Pasta with Chicken, Tomato and Lemon Sauce

Let’s face it – Mondays are hard! And hard days need easy dinners. Between needing something easy and the fact that I didn’t make pasta this past weekend, pasta seemed like the best option (can you tell that I missed my pasta this weekend?? I did – I admit it, I did!).

As 99% of my pasta recipes do, this one started with onions and garlic. It also included chicken, cherry tomatoes, lemon juice! All good things things in my book!

Ignore that there are 2 lemons here – I ended up only using one.

I started by prepping my ingredients – dicing the onion, cubing the chicken and halving the tomatoes.

Then I cooked the onion and garlic, in a hot pan, with a small amount of oil – until the onions were translucent.

I added the cubed chicken and spices and cooked the chicken through.

The final step of making the ‘sauce’ for the pasta was to add the chicken stock, cream, lemon juice, tomatoes and basil. While I was cleaning up my prep mess (when I can – I prefer to clean as I go – it’s so much nicer to sit down to dinner without having a mess hanging over you!), I let the sauce thicken.

Then I just added the pasta and topped with a little bit of parmesan cheese and stirred well.

To serve, everyone just added as much additional parmesan cheese as they liked.

Despite the heavy cream – this sauce was refreshingly light! A perfect pasta for a Monday night – and will make some mighty fine leftovers for lunch tomorrow!

Pasta with Chicken, Tomato and Lemon Sauce

2 chicken breasts, cubed
1 box bowtie pasta
2 -3 cups halved cherry tomatoes (adjust give your tastes)
1/2 white, diced
1/2 cup chicken stock
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tbsp garlic
1 tsp garlic salt
2 tsp umami seasoning
Juice of one lemon
1/2 tsp olive oil
1 tbsp fresh basil, chopped
Parmesan cheese (optional)

  • Dice onion, halve cherry tomatoes and cube chicken breasts
  • Cook pasta to al dente, set aside
  • In hot pan, add olive oil, onion and garlic – cook until onions are translucent
  • Add in chicken, salt, garlic salt and umami seasoning – cook chicken until done
  • Add in lemon juice, chicken stock and heavy cream – bring to a boil
  • Reduce heat, add tomatoes and basil – cook for 15 minutes
  • Add in pasta, stir and cook allow to simmer for 5-10 minutes.
  • Top with parmesan cheese and serve

Roasted Red Pepper and Chicken Pasta

Almost every weekend, I make pasta – sometimes on Saturdays and sometimes on Sundays. This week, I did it on Sunday.

I was running low on the vegetables that I regularly put in my pasta – asparagus and mushrooms are common vegetables. But, I did have a jar of roasted red peppers in the cabinet – and that’s where it started!

Almost every dish I make (particularly pasta dishes) start with onion and garlic. For this dish, I added in a few other items: Italian panko bread crumbs, fresh basil, Parmesan cheese – to name a few.

Melt the butter in a large skillet and then cook the onions and garlic, until the onions are translucent. For the protein, I used boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut into cubes. I added the chicken and cooked until the chicken was done (amount of time will depend on how small you cut the chicken). Add salt, pepper and umami seasoning at this point.

After rough chopping the red peppers (if not already chopped – the jar I had was pretty much whole peppers), add them to the pan (along with the juice from the jar) and warm through (about 5 min). ** note – I used a 12 oz jar of peppers, but when I make this again, I will use a larger jar.

Once the peppers are warmed through, add the heavy cream and half of the Parmesan cheese to the mixture and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer and cover. Cook for 10-15 min.

Add pasta to boiling water and cook per directions. I used bow tie pasta, but I think most any pasta would work well with this sauce.

After pasta is done (al dente), drain and add Pasta to skillet. Add remaining Parmesan cheese and stir – sauce will thicken as you let it simmer for the next few minutes.

Garnish with Italian panko bread crumbs and chopped basil and ENJOY!

Roasted Red Pepper and Chicken Pasta

Box of bowtie pasta
1/2 onion (diced)
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 tbsp butter
1 jar roasted red peppers
1/3 cup heavy cream
2/3 cup Parmesean cheese
1 tsp Umami seasoning
salt and pepper to taste
fresh basil
Italian Panko bread crumbs

  • Melt butter in large skillet
  • Add onion and garlic to melted butter
  • Cook onion and garlic until onions are translucent
  • Boil pasta, per directions – to al dente
  • Rough chop the roasted red peppers (if not already diced) and add to skillet (along with juice from jar) and allow to warm through (about 5 min)
  • Once peppers are warmed though, add heavy cream and 1/2 the parmesean cheese to skillet.
  • Bring to boil – then reduce heat to simmer and cover.
  • Cook for 10 – 15 minutes
  • Add drained, al dente pasta to skillet
  • Add remaining parmesean cheese and stir (sauce will thicken as it simmers for a few minutes)
  • Garnish with chopped basil and panko bread crumbs