How to Make Creamy Chicken Pesto Pasta In 30 Minutes or Less

Hello and happy Monday, everyone! Today, we are going to kick the week off right with a quick recipe for Creamy Chicken Pesto Pasta. It's so fast to make you can do it from start to finish in under 30 minutes. Oh, and it is delicious!

Jump to:

• Getting Started: Boiling the Water and Prepping the Aromatics
• Preparing and Slicing the Chicken Breast
• Cooking the Chicken
• Cooking the Pasta
• Adding the Onions, Garlic, and Roasted Red Peppers
• Building the Pesto Cream Sauce
• Adding the Spinach
• Draining the Pasta and Combining
• Finishing with Parmesan and Serving
• Conclusion
• Recipe

Some of you may remember that way back in March of last year, we did a 30 Minutes or Less Chicken Pesto. Though similar to what we are doing today, there are some apparent differences between the two. The Chicken pesto from last year was pretty much just chicken, cherry tomatoes, pesto, and pasta. Today, our pasta has chicken, roasted red pepper, spinach, pesto, and cream. So again, it is similar but different. One other significant difference between the two posts is that in the one from last year, we made the pesto, this time we are using premade, though I did make it. You can make it or use store-bought stuff if that's what you prefer.

Getting Started: Boiling the Water and Prepping the Aromatics

It was 7:05 pm when I started cooking last night. The first step was to get the pot on for the pasta. I filled a medium-sized pot with hot water, added some salt, and put it on the stove on high. If you're new to cooking pasta, remember that preheating your pan and salting your pasta water generously are two of the simplest habits that make the biggest difference.

Once the pot was on the stove, I got to work on an onion and some garlic. The onion I used was pretty small, so if all you have are large onions, only use half. For whatever reason, I cut the onion as though I was going to dice it. At the last minute, I changed my mind and decided I want to slice it, so I went back after it was peeled and cut the root off. With the root cut off the onion, I proceeded to slice it. I also peeled and sliced one relatively large clove of garlic. Once the onion and garlic had been sliced, I put them on a plate and set them aside.

Preparing and Slicing the Chicken Breast

Once I was done with the onion and garlic, it was chicken time. But, before I got my hands all covered in chicken, I put a large, heavy-bottomed skillet on medium heat on the stove.

The chicken I bought was a chicken breast that still had a bit of the rib and wing bone attached. I bought this because it was cheaper than boneless chicken breast. I should also say I'm not generally a fan of chicken breast. However, on the rare occasion that I do buy it, I usually get it bone-in and skin-on. It is way cheaper and with a little practice takes next to no time to clean. If you'd like to learn more about working with chicken, my post on how to grill chicken breast covers a lot of useful technique.

To clean the chicken, I found the bone and followed it with my knife to cut it away. I then took the tenders off the breast. The tender is the little flap of meat on the underside of the breast. If you've ever bought breaded chicken tenders, this is what they are made of. With the tender removed, I sliced the breast and tender into ½ cm pieces.

Cooking the Chicken

Now that the chicken was all sliced, I added 1-2 tablespoon of olive oil into my pre-heated pan along with the chicken. When I added the chicken in, I spread it out in a single layer to speed up the cooking process. I also turned the heat up a little on my pan as it wasn't quite hot enough. You may not need to do this. The issue was that my pan is very thick and just wasn't getting hot enough.

While the chicken was cooking I took a few minutes and thoroughly cleaned my knife, cutting board, and work area.

Cooking the Pasta

Around 7:15 pm, the water for my pasta was boiling. The pasta I used takes about 12 minutes to cook. I knew that if I started cooking it at this point, it would line up pretty perfectly with when the sauce would be done. How did I know that? The chicken was almost cooked through, and I knew that sauce wasn't going to take that long. Also, even if the timing didn't line up perfectly, there was only going to be a few minutes difference, and I could compensate for that. So, I dropped the pasta in the water.

I also took this opportunity to season the chicken generously with salt and pepper, and then I flipped the chicken and finished cooking it.

Adding the Onions, Garlic, and Roasted Red Peppers

At 7:20 I added the onion and garlic into the pan along with the chicken. I cooked, stirring for about 2 minutes before adding in the roasted red peppers.

The roasted red peppers I used were jarred. They came pre-roasted and sliced into thin strips. You can obviously roast your own peppers. However, I happened to have this on hand and wanted to use them up. They're actually pretty good out of the jar, so if you want to save some time, I suggest going this route. I used about ½ a cup of peppers in total.

Building the Pesto Cream Sauce

At 7:24 pm, I added about ¼ cup of pesto. Again, this was pesto that I made a few days ago and put in the fridge. You can make it from scratch (link at the top of the post), or you can buy it. I prefer to make it because it tastes better and has no preservatives and stabilizers. But, if you want to save some time, you can go that route. Once I added in the pesto, I let it cook for about a minute before adding in the cream. This is really just sauce making at its simplest -- building layers of flavour one ingredient at a time.

At first, I added in a ½ cup of heavy cream, but I ended up having to add in a bit more to loosen the sauce. In total, I used about ¾ of a cup. If you don't want to use the cream I suggest making a bechamel by cooking roux into milk to thicken it. You don't want to add straight milk or anything less than heavy cream (whipping) because it will curdle when it hits the heat.

Adding the Spinach

After adding the cream, which came to a boil very quickly, I tasted the sauce and added a bit more salt and pepper as was needed. Then I added in 2 big handfuls of baby spinach and stirred until it was softened into the sauce.

Draining the Pasta and Combining

At 7:28 pm, my pasta was done. I drained it and added it to my sauce.

Finishing with Parmesan and Serving

I grated about ¼ cup of parmesan into the pasta, stirred everything together and served.

Conclusion

This creamy chicken pesto pasta is one of my favourite weeknight meals because it genuinely comes together in under 30 minutes with incredible flavour. The roasted red pepper, spinach, and pesto keep it from being overly heavy, and I think you'll be surprised at how light it feels for a cream pasta.

Recipe