Garlic Pesto Chicken & Pasta with Tomato Cream Sauce

Growing up in my family, pasta was king. We had Grandma's spaghetti and meatballs or gnocchi for every holiday and plenty of days in between, so I'm very partial to a really good pasta dish.

I came across a photo on Pinterest titled "Garlic Pesto Chicken with Tomato Cream Sauce Pasta". Of course I was interested, and of course because it looked so good, the link went nowhere. Just my luck.

Sooooo I decided to do it myself. No joke, we almost licked our plates. This stuff was that good. I'm surprised we had sauce left for the noodles because I kept eating it out of the pan.

Super easy and well worth it! I would actually pay money to eat this dish again. A great thing about this dish is that you can eat the two together OR separately. We had them together, but I'm going to make more of the chicken and freeze it for future dinners too. Sooo yummy!

~ Garlic Pesto Chicken & Pasta with Tomato Cream Sauce ~

Serves 2-3

~ Ingredients for Chicken ~

(And yes, I cheated and used a jar of pesto. I didn't have fresh basil nor the time to make my own sauce. Don't judge.)

• 1/2 bottle of Lawry's Herb & Garlic Marinade
• 1/4 cup of olive oil
• 3 tbsp of pesto
• 1 cup unseasoned breadcrumbs*
• 1 lb of boneless, skinless chicken breasts

*If you wanted to make this to freeze, omit the breadcrumbs.

~ Ingredients for pasta sauce ~

• 2 tbsp of olive oil
• 2-3 minced cloves of garlic
• 3 tbsp of pesto
• 1/2 cup of sun-dried tomatoes (sliced) in oil
• 1/2 cup of chicken broth
• small can of tomato paste (about 4 oz.)
• 1 cup light OR heavy cream
• 2 tbsp flour
• salt and pepper
• 8 oz pasta noodles of your choice 

~ Directions ~ 

Start by heating your oven to 350 degrees (172 c) and spraying a 9x13 pan with cooking spray.

Next, if you have to, clean your chicken and cut it into pieces about 3-4 oz in size. I'm sure you could keep the breast whole, but this will speed up the cooking time.

Now, make the marinade by whisking the Lawry's, olive oil, and pesto together.

Add the chicken to the mixture. If you want, take a fork and poke holes in the chicken so more of the mix sticks to it. Let this sit for about 5 minutes.

Once your chicken has sat for a few minutes, pull the strips out and coat them in breadcrumbs. There will be extra sauce, but as you can see I just drizzled it on the top.

Bake for about 25 minutes.

This is a good time to start a pot of water boiling for your pasta.

To start the sauce, take a medium sauce pan and put it on medium-high heat.

Add the olive oil and garlic first. Let this saute slightly for a few moments.

You can see my chicken broth off to the side. I added one chicken bouillon cube to 1/2 water.

Next, add the chicken broth, pesto, and tomatoes. Reduce the heat to medium and let this simmer for about 3-4 minutes.

*Add your pasta to the water if you haven't and continue to stir until done.

Once you've let the sauce simmer and reduce a bit, add the tomato paste and the cream. Continue to simmer for about 5 minutes, whisking often. If you don't think the sauce is thick enough, add the flour a bit at a time until it's reached the desired consistency  Taste the sauce and add salt and pepper if needed. I did about a 1/2 tsp of each.

Check your chicken!

It should be done after 25 minutes.

When your pasta is done, drain it and put it back in the pot. Add the sauce and mix thoroughly.

To plate, you can serve separately or together like we did. This whole thing took about 35 minutes to put together!

The flavor is amazing! I hope you enjoy!