Chicken Pesto Pasta With Tomatoes
Chicken pesto pasta with tomatoes is a delicious and easy pasta dish (and who doesn’t love pesto?)
It looks like a lot of steps but doesn’t actually take that long to make.
Chicken Pesto Pasta With Tomatoes
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This chicken pesto pasta with tomatoes is a delicious and easy pasta dish that everyone loves.
Ingredients
- 1 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts
- ½ cup pesto sauce see below
- 1 16 ounce box of Ziti or other tube-type pasta
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 onion chopped
- 2 cloves garlic
- 6 tomatoes or 1 28 ounce can of diced tomatoes, drained
- 1 Tbsp parsley
- 1 tsp basil
- ½ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp black pepper
- ¼ cup white wine or chicken stock
- 3 ounces crumbled goat cheese
Pesto sauce
- 2 Tbsp walnuts
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 ½ cups fresh basil
- ½ cup fresh parsley
- ¼ cup grated parmesan cheese
- ½ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp black pepper
- ¼ cup virgin olive oil
Instructions
- Slice the chicken breasts into strips about ¼” wide.
- Combine the chicken breasts and the pesto sauce in the mixing bowl and leave to marinate.
- Boil the ziti in the stock pot until al dente (do not overcook as the noodles will continue to soften during the rest of the cooking process)
- Drain and put back in the stock pot.
- In the meantime, heat the olive oil over medium heat in the saucepan.
- Sauté the onions and garlic in the oil until soft and translucent.
- Add the tomatoes, parsley, basil, salt and pepper to the pan and simmer for 10 minutes.
- Pour the tomato mixture from the saucepan into the pasta in the stock pot and stir.
- Heat the stock pot with the tomato and pasta mixture on medium low heat (stirring occasionally) while the chicken is cooking.
- Add the marinated chicken to the saucepan that used to have the tomato mixture in it.
- Cook until the chicken is almost done (barely pink) about 5 minutes.
- Add the white wine to the chicken pan and cook for about 2 minutes, scraping up all of the pesto bits that are stuck to the bottom of the pan.
- Add the chicken to the tomato/pasta mixture in the stock pot and cook for another 2 minutes to reduce some of the liquid.
- Serve with crumbled goat cheese sprinkled on the top. If you’re not a big fan of goat cheese, you can skip this step (or use a more traditional cheese like parmesan), but I think the goat cheese adds some zing to the flavor.
Pesto
- Chop the walnuts, garlic, basil, parsley, parmesan cheese, salt and pepper in the food processor until blended.
- Use a spatula to scrape the bits off the inside of the food processor.
- Start the processor running again and slowly drizzle in the olive oil until everything is combined.
Notes
Pots and Utensils: Mixing bowl 1 large stock pot 1 large saucepan Food processor Spatula
Nutrition
Serving: 1 gCalories: 697 kcalCarbohydrates: 73 gProtein: 35 gFat: 29 gSaturated Fat: 7 gPolyunsaturated Fat: 4 gMonounsaturated Fat: 10 gTrans Fat: 1 gCholesterol: 60 mgSodium: 804 mgPotassium: 1007 mgFiber: 6 gSugar: 9 gVitamin A: 2935 IUVitamin C: 36 mgCalcium: 170 mgIron: 3 mg
Nutrition values are estimates only, using online calculators. Please verify using your own data.
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This post was originally published on September 24, 2015 but was updated with new content on April 20, 2022.
I made this dish this morning to take with me to Wade’s. I couldn’t resist having some for lunch. It is soooo delicious! Mine does not look as attractive as yours but it sure has lots of flavor! I’m sure Wade will think it is a treat.
The green in the pesto sauce can make the color a little unusual…but it does taste good!