Chicken Cheese Pasta
Creamy, cheesy one-pan dinner
Creamy, cheesy and incredibly comforting — tender seasoned chicken cooked with penne, tomato paste, chicken broth and cream, then finished with plenty of melted mozzarella, Parmesan and cheddar.
Ingredients
- 2 boneless chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces
- 250 g uncooked penne pasta
- 1 small onion, chopped
- 2–3 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 2 cups chicken broth
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1½ cups mozzarella cheese
- ½ cup Parmesan cheese
- ½ cup cheddar cheese
- 1 tbsp cooking oil
- Salt, black pepper and your preferred chicken seasoning
- Fresh parsley, to garnish
Nutrition is an estimate per serving.
Method
- Cut the chicken into bite-size pieces and season.
- Heat oil in a skillet and brown the chicken; set aside.
- Sauté onion and garlic until fragrant, then stir in the tomato paste.
- Add chicken broth, heavy cream and the uncooked penne. Simmer until the pasta is tender and the sauce is creamy.
- Return the chicken to the skillet.
- Add mozzarella, Parmesan and cheddar and stir until melted into a rich sauce.
- Garnish with parsley and serve hot.
Watch it made
Notes on this recipe
Brown the chicken and remove it
The chicken comes out of the pan before the pasta goes in, and that order is the whole difference between tender and rubbery. Bite-size breast pieces cook in three or four minutes; the pasta needs twelve. Left in, they spend eight minutes too long over heat. Browning first also leaves fond on the pan base that the broth lifts into the sauce.
Tomato paste wants a minute of frying
Stirring the paste into the onions and garlic and letting it cook for a minute before any liquid goes in is a small step with a large effect. Raw tomato paste tastes sharp and slightly tinny; a minute in hot fat darkens it and turns that sharpness into depth. It is the same principle as browning anything else.
Three cheeses, all off the heat
Mozzarella melts into stretch, Parmesan brings salt and savour, cheddar brings colour and tang. All three will split if the pan is still simmering when they go in — the proteins tighten and squeeze the fat out, leaving a grainy sauce with oil on top. Take the pan off the heat, add the cheese in handfuls, and stir until each disappears before adding the next.
Getting the consistency right
The sauce should coat the penne rather than pool around it, and it thickens noticeably as it cools, so stop while it still looks slightly loose. If it tightens too far, a splash of hot broth brings it back. Reheats poorly compared with tomato-based pasta — the cheese tends to separate — so this is best made and eaten in one go.
