Bruschetta is a great refreshing summertime snack, and it makes a really great refreshing dinner!
This light and tasty meal can easily be made gluten-free (the pictures in this recipe all feature gluten-free fusilli pasta) and can be made vegetarian by simply omitting the chicken.
Cheery Chicken Bruschetta Pasta is great for meals at home or for lunches for work!
For this recipe, you need to be able to cook chicken, cook pasta, chop veggies, and make a simple cream sauce. There’s nothing to it!
Here’s what you need to make Cheery Chicken Bruschetta Pasta:
- 1 package of rotini pasta
- 8 Roma tomatoes
- 2 or 3 chicken breasts
- 1/2 of a red onion
- 1 bundle of fresh basil
- 1 or 2 cloves of garlic
- 2 tbsps of Liquid Chicken (concentrated chicken stock)
- About 1/2 a cup of white wine (if you care to spare it)
- 500mL of heavy cream (35% cream)
- Fresh-cracked black pepper
- 3 tbsp butter or margarine
- 3 tbsp flour
Here’s how to make it:
1. Cook the chicken. Once it’s cooked, set it aside for a bit to let it cool. Cutting hot chicken makes the chicken rip easier and you don’t get nice clean cuts.
Yummy cooked chicken!
2. Dice up your Roma tomatoes. For this recipe, I dice my tomatoes into sizes that are about a cubic centimeter, but you can dice them into whatever size you like. Once your tomatoes are all diced up, put them into a container or a bowl.
A container full of diced tomatoes
3. Once you’ve diced all 8 Roma tomatoes, your chicken is probably cool enough to cut. Dice it into pieces about the same size as your tomato dices. Once your chicken is all diced up, put it into a container or a bowl.
A container full of diced chicken
4. Dice up 1/2 a red onion. Since red onion is pretty strong, don’t dice it up into pieces the same size as the tomatoes and the chicken – go a little smaller. A little onion goes a long way – you don’t need big chunks of it! Once your onion is diced, put it in a small bowl or container.
A container of diced red onion
5. Pour about 1/2 a cup of white wine into a pan and put it on the stove on just-above-medium heat. If you don’t have any wine or don’t want to use up your wine to make a sauce (I totally understand!), then skip this step. If you are using wine, allow the wine to boil on the stove for a few minutes. By letting it boil on the stove, you’re cooking off the alcohol but keeping the delicious wine taste.
Boiling some white wine
6. Pour the heavy cream in with the wine. DO NOT USE MILK!!! Milk and wine curdle when they’re mixed together! It will completely ruin your sauce. So if you’re using wine, you MUST use heavy cream. If you’re not using wine, you can use milk instead of cream. But honestly, cream is better. It’s heavier, richer, and tastier when making a sauce. Whisk the wine and the cream together until it’s well-blended.
Cream added to the wine
7. Sprinkle some delicious fresh-cracked black pepper in with the sauce. Yum!
Peppered cream sauce
8. Stir in a bit of Liquid Chicken. Liquid Chicken is concentrated chicken stock. Remember to check the ingredient list if you’re making a gluten-free meal – some Liquid Chicken brands do contain gluten in some way.
The addition of Liquid Chicken
9. Whisk the sauce up and let it get nice and warm. Once it’s boiling a bit, turn the heat down and let the flavors blend. After maybe five minutes of letting the flavors blend, add the diced chicken in to the sauce.
Chicken added in
10. Now mince up your garlic (chop it up into the smallest little pieces you possibly can) and add it to the sauce. Stir it up good.
Chopped garlic
11. It’s time to thicken the sauce. In a little bowl (I actually use a small mug) stir together about 3 tablespoons of butter/margarine with about 3 tablespoons of flour (I used gluten-free flour in this example and it worked just fine!) Stir the flour and the margarine together until they’re super-well blended (no grainy stuff) and then add it into the sauce. Mix it up quickly, being sure to break up any butter/flour clumps.
The sauce will thicken as it cools, so don’t worry if your sauce still seems a little thin. It will get better!
The butter/flour mixture is on the bottom right-hand side… mix it in quickly!
12. Chop your fresh basil. Add it to the sauce and stir it up real good. It’s starting to look mighty tasty! (NOTE: as the chef, you are allowed to stick a spoon in the sauce and have a taste at any time. Just remember to be a good chef and use a clean spoon each time)
Fresh basil added in
13. Turn the heat on the sauce down to the very lowest setting. You want to give it time to have the garlic and the basil blend and lend their flavors to the sauce, but you don’t want the cream or garlic to burn, so keep it on low heat. You’ll notice the sauce thickens as it cools down.
14. Cook the pasta, following the directions on the package. Once the pasta is cooked, drain it. Don’t rinse it! You want to have that starchy goodness on the outside of the pasta so the creamy sauce sticks to it.
15. Once the pasta is all cooked and drained, mix the sauce and the pasta together.
16. Add most of the tomatoes and most of the red onions, then mix more.
17. Put the delicious saucy pasta in your serving bowls.
18. Top each bowl with an additional little handful of tomatoes and red onions, so each bowl is pretty and colorful.
Pretty and colorful!
19. If you want, sprinkle some Parmesan cheese on top. This is optional – it’s delicious with or without the cheese!
Cheery Chicken Bruschetta Pasta with Parmesan cheese on top
That’s it – you’re done!
NOTES:
- This recipe is great for a meal at home (it makes several servings so you only need to cook once to feed yourself for the next 4 nights).
- It also is great to make for your lunches at work (4 lunches’ worth!)
- If you’re invited out to someone’s house and you want to be a good guest, why not bring dinner with you? To do this, simply make Steps 1 – 13 at home. Put everything in reusable containers. Once you’re at your hosts’ house, simply cook the pasta (make sure your host has a pot available). Drain the pasta. Then use the same pot (save your host some dish-washing) to heat up the sauce. Once the sauce is hot, add the pasta and continue on with the recipe. You just made yourself a great houseguest who will likely be asked to come back to cook again!
Here’s what it costs to make (4 servings):
- Pasta: $1.50
- Tomatoes: $2.00
- Chicken: $6.00
- Onion: $0.30
- Basil: $1.50
- Garlic: $0.30
- Liquid Chicken: $0.20
- White wine: $0.75
- Heavy Cream: $2.50
- Black pepper: $0.05
- Butter/margarine: $0.10
- Flour: $0.05
Total cost to make: $15.25
Total cost per serving: $3.81
Wow, not a bad price for a tasty & refreshing meal that’s made with fresh ingredients! It’s healthy and it’s filling.
Enjoy!
There’s a lot of delicious and cheap meal options for both lunch and dinner! Check out these recipes:
Living Single, Cooking Cheap 