Sliced chicken breast with penne pasta in a creamy garlic white sauce. Perfect for those busy weeknights or family weekends.
If I'm ever stuck for ideas about what to make for dinner, I can always rely on pasta. It's simple to cook and usually anything you add to it tastes great.
Whether you opt for a jar of your favorite sauce or decide to create your own, you know dinner is probably going to be a success and usually with leftovers for lunch the next day.
As with most of my cream sauces, this one begins the same way as a roux. Although this sounds fancy it's really only butter, flour and milk combined to make the sauce.
You can see how I used this way to make my easy béchamel sauce which is great for Mac and cheese! Check out the rest of the recipe to see how easy it is to make this garlic chicken pasta!
Ingredients list for garlic chicken pasta
- Pasta- Penne is what I used but if you have something else at home such as farfalle, elbow or rigatoni pasta, these will also work.
- Butter- Unsalted
- Flour- All purpose
- Milk- I always use whole milk for as much extra flavor as possible.
- Garlic- I prefer using minced from a jar now just because I use so much of it and it's a huge timesaver.
- Onion
- Parsley
- Capers- You can leave these out if you just don't like them but I think they give the sauce an extra tangy bite.
- Fresh basil
How to make this easy garlic chicken pasta
1. Melt the butter over a medium heat and add the flour to the pan
2. Whisk until you get rid of any large lumps
3. Begin adding the milk gradually making sure to whisk well after each addition
4. Turn the heat to low and add the garlic, salt and pepper and mix together. You can add a little more milk if you feel the sauce is still too thick.
It should coat the back of a spoon. The sauce is now ready to finish the rest of the dish.
Recipe Tips
- Make the pasta ahead, cover with plastic wrap and save some time.
- Whenever the sauce begins to cool, it will thicken and set. If this happens just add a splash more milk and warm over a low heat making sure to whisk until smooth and creamy again.
- Shrimp, scallops or mixed vegetables would also work well as a substitution for the chicken breast.
- To reheat any leftovers, place them in a pan with some milk, cover and bring to a simmer stirring often. The amount of milk will determine how thin the sauce will be. So roughly two cups of leftovers would need about a half cup of milk.
- Serve the garlic chicken pasta with lots of crusty garlic bread on the side.
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