With college classes two nights a week and assignments coming out my ears at the moment, I don’t get a lot of time to cook properly at home.  When I do, I want it to be quick, easy (enough), tasty and not involve a whole lot of pots and pans.  With that said I give you the one pot, one pan Creamy Tomato and Basil Chicken Pasta dish. For this recipe I’m using Avonmore Cooking Cream which I’m doing a separate sponsored Instagram post on.

Ingredients:

• 2 Cloves of Garlic – minced.
• Olive Oil.
• 2-3 Chicken Breasts (depending on how hungry you are).
• A bunch of chopped basil.
• 6 Plum Tomatoes – diced.
• 30ml Chicken Stock.
• 150g Penne Pasta (or whichever you prefer).
• 125ml Avonmore Cooking Cream (that’s half a pot).
• Salt and Pepper to taste.

Steps

Heat (low – medium) a frying pan with a little olive oil and add your minced garlic to it.  Handy tip for mincing garlic; first dice it then sprinkle a little salt on it and use the side of your knife to essentially grind it down to a paste.  Keep an eye on it, you don’t want the garlic to burn.

While the garlic and olive oil are getting acquainted chop up your plum tomatoes and roughly chop the basil.

You can also pop the pasta on to cook at this point so it will be ready when the chicken and sauce is cooked.  Cook as per packet instructions.  I like to leave a little bite in my pasta.  If you want to give your sauce that fancy silky sheen later in the process, keep a little of the pasta water.

Next you want to season the chicken breasts on both sides with salt and pepper.  Personally I like a generous amount of seasoning, but you should do what tickles your taste-buds.

For the chicken you want to cook them both sides until you start to get some colour on them.  It should only take about 10-12 minutes in total to cook the chicken through. Once cooked, remove them from the pan and leave to one side.

For the creamy tomato and basil sauce (which I forgot to take a photo of, so use your imagination), all you need to do is add the tomatoes and chicken broth to the pan. Cook it down for about 8-10 minutes until the tomatoes start to come apart and form a sauce.

Tip: You may want to add the broth bit by bit until you get the consistency you want.

Add the chopped basil and Avonmore Cooking Cream and give it a good mix together until you have a rich creamy sauce all ready to coat your chicken.  If you kept some pasta water you can add it into the sauce now and stir well into it.

Plating

There are a couple of ways you can plate this up.  Here’s how I did it.  I sliced the chicken breasts and added them back into the pan to heat them through again.  I then added the pasta in bit by bit and coated it with the sauce.  Pile it high on a plate, garnish with some basil leaves and a crack of black pepper.  Finally sit back and marvel at what an incredible cook you are and be delighted you only used one pot, one pan a chopping board and a knife.