Creamy Tuscan Pasta with Herby Breaded Chicken

MozieMarch 20, 2024

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Creamy Tuscan Pasta with Herby Breaded Chicken. A creamy pasta dish with sun-dried tomatoes and topped with herby breaded chicken.

Creamy Tuscan Pasta

One thing about us is that we love an easy, delicious weeknight meal. We usually hop back and forth between different types of foods, but more often than not we crave some sort of pasta dish.

Drawing inspiration from our cravings, we developed this Creamy Tuscan Pasta and paired it with an Herby Breaded Chicken.

We wanted to create a creamy, cheesy sauce that was filled with delicious flavors — like fresh herbs, garlic, Italian seasonings and sun dried tomatoes—mix it with some cute-shaped pasta and top it with lightly breaded chicken.

All the flavors blended so beautifully together, and this has now become one of our favorite pasta recipes to date.

It’s time to gather your ingredients and cooking equipment and get to cooking!

This post is all about creamy tuscan pasta.


Creamy Tuscan Pasta with Herby Breaded Chicken

Creamy Tuscan Pasta

Equipment You’ll Need for This Recipe:

Creamy Tuscan Pasta

Ingredient Snapshot*:

  • Chicken Breasts: The key to cooking the chicken breasts quickly and evenly is slicing them in have (length wise). This creates a thinner cut of meat, allowing the chicken to be cooked evenly.
  • Fresh Herbs: Fresh herbs always elevate a dish. We coated the chicken in a flour mixture with fresh herbs and also topped the pasta with fresh basil.
  • White Wine: The white wine is reduced down to form a delicious base and flavor for the pasta roux and then creamy, cheesy sauce.
  • Coconut Cream: Many recipes call for heavy cream when creating a sauce, however, we like to opt for a bit of healthier alternative — coconut cream. It creates the same consistency too. If you’re worried about the coconut flavor coming through your pasta, don’t! You can’t taste it at all.
  • Parmesan + Mozzarella: A mixture of Parmesan and mozzarella are added to the sauce to add depth of flavor and richness. You can’t have a pasta dish with it!
  • Sun Dried Tomatoes: We aren’t huge fans of sun dried tomatoes as is, but we love them cooked in things. They add a beautiful flavor to this dish.
  • Orecchiette Pasta: We love finding cute-shaped pasta at the store. It just makes pasta dishes so much more fun to make. One of our favorites to use is orecchiette pasta, because it is such a cute shape and it creates pockets for the delicious sauce to rest in every bite.

*These are not all the ingredients included in the recipe. Scroll to the bottom of the page for the complete list of ingredients and recipe instructions.

The Key to Evenly Cooked Chicken Breasts

Method One: Pound the Chicken

Place one chicken breast at a time in a gallon size bag. Using a meat mallet or rolling pin, pound the chicken until it’s about 1/4 inch thick and pretty even in thickness.

Method Two: Slice the Chicken Breasts in Half

If you have thicker chicken breasts, and easier way to create a more even thickness and cooked chicken is to slice the chicken breast in half, length wise.

Creamy Tuscan Pasta
Creamy Tuscan Pasta

This post is all about creamy tuscan pasta.

How to Make the Tuscan Cheese Sauce

Step 1: Reduce the White Wine

Reducing the white wine helps to enhance the flavor in the dish and creates a more viscous consistency.

Step 2: Add the Butter, Garlic Cloves, and Flour 

Add the butter and garlic cloves, and cook for a minute. Then add the flour and stir consistently for 2 minutes. This will create a roux.

Step 3: Pour In the Coconut Cream, Chicken Broth and Seasonings

Add the coconut cream, chicken broth slowly to the roux. Pouring too fast could mess up the consistency of the roux. Then, add the seasonings and sun dried tomatoes. Leave the mixture on low, stirring occasionally until you’re able to add in the pasta.

Step 4: Add the Cheese and Pasta Water

Once the pasta is cooked, reserve 1 cup of pasta water. Add the cheeses into the pasta and add pasta water, 1/4 cup at a time, until the sauce reaches your preferring consistency. We like our pasta sauce to be in between thick and thin, so we added 3/4 cup pasta water to create the best saucy consistency for us.

Creamy Tuscan Pasta

Looking for other easy weeknight meal ideas? Try these recipes:

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creamy tuscan pasta

Creamy Tuscan Pasta with Herby Breaded Chicken

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A creamy pasta dish with sun-dried tomatoes and topped with herby breaded chicken. AKA: The perfect, easy weeknight meal when you’re craving a delicious bowl of pasta.

Ingredients

Scale

Herby Breaded Chicken

1 pound chicken breast

1 tsp Salt

1/2 Pepper

2 tsp Thyme, chopped or dried

1 tsp Oregano

2 large sprigs Parsley, chopped

1 tsp Garlic Powder

1 tsp Onion Powder

1/4 cup flour

2 tbsp olive oil

Creamy Tuscan Cheese Sauce & Pasta

1/2 cup white wine

3 tbsp butter

4 garlic cloves

3 tbsp flour

1 cup coconut cream

3/4 cup chicken broth

2 tsp Italian seasoning

2 tsp Salt

1/2 cup Parmesan

1/2 cup mozzarella

1/4 cup sun dried tomatoes

1 tsp Red pepper flakes

Basil (for garnish)

1 boxOrecchiette Pasta

Instructions

Herby Crusted Chicken

  1. Pound the chicken breasts with a mallet rolling pin to make the chicken thinner. This will allow it to cook quicker and more evenly.
  2. Mix together flour, seasonings and herbs. Cover each chicken breast with the flour mixture.
  3. Heat a medium skillet to medium/high heat. Add olive oil and cook the chicken for about 4 minutes on each side (or until the internal temp is 165°F). Removed cooked chicken from the skillet and set it aside on a plate for later.

Pasta Sauce

  1. Start boiling the water for pasta in a large pot.
  2. In a small bowl, combine coconut milk and chicken broth.
  3. In separate large pot or dutch oven, add wine on medium heat. Bring the wine to a bubble and let it simmer until it’s reduced in half. This should take a few minutes.
  4. Add butter and garlic to the dutch oven and cook for 1 minute. Then add flour, stir continuously for 2 minutes.
  5. Gently pour in the coconut milk and chicken broth mixture. Slowly pour this in so you don’t mess up the roux. Then stir in the Italian seasoning, red pepper, sun dried tomatoes and salt and reduce heat to low. Cover slightly with a lid.

Boil Pasta

  1. Add a generous amount of salt (2 tbsp) and pasta to boiling water. Follow directions on the back of the pasta box. Reserve 1 cup of pasta water and drain the rest of the pasta.

Finish

  1. Add  the mozzarella and parmesan cheese into the sauce. Pour in the cooked pasta. If the consistency of the sauce is too thick, add pasta water, 1 tbsp at a time until desired consistency.
  2. Slice the chicken. Add pasta to bowl and place sliced herby chicken on top. Garnish with parsley and basil.
  3. Serve and enjoy with friends, family or roommates.
  • Author: Mozie Team

This post is all about creamy tuscan pasta.

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