Healthy & Delicious: Basil Chicken Pasta
When it comes to dinner, I classify recipes three different ways: those I’d serve to guests, those I’d serve to family for a weeknight meal, and those I’d serve only to myself, preferably while watching The Office with a brimming glass of Cabernet. Like most of All Recipes’ dishes, Basil Chicken Pasta falls somewhere between the weeknight family and Dunder Mifflin options.
In my experience, All Recipes hasn’t always been a bastion of health-minded food. For a long time, it seemed the majority of dishes included a pre-packaged mix and/or Cream of Something Awful soup. But that looks to have changed in the last two years or so. They’ve attached nutrition information on almost all of their recipe pages, and even designated a whole section for Healthy Cooking. It’s much appreciated, and there are gems to be found, like the aforementioned Basil Chicken dealie.
Quick, tasty, and easy enough for my 25-year-old Cabbage Patch Kid to pull off, the meal also possesses a nice versatility (meaning, you can add just about anything) and stupendous leftover potential (meaning, you’ll be eating it for days). A serving comes out to about 350 calories, with a little under 10 grams of fat, so there’s that, too. Ultimately, it highlights all that’s good and pure about All Recipes: convenience, flexibility, and a crowd-pleasing flavor. And that’s never a bad thing, Cream of Something Awful or not.
Basil Chicken Pasta
- serves 3 or 4 -
Adapted from All Recipes.
Ingredients
8 ounces (1/2 package) pasta
2 teaspoons olive oil
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes
1 teaspoon sugar
2 cups boneless chicken breast halves, cooked and cubed
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
Procedure
1. In a large pot of salted boiling water, cook pasta until it is al dente, about 8 to 10 minutes. Drain, and set aside.
2. In a large skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat. Saute the onions and garlic. Stir in the tomatoes, sugar, chicken, basil, salt and hot pepper sauce. Reduce heat to medium, and cover skillet. Simmer for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently, until mixture is hot and tomatoes are soft.
3. Toss sauce with hot cooked angel hair pasta to coat. Serve with Parmesan cheese.
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3 Comments:
Kristen: for clarity, the recipe could use a time on how long to sauté the onions and garlic, and whether or not to drain the can of diced tomatoes.
(I also prefer to add garlic with only about 30-60 seconds left on the onion sauté time, so that it doesn't accidentally burn, but I admit this is just my preference and something I always do. Garlic could brown/burn fairly easily over medium-high heat, at least on my stove.)
mdeatherage at 5:58PM on 12/22/08
Mdeatherage, you're totally right. Apologies for the oversight.
For the onions, I'd saute between 5 and 7 minutes, or until they're nearly translucent. Then, I'd add the garlic and saute for an additional 1 minute, stirring constantly (so it wouldn't burn).
The tomatoes are undrained, but if you find there's too much moisture, it can easily be reduced by cooking the whole schlemiel for another minute or two without the cover.
Hope this helps. Happy holidays!
Kristen Swensson at 12:45AM on 12/23/08
I bookmarked this recipe ages ago and finally made it tonight. It was really really good! I seasoned the chicken pretty liberally before cooking, and the whole thing turned out really well. A great weeknight dinner that I will definitely make again!
brandi at 11:20PM on 02/10/09