Tags
Broccoli, Chicken, convenience cooking, convenience food, Cook, Garlic, Ingredient, Pasta, quick cooking, quick meal, Sautéing
For a light meal that fills you up but doesn’t weigh you down (I sound like an ad), a combination of pasta, vegetables and chicken will do the trick. This is an easy to throw together dish that doesn’t involve any exotic ingredients.
Just start out putting a pan of water on the stove to boil. Use boneless, skinless chicken breasts and cut them up while waiting for the water to boil. While the pasta is boiling the chicken and broccoli are sauteing. Once everything is done, just mix it all together, heat up, and serve. This recipe involves convenience foods, but with a little extra planning it can be made mostly from scratch if desired. I used the pre-minced garlic in a jar, and some of the ingredients for this dish are measured according to taste. Here is the basic recipe.
Chicken Broccoli Pasta
Ingredients
- 1 16oz box spaghetti pasta
- 1 16oz bag frozen cut broccoli
- 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts (about a lb)
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- olive or vegetable oil
- milk
- onion salt
- salt
- cream cheese pesto cooking sauce
- parmesan cheese, optional
Directions
Put saucepan of water big enough to hold the spaghetti on the stove over med high heat and bring to boil. While waiting for water to boil, cube the chicken breasts and put in large skillet with 2 tbsp oil over med heat. Add broccoli. Saute until chicken is done and broccoli is tender. Add more oil if pan gets too dry during sauteing. Add garlic, onion salt to taste, and salt to taste when chicken and broccoli are almost done.
When pasta water comes to a boil, add pasta and 2 tbsp oil and reduce heat to med. Boil pasta until done. Drain. Add pasta and more oil as needed to pasta-broccoli mixture and heat together, stirring until well mixed and heated through. Add milk to moisten, and a spoonful or two of the cream cheese pesto sauce if using.
Sprinkle parmesan cheese over top if desired.
As always, this is a recipe that is adaptable to anyone’s taste, and easy to put together with ingredients that are on hand. Don’t let the simplicity make you think this has no flavor — sometimes less fuss means more taste!
If you have ideas for some fabulous variations for this, let us know! We’re always looking for different and better ways to do the light eatin’ thang!
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