Chicken Garlic Parmesan Pasta

Chicken Garlic Parmesan Pasta is ideal for a whole family weeknight dinner and impressive for date nights, when it is served with white wine.

The dish is incredibly simple and tasty. Impressive, as if you were eating in the best restaurant. You absolutely have to try this perfect comfort food.

How to choose the best ingredients for Chicken Garlic Parmesan Pasta

To make an easy pasta dinner with garlic flavor, you need simple ingredients that you indeed have at home or can buy at the nearest grocery store.

Chicken Breasts: boneless and skinless. You can also use leftover chicken or rotisserie chicken for this dish. Boneless, skinless chicken thighs will also work in this delicious recipe. 

Pasta: you can choose the pasta you like. I chose spaghetti, but penne pasta, farfalle, fusilli or linguine will also work.

Garlic Powder: is suitable for breading because it enriches the dish even more with the taste of garlic.

Grated Parmesan Cheese: the best will be grana padano because its nutty flavor complements the taste of chicken and garlic.

Paprika Powder – adds color to the breading and slightly enhances the flavor.

Chicken Stock: If you don’t have chicken broth, you can use vegetable stock, although the former is richer in flavor. You can also use vegetable stock if you have it or make it from my recipe. If you don’t have time, you can make chicken stock from cubes.

Heavy Cream: goes well with melted parmesan to create a perfectly creamy parmesan sauce.

Italian Seasoning – you can use a ready-made mixture or mix thyme and basil.

Butter: If you have unsalted butter, swap it for salted butter. Butter is ideal, but you can use good olive oil if you don’t.

Cloves Garlic: here in this recipe, nothing can replace fresh garlic. The taste is given by these caramelized slices that blend with the cheese sauce.

Chopped Fresh Parsley for garnish. Refrain from overdoing it because it can dominate the dish’s taste and overshadow the taste of parmesan and garlic. The amount in the recipe is optimal to enrich the taste while still giving the dish a bit of spiciness. You can use frozen parsley if you have it. Only dried parsley is not suitable because it has an entirely different taste.

Oliva oil is a good quality olive oil that will work perfectly. We can’t fry everything in butter because butter has a short smoking period.

Salt and fresh ground black pepper for taste: You use to taste here. I know people who don’t use pepper at all or replace it with white pepper.

Chili flakes: The pinch in the recipe gives it a little spiciness but does not dominate the flavor. However, if you do not like spicy food, you can safely skip it or use red pepper flakes instead.

Tips and Tricks

• You can use yesterday’s leftover pasta. You skip cooking the pasta in chicken stock
   and reduce it to 1 cup instead of 2-3 cups.
• You can cook more chicken stock, broth, or vegetable broth and freeze it in bags in appropriate portions. Then, you can take the portions out to cook.

Chicken Garlic Parmesan Pasta Step-by-Step Guide

This Easy Chicken Pasta Recipe is a delicious dish that you can prepare in just 20 minutes. It’s perfect for busy weeknights, which is practically for all of us.

Step 1: Prepare all the ingredients, slice the garlic, finely chop the parsley

Cut the chicken breast lengthwise into three slices.

Step 2: Mix all the ingredients for the breading on a plate, i.e., flour, granulated garlic, parmesan, and paprika.

Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil well in a pan over medium-high heat. Coat the chicken pieces in the breading and fry for about 2 minutes on each side until golden brown. Remove from the pan.

Step 3: In this step, we will make the tastiest part of this dish, in my opinion: caramelizing the garlic. Don’t be scared by the amount of garlic; it won’t give the dish too much of a spicy taste; it will only diversify it. In this version, even my children love garlic preppers like that. Add a tablespoon of butter to the olive oil heated in the pan, reduce to medium heat, melt the butter, and add the sliced garlic.

Step 4: Once the garlic is ready, the whole kitchen will smell a nice garlic flavor, and it will be soft but not brown in color. Add the chicken stock and put the pasta—in my case, spaghetti—cover the pan and wait about 10 minutes.  During this time, the pasta will cook until it is al dente.

Step 5: In the next step, mix spices such as Italian seasoning, chili flakes, and carmelized garlic. If the pasta has absorbed the chicken stock, you can add a little bit of water.

Step 6: Next, we will thicken the pasta sauce by adding heavy cream and parmesan, mixing thoroughly so that the parmesan dissolves and creates a thick, aromatic sauce.

Step 7: Sprinkle everything with parsley, mix, and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Step 8: Cut the chicken breasts into strips and place them in the pan.

Mix everything, sprinkle with chopped fresh parsley, and enjoy!

This dish is full-bodied and does not need any additional ingredients. 

Sides To Serve

Chicken Garlic Parmesan pasta is a dish; you can make it a one-pot dish or use leftover pasta or chicken from the previous day. You can enrich this incredibly simple and tasty dish with blanched broccoli, green asparagus, green beans, or fresh spinach. The best thing about this tasty recipe is that you can have everything from the previous day, and the dish will still taste like it was from the best restaurant. This is another recipe from the zero-waste idea series. Instead of adding vegetables to the dish, you can serve it with a side salad. I recommend my Salad with Roasted Seeds. 

How to store Chicken Garlic Parmesan Pasta

 This delicious dish can be stored in the refrigerator in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

This dish can’t be frozen because it already contains pasta and chicken. While the chicken will retain its properties after defrosting, it won’t have such a crispy coating. However, it will still be tasty, almost as if you made the dish with leftover chicken. The pasta, however, may completely lose its properties.

If you want my recipe, explore these delicious comfort food ideas!

Chicken Alfredo Linguine – Another suggestion for a creamy pasta sauce combining parmesan and garlic differently.

Chicken Fricassee is a classic chicken stew in which you swap a few ingredients further to enhance the flavor of this unusual and easy-to-make dish.

Chicken Ala King – This is another chicken stew that is easy, healthy, and incredibly tasty.

Old Delhi – Style Curry Chicken – This proposal may be a bit different from the classic, but it is definitely worth considering if you like warming dishes.