Chicken Pasta in Cream Sauce
Ingredients
2 servings
- For the sauce
- Chicken drumsticks 4
- Onion 1
- Butter 50 g
- Wheat flour ½ tsp
- Light cream 50 ml
- Salt, ground black pepper, nutmeg to taste
- For the pasta
- Pasta (tagliatelle) 250 g
- Water for cooking the pasta 2.5 l
- Salt for the pasta water 18 g
- Parmesan 30 g
- Parsley 1–2 sprigs
Step-by-step recipe
Preparing the chicken
Chicken pasta in cream sauce is made with so-called “dark” chicken meat, not breast. If you’re making a big batch, you can take a whole chicken, remove the skin and cut off all the dark meat after first removing the breast, the white meat. If you’re making breakfast for two, 1–2 chicken thighs or 3–4 drumsticks are plenty. In my experience, chicken drumsticks are very handy for cooking many dishes in small amounts. For example, chicken and rice turns out really well with skinless, boneless drumsticks: the meat comes in neat portions.
Rinse the chicken drumsticks and remove the skin.
With a sharp knife, carefully cut off all the meat, avoiding the tendons that look like thick white threads.
Cut the chicken into small slices.
Chicken pasta in cream sauce works best with long, fairly wide pasta, such as tagliatelle, fettuccine or pappardelle, but regular spaghetti will do too. Long pasta holds a thick cream sauce with chicken pieces well. It’s especially good with egg pasta.
Cream sauce
Italian sauces are usually made with good olive oil, but a cream sauce goes better with butter. Don’t mix the two. It’s important to use real butter, not blends and spreads made from who knows what.
Melt a piece of butter in a frying pan.
Peel a small onion and slice it into thin strips.
Fry the onion in the butter until lightly golden.
Add the dark chicken meat to the fried onion. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Add a pinch of ground nutmeg on the tip of a knife.
Fry the chicken with the onion over medium heat for 10–12 minutes, stirring, until the chicken is almost done.
Add ½ tsp wheat flour to the chicken and onion and stir right away so the flour is evenly mixed with the meat and onion. Cook everything together for 2–3 minutes, stirring.
Add room-temperature light cream a little at a time, until the sauce is as thick as you like.
Don’t make the sauce too runny, or the chicken pasta will look like milk soup. The right consistency is like thick sour cream.
When the sauce has reached the consistency you want, cover the pan and let the sauce simmer over the lowest heat for 3–4 minutes. Season the sauce with salt, pepper or more nutmeg to taste.
Pasta and serving
Boil the pasta in salted water (7 g salt per liter) as usual until done. The cooking time is usually on the package; it gets the pasta al dente, with just a hint of firmness.
Drain the cooked pasta in a colander and toss it with the cream sauce.
As a finishing touch, I recommend grating a small piece of Parmesan, adding chopped parsley leaves and blitzing them in a blender for 4–5 seconds.
You’ll get fine Parmesan crumbs, the size of granulated sugar, in a lovely green color. It makes the chicken pasta in cream sauce look very pretty.
Plate the pasta and sprinkle with the Parmesan and herb mix. Chicken pasta in cream sauce should be served right away, while it’s hot: as it cools, the sauce thickens quickly and the pasta sticks together.
Calories and macros
1005 kcal
Serving ≈ 500 g
- Protein51 g21% of kcal
- Fat43 g40% of kcal
- Carbs96 g39% of kcal
100 g201 kcalProtein 10.2 gFat 8.6 gCarbs 19.1 g
Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.
To Get It Right
What cream to use
In chicken pasta, light cream with 10–20% fat gives a sauce like thick sour cream and doesn’t curdle. With 30% heavy cream the sauce thickens faster, so use less and thin it with pasta water.
Save some pasta water
Before draining the pasta, scoop out half a cup of the cooking water (100 ml). If the sauce thickens too soon or the pasta starts sticking together, 2–3 tbsp of this water will bring it back to the right consistency.
With mushrooms, garlic or spinach
- Mushrooms for the pasta: slice 150–200 g button mushrooms and fry them with the onion, before the chicken goes in.
- Garlic: finely chop 1–2 cloves and add them a minute before the cream so they don’t burn.
- Spinach: stir a handful of fresh leaves into the hot sauce at the very end.
Have your own trick for this recipe?
Questions and answers
Can I make chicken spaghetti in cream sauce?
Yes. Long, wide pasta works best, such as tagliatelle, fettuccine or pappardelle, but the sauce clings well to regular spaghetti too. Cook it for the time on the package, until al dente.
Can I use chicken breast instead?
You can, but the pasta is juicier with the dark meat of drumsticks and thighs. Fry breast for less time, about 6–8 minutes, until white inside, or it will dry out.
How do I make creamy chicken pasta with cheese?
Parmesan doesn’t have to go only on top: stir 2–3 tbsp grated cheese (14–20 g) into the sauce at the very end, over the lowest heat, and toss with the pasta right away. Don’t boil the sauce with the cheese in it, or the cheese will turn lumpy.
Can I make chicken pasta without cream?
Yes, with milk: the flour fried with the chicken will thicken it too, though the sauce will be less silky. Sour cream also works, but add it at the end and don’t let it boil, or it will curdle.
Why did my pasta turn mushy?
Most often it stayed in the water too long: pasta keeps cooking in the hot sauce. Stick to the time on the package, and if the pasta comes out soft, take it off a minute earlier. Durum wheat pasta holds its shape better.