Butter, cream, garlic, chicken and pasta. What’s not to like? The recipe is easy; it’s hard to mess up with this chicken broccoli pasta unless you start scrimping on the ingredients. Because that’s where the magic lies — the freshest chicken, the freshest broccoli and copious amounts of butter and cheese. No scrimping allowed.
Cook’s notes
What does freshest chicken mean? Aren’t all chicken fresh? Ideally, when you buy fresh chicken, you cook it immediately. Otherwise, keep in the fridge for no more than a day then cook it.
If the chicken was frozen when you bought it, thaw it overnight in the fridge then cook it. If the frozen chicken thawed out between the grocery and your house, it’s a bad idea to stick it in the freezer again. Repeated freezing and thawing affects the freshness of chicken.
And the broccoli? If it’s been sitting in your fridge for more than two days, it won’t retain any of the crispness that makes it so good.
Use real butter, real cream and full-fat milk. Substituting low fat versions of any of these will ruin the dish. Seriously.
Chicken and broccoli pasta with garlic butter cream sauce
Ingredients
- 1 chicken breast fillet
- 2 cloves garlic
- ¼ cup butter
- salt
- pepper
- 1 ½ cups broccoli florets
- ¼ cup cream
- ¼ cup full-fat milk
- 125 grams cream cheese (4.4 oz) at room temperature
- cooked pasta for two
Instructions
- Pat the chicken breast fillet dry with paper towels then into half-inch cubes.
- Crush, peel and mince the garlic.
- Melt the butter in a wide shallow pan.
- Spread the chicken cubes in a single layer. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook over medium heat for a minute without disturbing them.
- Add the minced garlic to the chicken. Cook, stirring often, for another minute.
- Add the broccoli florets to the chicken. Sprinkle in more salt and pepper. Cook the broccoli with the chicken, stirring often, for a minute.
- Scoop out the chicken and broccoli; transfer to a plate.
- Set the heat to low. Pour the cream and milk into the pan.
- Add the cream cheese, breaking it into small pieces with a spatula.
- Cook the sauce, stirring a few times, just until simmering and the cream cheese is melted. Taste. Add salt and pepper, as needed.
- Add the cooked pasta to the pan and toss to coat every noodle with the rich creamy sauce.
- Turn off the heat. Add the chicken and broccoli to the noodles. Stir a few times.
- Serve the chicken broccoli pasta with cream sauce immediately.
Chinese red-braised pork belly (hong shao rou)