Comforting and tangy, this chicken pasta dish with a dash of lemon is not only easy to make it’s also flavoursome and easy to consume after late-night training.
Quantities for this dish feeds a family of 4, which includes a hungry post-training rugby teen.
Ingredients
- 600g chicken breast, cut into chunks
- 300g dried pasta (I use Rigatoni for this, but Penne works well too)
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon smoky paprika
- 100ml water
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 500ml chicken stock
- 2 teaspoons cornflour
- 200g cream cheese
- zest and juice of half a lemon
- 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- 1/2 teaspoon smoky paprika
- 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
- Big handful of grated parmesan cheese
Method
Start the pasta-
Put the pasta in a pan of boiling, salted water, and cook per packet instructions.
Cook the chicken-
Chop your chicken into pieces and cook in a frying pan with a teaspoon of light olive oil. As you place the chicken into the pan, season it with the teaspoons of paprika, garlic powder and a good grind of salt and pepper. Cook until just done, which is about 5 minutes. You will use this pan for your sauce, so remove the chicken with a slotted spoon and set aside on a plate while you make the sauce. (Do not overcook the chicken, as it becomes tough later. It will continue to cook while it’s resting, so keep this in mind)
Prepare your sauce-
With the heat still on the chicken pan, add 100ml water to deglaze your pan. (This is key to capture the flavour of the chicken in your sauce.) Swirl the water around and scrape the base of the pan to pick up all of the meaty bits.
Add 1 teaspoon of light olive oil, and your onion. Cook the onion on a very low heat until it’s translucent – about 8 min.
Add the garlic, cook another minute or so, and then add 200ml of your chicken stock to the pan. Cook this for about 8 min and let the liquid reduce allowing the onions to take on more flavour.
Add the remaining 300ml chicken stock and the cornflour, which you prepared by mixing the flour with a little water so it’s like a runny paste.
Add the cream cheese and Dijon and mix through.
Add the lemon zest and juice, paprika, basil, big grind of salt & pepper for seasoning to your taste.
Add the chicken to the sauce and mix through, followed by the parmesan. I deliberately didn’t measure this out for you as you can add as much or little as you like. I use about two big handfuls of parmesan in this recipe.
Once you’ve drained your pasta, add the shells to the chicken mixture. Mix well to combine all the elements, and enjoy!