Meet the chicken pasta recipe of your dreams! Creamy Chicken Alfredo with sun dried tomato, spinach and bacon, you’ll love how the seasoned shredded chicken acts like a mop for the alfredo sauce. A quick 20 minute dinner!
Chicken Pasta recipe – loaded!
This is the pasta you make when you’ve had a bad day and you need a pick me up.
This is the pasta you make when you’ve had a great day, and want to finish on a high note.
This is the pasta you make when you need a quick dinner that everyone will devour.
And this is the pasta that you make just because there are few things in this world that can rival the feeling of complete and utter satisfaction as you slurp down a big bowl of creamy chicken pasta!
What you need
Here’s what you need. Just a quick note on a few of the items:
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Wine – the secret ingredient! Wine gives the sauce that extra little something-something that gives the creamy Alfredo Sauce a restauaranty edge. If we’re going to make a luxe creamy pasta, let’s do it right! Non alcoholic sub – more chicken broth.
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Parmesan – make sure it’s either freshly grated OR use the store bought finely shredded parmesan that looks like small thin batons. Do not use the store bought sand-like parmesan, it doesn’t melt properly in the sauce.
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Sun Dried Tomato – you can skip this if you want, but it does give this pasta recipe an extra little za-za-zoom! I use the healthy no-oil strips, but you can absolutely use the type sold in jars in oil.
You’ll love how the seasoned shredded chicken acts like a mop for the creamy alfredo sauce!
Shredding the chicken is not something I’ve done for pastas I’ve previously shared. It works really well for this chicken pasta because the creamy sauce kind of clings to the chicken, making the overall eating experience even juicier and more slurp-worthy (if that were possible! 😂).
Quick 20 minute chicken dinner
This is terrifically quick and easy to make with a nice flow to it. Cook the chicken while the pasta cooking water comes to the boil. Then make the sauce while the pasta is cooking.
You’ll have dinner on the table in 20 minutes, and plates mopped clean minutes thereafter. How good is that??! ~ Nagi x
PS If you’re worried that this is a bit more indulgent that your usual midweek pasta, don’t let that stop you. It’s totally worth it – and you can eat air for dinner tomorrow 😉
More creamy pasta recipes
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Fettuccine Alfredo – classic fettuccine with Alfredo sauce
Watch how to make it
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Chicken Pasta recipe of your dreams!
Ingredients
- 300g / 10 oz fettuccine (Note 1)
- 30g / 2 tbsp butter , separated
- 2 chicken breasts , cut in half horizontally
- 1/2 tsp each salt and pepper
- 2 garlic cloves , minced
- 1/2 cup (125ml) dry white wine (sub more chicken broth)
- 1/2 cup (125ml) chicken stock / broth , low sodium
- 1 1/4 cups (315ml) cream , thickened / heavy (Note 2)
- 3/4 cup (75g) parmesan , finely shredded (Note 3)
- 70g / 2.5oz baby spinach
- 100 g / 3oz sun dried tomato strips (Note 4)
Serving:
- 120g / 4oz bacon , cooked and crumbled
- More parmesan
- Parsley , for garnish (optional)
Instructions
- Cook pasta in a large pot of salted boiling water for time per packet minus 1 1/2 minutes.
- Just before draining, scoop out a mugful of pasta cooking water. Then drain pasta.
Chicken:
- Sprinkle both sides of chicken with salt and pepper.
- Melt half the butter in a large skillet over hig heat.
- Add chicken and cook for 2 minutes on each side until deep golden.
- Remove chicken onto plate, rest for a few minutes then shred with 2 forks.
Alfredo Sauce:
- Turn down heat to medium high. In the same skillet, add remaining butter and garlic.
- Cook garlic for 30 seconds until golden, then add wine.
- Simmer rapidly, stirring to scrape the brown bits off the bottom of the pan. Once mostly evaporated, add chicken broth, cream, parmesan and sun dried tomato.
- Simmer on medium for 3 - 5 minutes, stirring leisurely, until it reduces and thickens.
Essential Tossing:
- Add spinach, chicken and cooked pasta.
- Toss for 1 1/2 - 2 minutes on the stove, until sauce thickens and coats the pasta strands (see VIDEO). Use pasta cooking water if needed if it gets too thick.
- Serve immediately with parmesan, crumbled bacon and parsley (if desired).
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
Life of Dozer
Another weekend of fun at Rick Stein’s Bannisters in Port Stephens! The RecipeTin Family took our mother up for a belated Mother’s Day weekend away. This photo was taken from outside her room – top floor, stunning views, huge sunny terrace and an extra large room.
In fact, everyone stayed up in the “good” rooms while I was relegated to the a ground floor room for easy pooping access to the lawn for Dozer. 😩
The family loved this!!
There is nothing tricky about making this so don’t let the length of the recipe put you off. It’s actually quick and easy!
Some notes from making it-
– my chicken breasts took longer than 2 mins each side to cook (I did cut them in half) Need to be cooked well so they can be ‘flaked’
– I didn’t get any browning in the pan that needed to be scraped up when cooking the wine.
– I added less cream and instead added some tomato.paste. My family prefer a tomato based pasta rather than cheesy/creamy. Doing this created a perfect balance for them – not that I would advise you to change this fabulous recipe! That’s just the preference for us.
– I added some chilli flakes with the garlic (chilli addicts here) and also some button mushrooms.
The meal was a huge success. Highly recommend it!
OMG Nagi, the title says it all.
I made it for Easter brunch for the family, they devoured it, and wanted more.
Only tweak I made was a some diced baby tomatoes tossed in a bowl with a dash or two passionfruit balsamic vinegar and added a a further topping.
Simply Delicious
I have never seen pasta disappear so fast.
Nagi… you nailed thiis recipe.
So far I handed out your website to 2 of them.
HUGE HIT. Kids loved it. Only thing I changed is I used sun dried tomato pesto instead of the sun dried tomatoes as my kids hate the texture of them. And they and I LOVED the dish. Will be on rotation from now on
Another winner Nagi! I omitted the bacon and added broccoli.
Thank you! ☺️
Amazing! I made this last night and absolutely delicious, I cut the breasts off a cooked chicken, fried 1 minute skin side down to crisp the skin, followed the recipe then scattered over the chopped up crispy skin instead of bacon, wow!
Oh my god made this and oh so good.Every recipe that I have made from Nagi has been such a great success.Grandkids love the Nutella cookies,Rocky Road the bigger grandsons love the Spicy Sichuan pork noodles. So many more dishes Thank you for sharing and for the awesome work you do for the community.
Incredible 😍
Tonight! But I’m planning on chopping the chicken smaller …reckon it’ll work?
Winner Winner Sunday Night Dinner!!!
Hi. Can I use left over roast chicken? What can I substitute for sundried tomatoes? Thanks
Yes, I added capsicum and some fresh cherry tomatoes instead. And also added some sweet paprika powder.
Amazing recipe! Loved this so much! Thank you!❤️
Loved receipe!
can you freeze this?
OMG!!! This dish is divine, simply amazing!!!!!!
This was SO good!!! I actually used two 9 ounce pkgs of buitoni fresh fettuccine – so nearly double the pasta! Well, while I’m sure it would’ve been so much better with almost double the rest of the ingredients (our kids especially love noodles!! Ok, me to!!) it was delicious and definitely a recipe to put on a weekly rotation!
Made this substituting some pre cooked broccoli for the baby spinach as we didn’t have any, and I unfortunately used cream that had been frozen instead of fresh (first time learnt the hard way) so the sauce didn’t thicken as much and it took longer but it was still super delicious and I’ll try again with the correct ingredients next time! The broccoli worked well and was yummy and I added some chilli flakes for a bit of spice! Nagi ur an Australian hero
I love your recipes. I’m sure they are delicious. But. I don’t have time to read 3 or 4 pages of text. And. I don’t have the time or well stocked cupboard to make them.12 ingredients (the pasta recipe) is toooo many. It costs more money every time you add an ingredients, and time to cook. Please simplify. I don’t have the time, and I don’t have the money for all those ingredients.
Sorry, forgot to give star ratings! Five for sure!
Well! This is a keeper. Excellent dish, will use when we have guests to impress. 🥰
I cooked this delicious pasta dish for dinner, as you say ready in 20. I had some swiss brown mushrooms which I sautéed off with the garlic before adding rest of ingredients. Also a good sprinkle of Aleppo chilli flakes.YUM.
Simply sensational! We all luv this dish…. even my extremely fussy 19 year old daughter thoroughly enjoyed it! On high rotation in our household. Thank you for all your wonderful recipes xx