Today I’m sharing an easy main dish for hot summer days, Chicken Pasta & Broccoli. You can use any cooked chicken: grilled, sauteed, baked, or even a rotisserie chicken from the supermarket. Cook the pasta in boiling water and add the fresh broccoli for the last 4 minutes. While the pasta is cooking, make your pasta sauce and cut up your cooked chicken. To cut the fat, I am using half & half instead of heavy cream in the sauce. Half-and-half cream combined with melted butter can be a simple substitute in many recipes that require heavy cream. It has about 1/3 of the calories as heavy cream and still makes the dish very tasty.
Toss the pasta and broccoli in the creamy sauce with the chicken. If you like to garnish the dish, add a few broccoli florets to the top or garnish with lemon slices and fresh parsley.
Chicken, Broccoli & Pasta
Use organic when available. Serves 4
Chicken, Broccoli & Pasta
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts grilled, baked, broiled or rotisserie
- 3/4 lb fresh broccoli florets
- 10 oz pasta
- 3/4 cup half and half
- 2 tbsp butter
- salt and pepper to taste
- 2 tsp lemon zest
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 1/3 cup finely grated parmesan cheese
- Optional garnishes: broccoli florets, lemon slices and chopped parsley
Instructions
- Cook the pasta in salted water according to package instructions
- Add broccoli to pot during the last 4 minutes of cooking
- Reserve 1/4 cup of pasta cooking liquid
- Melt butter in a pan over medium-high heat & cook until browned
- Add the half & half, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper
- Bring to a simmer and cook, stirring, until thick enough to coat a spoon, about 4 minutes
- Remove from heat & stir in lemon zest and juice
- Place pasta and broccoli in large bowl or serving dish
- Pour the sauce over chicken, pasta & broccoli
- Toss to coat evenly, adding pasta water if needed to thin sauce
- Stir in the parmesan cheese
- Optional garnish with broccoli florets, parsley and/or lemon slices
- Add more salt and pepper to taste if needed
- Serve immediately
Enjoy!
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My family would love this meal. They love anything with chicken, pasta and broccoli.
…a good combination.
Carol,
This looks delicious but I would have to pass on the Broccoli but would add mushrooms instead..I can not eat broccoli!! Thanks so much for sharing!!
Debbie you can use another vegetable with this dish, green peas, asparagus, even green beans. Mushrooms would be a great addition.
Rick loves pasta and a lot of it, since he burns it up cycling. I should stay away from it as often but he makes it hard. This looks like a good change-up.
it’s always nice to have something different
Definitely my kind of comfort food!
This could make a great meal. Looks delish.
Looks delicious.
Gracias por la receta. Te mando un beso.
This is very similar to one of my families favourite meals, but we use a different past and add a big dollop of Creme fraiche. #mmbc
This looks absolutely fantastic!! What a delicious way to sneak more veggies into your day!
Yummy, this looks so delicious and I like that you don’t need to use heavy cream.
delicious! going to make tonight for dinner.
let me know what you think!
I love how versatile pasta is. We are always well stocked with it in our house.
Lovely recipe Carol, I will be giving this a try. Pinned! 🙂
Happy Saturday!