Simple Chicken & Broccoli Pasta
Pasta dishes are a great quick and easy dinner for busy weekday nights. This dish is an easy way to get veggies and protein in kids. Rather than being tempted to go through the drive-through or order a pizza when you’re in a hurry, you can make this pasta dish in less than 30 minutes and feel good about serving it to your kids. As written, this dish can easily feed around 8, but could be halved or doubled to meet your family’s needs. We fed 7 kids and 3 adults with this dish. Kids had seconds and thirds, while the adults ate modestly, supplementing with salad. Not a bite was left.
Ingredients
1 Pound of chicken breasts
1 Pound of bow-tie pasta (or your favorite pasta)
1 Yellow onion
1 Bag of frozen broccoli (I don’t normally use frozen, but this dish is about saving time!)
1 Teaspoon of minced garlic
2 Tablespoons Butter
1 Tablespoon Flour
1/2 Cup white wine (Substitute water or milk, if you don’t have it, I like to use this as an opportunity to use up bottles that have been open a bit)
2 Cups whole milk
1 Cup grated parmesan
2-4 Ounces of white cheddar grated
1 Can diced tomatoes (Optional)
Salt, Pepper, Olive Oil
Step 1
Fill a large pot with water and bring to a boil for pasta. While water is coming to a boil, dice chicken into bite-sized pieces and season with salt-n-pepper. Heat a large skillet or Dutch oven (something big enough to hold the entire dish) and drizzle around 1 tablespoon of olive oil in the bottom. Add diced chicken and begin cooking over medium heat.
Step 2
Ideally, your water should be boiling at this point, salt the water, add the pasta, and cook to al dente. Before you drain the pasta, reserve 2-3 cups of the pasta water. While your pasta and chicken are cooking, slice your onion (I like to quarter an onion and then make thin slices for this dish). Add onion to the chicken and saute til onion is soft, keeping heat around medium. When onion and chicken are both cooked, add garlic and saute for 1 minute.
Step 3
Add butter (2 TBSP) and flour (1 TBSP) to chicken and onions and stir for around 1-2 minutes. Add white wine, if you have, and cook for another minute or two. Your pasta should be done by this point, don’t forget to save your pasta water! Add pasta, milk (2 cups), and pasta water (2-3 cups) to the skillet with the chicken, and stir well. Add parmesan (1 cup), cheddar cheese (2-4 ounces grated), and broccoli (1 lb frozen bag), mixing in well. Add can of diced tomatoes, if using, I drained the juice off. Continue to cook for 5-10 more minutes over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally. This will give the pasta a chance to finish cooking and everything else a chance to get merry and happy together in the pan.
Step 4
Serve. We almost always have a salad with dinner (yes, every kid at my table has some, even if only a few bites, whether the kid belongs to me or not!). Also, if they wanted seconds they had to eat all the chicken/veggies from the first helping. Kids sometimes like to just eat the noodles, I always call them out before they grab more noodles! I also made a little garlic cheese bread to go with this dish. Everyone was quite happy! And clean-up went quickly.