside.
- Sauté the vegetables: add butter, onion and red pepper to the same pan; cook until softened, then add the garlic.
- Cook the pasta: add the dry penne, chicken broth and heavy cream. Stir and simmer until the pasta is tender and the sauce begins to thicken.
- Make it creamy: stir in the Parmesan and Italian seasoning until rich and smooth.
- Add the chicken back and cook until completely done — 165 °F / 74 °C inside.
- Finish: fresh parsley and a squeeze of lemon. Red pepper flakes if you like extra heat. Serve hot.
Watch it made
Notes on this recipe
Sear the chicken, then take it out
Cooking the chicken separately and setting it aside looks like extra washing-up and is the opposite. Chicken left in the pan while the pasta simmers for twelve minutes overcooks into rubber. Searing it first builds the browned residue on the pan base that the broth later lifts into the sauce, and returning the chicken at the end keeps it tender. Breast goes from juicy to dry in a couple of minutes at the wrong temperature.
The pasta thickens its own sauce
Penne cooked in broth and cream releases starch straight into the liquid, which is why no flour or roux appears anywhere in the recipe. The sauce looks far too thin for the first half of the simmer; it comes together in the last three or four minutes as the starch does its work. Resist adding more cream to fix something that is not broken yet.
Cajun seasoning varies wildly
Shop-bought blends range from mild and herb-led to extremely salty and hot, and the difference between brands is bigger than the difference between a tablespoon and a half. Taste the blend before you commit the full amount, and hold back on added salt until the end — many blends are mostly salt already. If you want to know what you are actually buying, Cajun and Creole are not the same thing.
Finishing and keeping
Parmesan off the heat, for the same reason as any cream sauce: hard cheese added to a simmer splits and goes grainy. The sauce tightens considerably as it cools, so take it off looking slightly looser than you want. Keeps two days in the fridge; loosen with a splash of broth when reheating, over low heat so the cream does not separate.
