Easy Mediterranean Chicken For Dinner, Everyone is Happy.
This one-pot creamy Mediterranean pasta recipe is brought to you by the five o’clock dinner scramble. You know the one. You look at the clock and suddenly realize you need to get those kids (and yourself) fed ASAP. Thankfully, this uncomplicated dish is coming to the rescue. From fridge to table, it comes together in 30 minutes flat. Briny capers and olives, bright hits of lemon, and rich cream all join forces for a sure fire way to chase away that dinner-time panic.
One-Pot Mediterranean Pasta Dinner:
This magical Greek influenced chicken pasta dish is a one-pot wonder. The key to its success is the secret thickening agent that turns the butter, chicken stock, and cream into a luscious sauce. As the pasta cooks, its starches are released right into the bubbling sauce mixture, bringing everything together to create one dreamy sauce.
How Do You Make a Creamy Mediterranean Chicken Recipe Using Just One Pot?
Your typical pasta dish starts with tossing try pasta into a pot of boiling, salted water. After eight or so minutes of boiling, the pasta is then drained and added to whatever sauce you’re using, but NOT in this dish. We wanted to keep the method and the cleanup for this meal really easy. Our one-pot Mediterranean chicken pasta uses those eight minutes to cook the pasta AND make the sauce all at once. No second pot or draining required! Here’s how we did it:
- This one-pot creamy Mediterranean chicken recipe starts with a little olive oil and a pound of boneless, skinless chicken breast. (This dish could easily be made vegetarian, or use another cut of chicken you have on hand, as well.) Cut the chicken into two-inch pieces and brown it in the olive oil.
- After you’ve removed the browned chicken from the pan (set aside for later), melt the butter and sauté the garlic for a few minutes until it’s fragrant.
- Here’s where it gets really fun. At this point, add your chicken stock, heavy cream, and fettuccine noodles to the pot and bring it all to a boil. It’s important to make sure that your noodles stay submerged in the liquid. Stirring continually also helps the fettuccine to cook evenly.
- Once the sauce begins to thicken, add the parmesan, lemon slices, capers, and olives. These flavor bombs bring a bright, super-savory, acidic touch to the dish and help to perfectly balance out the rich cream sauce.
- Finish this beautiful meal by adding the chicken you browned earlier, and topping it all off with a sprinkling of fresh parsley.
Tips for Making This One-Pot, Creamy Mediterranean Chicken Pasta Recipe:
- If you’re an experienced cook, feel free to cook your chicken at the same time as you boil your noodles and make the sauce. By doing so, you’ll cut this meals' start-to-finish time in half. Just be sure to stir the pasta continuously so everything is evenly cooked.
- Break your noodles in half. They may not as fun to twirl, but will stay fully submerged as the sauce bubbles around them.
- Have fun adding your own twists! We love seeing the unique dishes you create using our recipes as a jumping off point. This dish could be customized further by adding sun-dried tomatoes, peas, artichokes, or spinach—the sky’s the limit!
But Wait! When I Boil the Noodles in Cream, Won’t it Curdle?
You may be wondering if this Greek-inspired chicken pasta dish can be boiled without the cream curdling. You can trust us on this one—it can! We tested and retested this recipe to ensure that the method was spot on. We experimented with milk (too thin) and cream cheese (too sticky), before settling on heavy cream (just right) as the best way to give this pasta a gorgeous, velvety sauce.
So, why doesn’t the heavy cream curdle? Well, because we add the chicken stock and cream at the same time, the cream is tempered, meaning we aren’t adding the dairy product to a hot liquid, which is what can cause separation. The high fat content of cream is also better suited to handle heat than its low-fat counterparts.
Need Some More Easy Pasta Recipe Inspiration?
If you make this one-pot creamy Mediterranean chicken pasta and are hungry for more easy pasta recipes, we’ve got you covered.
- This Baked Penne Alla Vodka dish is the cat’s meow. I like to double the recipe and freeze half of the sauce for another time. I simply thaw it out and add the kale, parsley, and pasta and bake.
- With just five ingredients, dinner doesn’t get easier or more delicious than this Creamy Roasted Red Pepper Rigatoni Pasta. If you’ve got ten minutes and can open a jar, you can make this tonight.
Was This Mediterranean Pasta Dish a Hit?
If you make this recipe we’d love to see how it turns out! As always, post it to Instagram and tag @themodernproper and #themodernproper so we can drool along with you. Happy eating!
