One Pot Herb and Garlic Chicken Pasta is packed with simple but flavourful ingredients the whole family will love! Kid-friendly, one pot and made in under 30 minutes!
It’s been quite around here lately. Partially due to my husband traveling for work, but also due to me wanting to hunker down and share more recipes and info closer to my heart. Getting back to the basics of blogging because of the food my family and I love. As well as food that just works. Nutritious, simple, and delicious. And I truly mean delicious. Food that the whole family gets excited about without serving chicken nuggets on repeat. One Pot Herb and Garlic Chicken Pasta meets all those requirements.
What better way to jump back into recipes than with a One Pot Meal? Packed with so much broccoli it’s questionable whether or not to call this a pasta dish or a broccoli dish. I blitzed the broccoli in a food processor as my picky eater doesn’t like broccoli (shocker, I know). She was very suspicious of this dish, but once she tried it, it was game on. The garlic and herbs take over the broccoli flavour and it’s masked to a certain extent.
I love that this is through and through a one pot dish, but that it’s packed with healthy ingredients. I’m not going to say kids love these healthy ingredients, because they don’t. What they love is the flavours I’ve boosted this recipe with to make it work for them. Lots of herbs, garlic, some acid from lemon juice, and the ever-loved protein chicken.
When the broccoli is blitzed in the food processor, it makes a chunky pesto. I’ve called for the herbs to be added towards the end of this recipe so that they stay vibrant and at the forefront of the palate. Timing counts here so adding the herbs too early in the recipe will knock the flavour out of them and perhaps make this dish less kid-friendly.
Here’s a list of other recipes I’ve made lately and how I adapted them to make them more family friendly:
- One Skillet Hot Sausage and Cabbage Stir-Fry – Replace hot sausage with 1 lbs of ground pork and 1/4 tsp of crushed red pepper flakes. Use button mushrooms and 1 thinly sliced yellow (cooking) onion in lieu of shiitake and add them to the pork once it’s mostly cooked. Cooking the cabbage was eye-opening for me as it was the first time my kids ate it joyfully. I’ll be cooking our cabbage from this point on. This is also a great way to get more exposure to ginger.
- Spinach Pesto Pasta – use the pesto and prawns but sub favourite pasta for the couscous. So much spinach you’ll be doing a parent happy dance since your kids won’t even know it’s there.
- Quick Butterflied Roast Chicken – top with miso paste mixed with mirin (equal parts) for an amazing glaze. Sprinkle with sesame seed and sliced green onions for presentation if desired.
- Chorizo, Asparagus and Goat’s Cheese Pizza – a glass of cold wine with this make me one happy momma. Goat’s cheese and asparagus are a great combo to get kids onboard the asparagus train.
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil such as olive oil or canola
- 2 large chicken breasts thinly sliced (about 1/2" wide stripes)
- 4 garlic cloves very finely chopped or minced
- 1 lbs / 454 grams dried pasta such as spaghetti or linguine
- 5 cups chicken or vegetable broth
- 1 large head of broccoli or 2 medium heads briefly blitzed in a food processor or roughly chopped into small pieces
- juice from 1/2 lemon
- 1/4 cup finely chopped fresh herbs such as basil, cilantro, chives and/or oregano
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1/4 tsp fresh ground pepper
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In a large pot, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add sliced chicken and cook, stirring occasionally for 4-6 minutes or until chicken starts to brown and is cooked through.
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Add garlic and cook, stirring for 1-2 minutes (garlic should become fragrant).
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Add pasta and broth. Turn heat to high and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer.
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Add broccoli with 3 minutes left for the pasta to cook (as per package instructions, so this pasta required 11 minutes cooking time, I added the broccoli after the pasta had been cooking for 8 minutes). Stir to fully incorporate and cook over medium-low heat for remaining time.
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Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice, herbs, salt and pepper.
Enjoy! xo
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