Garlic Parmesan Chicken and Pasta

Lots of people love to eat and prepare chicken, but it can be hard to get it just right. This quick and easy recipe not only tastes great, but it’ll also give you a strong foundation to build your meat-cooking skills on.

Garlic parmesan pasta includes a bunch of ingredients that you either have in your cupboards or can get for cheap. It’s an easy crowd-pleaser that can be thrown together minutes before a party (or, if you want, you can have it all to yourself). Regardless of the setting, get ready to enjoy this delectable dish!

Cost Breakdown

Ingredient	Amount Needed	Unit Cost of Ingredient	Recipe Ingredient Cost
Olive Oil	12 oz	$6.12/bottle (17 fl oz)	$0.36
Chicken Breast	1 lb	$4.42/lb	$4.42
Italian Seasoning	1 tbsp	$1.00/shaker	$0.50
Paprika	1/2 tsp	$1.00/shaker	$0.15
Salt and Pepper	To taste
Butter	1 tbsp	$2.73/lb	$0.17
Yellow Onion	1/2 onion(jumbo)	$0.62	$0.31
Garlic	4-6 large cloves	$0.64/bulb	$0.32
Penne Pasta	8 oz	$0.98/lb (16oz)	$0.49
Chicken Broth	2 cups	$1.50/2 lb carton	$0.75
Parmesan	1 cup	$2.98/8 oz	$2.98
Half and Half	1/2 cup	$1.78/pint	$0.44
Parsley	2 tbsp	$1.07/fresh bunch	$0.13 Fresh
TOTAL COST		$24.84	$11.02
Cost per Serving (4 Servings)			$3.67

Recipe Making Process

Chicken is used in all types of restaurants, from the priciest eateries to the McDonald’s down the street. It’s a meat that can be easily found for cheap, but, if prepared properly, can seem like a real accomplishment to cook. This dish follows that basic idea: it’s cheap, but it feels like a higher-end treat.

That said, while making this dish, there were a few things we did to bring down the cost, such as substituting heavy cream with half and half. We also used store-brand olive oil and pre-grated Parmesan. Budgeting your life away truly bites, but this dish has enough of that homey goodness to mentally transport you from the doom of the dorms to your parents’ dinner table. However, there might be a couple of techniques your parents may or may not have tried their hand at while cooking at home. One of the techniques used in this recipe involves a chicken breast that is either butterflied or beaten. Butterflying is what it sounds like: you cut a chicken so that it looks like a butterfly.

Before you butterfly it, you need to remove the tendons and any surface fat from the chicken. This will help improve the texture, the quality of the meat, and can make cutting easier. Once that’s done, you place the breast down on a flat surface and cut it parallel to the floor so it resembles a book (as shown in the video below). However, like a butterfly or a book, it needs to have the middle section intact, so you should not cut it all the way through. After cutting, you can open it up and cook it as-is. This helps the chicken breast cook all the way through while retaining its natural shape.

You could also simply beat it down. The preferred way to do it is with a meat tenderizer, but you could use a variety of blunt objects, from the food-safe rolling pin or (heaven forbid) the heaviest book you can find.

Recipe Steps:

• 1. Gather and prepare all of your ingredients, and grab your pan. That’s right, you only need one pan for this recipe! Just make sure it will be deep enough to cook your noodles in as well.

• 2. In a small bowl, mix together the Italian seasoning, paprika, salt & pepper. Pat the chicken dry and then rub both sides with the seasoning mixture.

• 3. Bring a large pan to medium heat. Once hot, add avocado oil. Then, add seasoned chicken and cook for 3-5 minutes per side, until the internal temperature reaches 165°F. It’s best to check this with a thermometer, while also checking to see if the chicken is firm and white all the way through. Remove chicken from the pan and set it aside to rest.

• 4. Reduce heat to medium-low and add more avocado oil and butter. Then, add onion and season it with salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, for about 3 minutes, or until it begins to get tender and translucent.
• 5. Add garlic, stir, and cook for 1 minute longer.

• 6. Deglaze the pan with chicken broth, scraping up all the browned bits stuck to the bottom. Allow the broth to come to a light boil.

• 7. Then, add the dry pasta and stir to make sure that the pasta is submerged in the broth.
• 8. Cover the pan and cook for 10 minutes or until the pasta is al-dente.
• 9. Turn off the heat and add in the parmesan, heavy cream and parsley. Stir until the parmesan is melted and the sauce is warm and thickened slightly. Taste and adjust salt and pepper as needed.

• 10. Slice the cooked chicken into strips and add it into the pan along with the pasta. Toss to combine. Then, serve & enjoy!

• This recipe doesn’t have any vegetable sides, but broccoli would pair very well with this. It provides a bit of a bite while complimenting well with the creamy sauce. It could also go with a variety of other vegetables, but this is my personal go-to when making things like this.