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Tender pasta and chicken smothered in a creamy, garlicky white sauce – This Creamy Garlic Penne Pasta with Chicken is a delicious and easy meal for any night of the week!
CREAMY GARLIC CHICKEN PENNE PASTA RECIPE
This chicken penne pasta recipe is a thing of beauty. Tender pasta and chicken coated in a rich creamy, and incredibly flavorful sauce with so much garlic – the aroma alone will have you melting.
HOW TO MAKE CHICKEN PENNE PASTA
- The Pasta: Get a good quality penne pasta like De Cecco and cook it according to the instructions on the package. Usually the amount of time needed to cook is universal, but occasionally it can vary by brand. You want to cook to “al dente” which means that it’s tender but still has a bite to it. It shouldn’t be mushy at all.
- The Chicken: Cut boneless, skinless chicken breasts into bite sized pieces and season them with salt and pepper. You could also cook the breasts whole, it will just take a bit more time. Cook them in olive oil or butter in a hot skillet until browned and cooked through.
- The Sauce. The garlic cream sauce starts with a roux that’s turned into a Bechamel. There’s a ton of garlic cooked into it, for that deep garlic flavor you’d expect from something called Garlic Chicken Penne Pasta. To the cream sauce a little bit of Parmesan is added for another layer of flavor, and some chopped parsley for freshness and color.
HOW TO MAKE A BECHAMEL SAUCE
I love making cream sauces. It’s one of my favorite things to cook. I learned how to make cream sauces the easy way as a kid watching my mom and grandma. They always made it look so effortless, but the result was so creamy and delicious I knew it must be difficult.
A basic cream sauce, or Bechamel, consists of butter, flour, heavy cream and salt. Some add pepper or nutmeg for a slightly deeper flavor. Want to make macaroni and cheese from scratch – start with the bechamel and just add cheese. Simple as that.
To make this Creamy Garlic Penne Pasta with Chicken, the Bechamel is made with lots of garlic, and a little bit of Parmesan cheese. You can also make Alfredo sauce this way, although it’s not the “traditional” way, but it is a less heavy option versus the rich butter and cream.
HOW TO MAKE THE GARLIC CREAM SAUCE
- A Bechamel sauce starts with hot melted butter in a large skillet.
- The next step is adding a whole bunch of garlic. Six cloves to be exact. If you don’t love garlic as much as I do, you could cut that down to 1 or 2 cloves, but it will of course change the flavor from it’s intended garlicky nature.
- Next flour is mixed in and that mixture is cooked until it starts to turn golden brown. This cooks out that icky flour tasted that you definitely don’t want coating on your dinner plate.
- Finally chicken broth and nonfat milk are stirred in and brought to a simmer. You don’t want to risk burning the milk by boiling, but just bring it right to the edge when those little bubbles start forming around the edges of the pan.
- Once it’s all nicely thickened so that it coats the back of your spoon, turn off the heat and stir in half of the Parmesan cheese. The other half will be added with the chicken and pasta.
It really is a simple process, which I’ve outlined in photos below. Easy peasy!
Once you’ve tossed the pasta and the chicken with all that cheesy goodness it’s time to dig in. We love this meal, because it’s easy, it’s quick and it’s super creamy and flavorful.
More Chicken Pasta Recipes to enjoy:
- One Pot Chicken Alfredo
- One Pot Cheesy Chicken Pasta
- Chicken Spaghetti
- Tortellini with Creamy Garlic Parmesan Sauce
- Authentic Pasta Carbonara
Creamy Garlic Penne Pasta with Chicken
Ingredients
- 12 ounces penne pasta cooked to al dente
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 1/2 pounds boneless skinless chicken breast cut into small pieces
- 5-6 cloves garlic minced
- 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 1 1/4 cup milk Any % milkfat is fine
- 1 cup chicken broth
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- 1 cup Parmesan cheese divided
- 1/4 cup fresh chopped parsley plus some for garnish
- Olive oil
- Salt and pepper
Instructions
- Cook pasta to al dente according to package directions. Drain and set aside until ready to use.
- In a large, deep skillet, heat olive oil. Add chicken and season with a pinch or two of salt and pepper. Cook until chicken is no longer pink, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a plate and set aside with the pasta.
- Add 3 tablespoons of butter to the skillet and melt, then stir in garlic and cook for 1 minute. Stir in flour and italian seasoning cook for about 1 minute or until golden.
- Whisk in milk and chicken broth and simmer for several minutes until thickened. Remove from heat and stir in half of the Parmesan cheese until melted.
- Toss the cooked pasta and chicken with the sauce to coat, then stir in remaining Parmesan cheese and ¼ cup fresh chopped parsley.
- Serve immediately, garnished with fresh grated Parmesan and fresh chopped parsley.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
For more easy weeknight pasta recipes, try these:
Chicken, Bacon and Blue Cheese Mac & Cheese
One Pan Tomato Basil Chicken Linguine
For all pasta recipes, go HERE, for all dinner recipes go HERE and for the Recipe Index go HERE.
Can you make it ahead? Freeze?
You can make it ahead and reheat it, but it’s best fresh. The cheese sauce can separate when reheated. Same with freezing.
Made this for dinner this evening.. super super delicious!! Love how easy this was to make! And the ingredients was on the spot perfect!
Thank you for sharing this recipe!
My family loves it!! ❤️
5 stars highly recommend!!
Hi Kathleen, thank you so much for the awesome comment! Thanks for stopping by.
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe. I just made it with different pasta, but WE LOVE it. It’s so delicious it came out perfectly 👍🏼. Kids are so into it🤣. I definitely wants more recipes from you🙂.
That’s awesome Ana! Love the feedback! Thanks for stopping by.
Made this tonight. My picky eater loved it as I knew she would. It is delicious!!
Awesome feedback Sunnie! Thanks for stopping by.
This was delicious! It was actually better than the best I’ve had in restaurants. Definitely a keeper.
Awesome comment Melanie! Thank you so much for stopping by.
I used this recipe to make dinner a few days ago. My wife and I agree that it turned out very well and deserves a 5 star rating. I’ll definitely be making this dish again. There were leftovers so we ate the leftovers the next night and as suggested by some of the other reviewers, I added a cup of frozen summer peas; that was also very good (the peas added a little texture). The best part was that I could make it all gluten free using Barilla brand GF Penne and some Bob’s Red Mill GF all purpose flour. Delish!
That’s so awesome Dan! Thank you so much for the positive feedback.
Absaloutly beautiful added peas corn double sauce mix had no stock used just home brand chicken noodle soup into 2cup mixture and lil bit more garlic definatly cook again even then fussy child is eating it
Nice! Thanks for stopping by Sarah.
Wow! This was fantastic and super easy to put together! If yu wanna Impress someone, this is the recipe to do it! I had two rashers of bacon ? that I sliced not crumbled, I used an Asiago/parm/Romano cheese mix. I threw in about a teaspoon of Italian seasoning in as well! Holi Hannah my older son who is an extreme picky eater ate it! High fives ✋all around my table! Thank yu Kristin for yur inspiration! Will so make this dish again! ?
That is so awesome Nettie! Thank you so much for the outstanding feedback.
Thanks for stopping by.
Kristin
Amazing recipe. I added a little cilantro and my picky two year old gobbled it up. I couldn’t stop eating myself. Definitely going to be making this again
Thank you so much for the positive feedback Jessica. Glad you guys loved it.
Cooking it now, thinking about adding spinach. Thoughts?
Spinach would be a delicious addition!
I added basil and arugula and a cup of frozen peas. Very good one dish meal.
Nice! Thank you for stopping by Ruthanne.
Just made this! Looks delicious and my kids are wondering what smells so good!
Nice! Thank you Harmoni.
I did it, and it was amazing!! This time around, I will be putting more garlic in the sauce. But beside that; excellenté! Miam!!
That’s awesome Camilla! thank you so much for stopping by!
Has anyone ever tried doubling it? I have a family of 5 (3 which are males) and they sure can eat! Curious if I doubled the recipe If it would come out just as good
You could double it. Just make sure you use a big enough pan, definitely 5 quarts.
I love this recipe..can’t wait to try it out.
This was very good! We loved it! Creamy with great garlic flavor, will make again for sure!
Thank you Crissy!
We made this today and it turned out amazing, but instead of chicken we put ham in it and we made double of it and stilled turned out. Thxs for showing us how to make this, were gonna make this again soon
ham sounds delicious for this recipe!
Looks amazing! Trying to cut down on dairy though; would almond milk work?
I’ve never tried almond milk. You could give it a try, it might work.