This Garlic Basil Chicken Pasta is so full of flavor and is guaranteed to be a crowd pleaser! This recipe is easy and perfect for any weeknight meal! The secret to this recipe is marinating the chicken in some of the most flavorful fresh ingredients: olive oil, fresh garlic, fresh basil, olive oil and shallots! It's as easy as sautéing the chicken and serving with noodles and a creamy rich alfredo sauce. Your family will be asking you to make this recipe weekly!
I am so in love with this dish, oh my goodness. Ever since I introduced this Garlic Basil Chicken Pasta with Alfredo Sauce recipe to my family, they've been asking me to make this weekly. Yes, weekly! And you know what? I have made it weekly! My son is such a picky eater and if I can get him to love a recipe, I make it often just so I see that smile on his face! I'll be honest though...the secret to this recipe is in the marinade. That's right, this marinade puts it over the top! Never have I ever made such a flavorful chicken marinade that pairs so well with pasta and alfredo sauce!
I was inspired to make this marinade based on a recipe I saw from No Spoon Necessary. They made a Basil Garlic Chicken Stir Fry with Squash Noodles and Pesto that looked amazing and when I saw the marinade I wanted to try it with pasta and alfredo. I changed a couple of the ingredients to make it my own, but they definitely inspired me with that recipe to use it in an actual pasta dish. With this dish, you are going to combine fresh chopped garlic, fresh basil, a shallot, olive oil and white wine vinegar. You'll then cut your chicken breasts into bite-sized pieces and put them in a large plastic bag. You'll then pour the marinade over the chicken and close the baggie. From there, you'll mix all the yummy marinade ingredients together and let them marinate for at least 3 hours...but let me recommend marinating the chicken overnight. If you marinate it overnight, the flavors really come out in every single bite of your pasta dish!
When I start to sauté the chicken after it has been marinating for 24 hours, my kitchen immediately fills up with the most wonderful aromas. Yesterday, I had two of my friends come over to shoot pictures of this dish with me. I'm interested in upgrading my lens and they both have a lens I'm interested in buying. So, I thought it would be fun to make a pasta dish because they photograph well. I told my friends I would pay them in the form of food if they would shoot with me so I could compare lenses and talk food photography and they were all in! When I started sautéing the chicken they were both amazed at how wonderful it smelled!
Ok, so onto the photography aspect of this post. I took a close-up of this yumminess because the ingredients in this dish are just beautiful and I thought this photo did a good job representing all the ingredients that make this pasta recipe so amazing. You can see the wonderful ingredients here in the marinated chicken. You can also see the creamy alfredo sauce on the chicken and the noodles. And to top it all off, I placed a sprig of lemon thyme I had growing in my garden because it looked pretty and it tastes so good with the pasta!
After I put this recipe together, I had my friends taste the pasta and they loved it! They said it was full of flavor and mixing it with alfredo sauce was superb! You do have the option to substitute the alfredo sauce and just use a pesto sauce if you want. If you are looking for some yummy pesto sauce recipes, check out my Pesto Sauce, this Walnut Pesto Sauce or this Tarragon Basil Pesto Sauce. Or, if you prefer you could just drizzle olive oil over the dish and lightly toss and you'd be all set! I've eaten it that way before and it's fabulous!
Or, if you don't want any sauce on your pasta, you could just melt some butter or just shave fresh Parmesan cheese over the top and have it melt over your hot chicken and noodles. Regardless of how you eat it, there is enough flavor in the marinated sautéed chicken that you will be in love. Yes, it's THAT good!
Because I'm gluten-free, I serve this dish with gluten-free noodles, but feel free to use your favorite noodles if you are not gluten-free. You can even mix this one up and use some fun-shaped noodles, as well!
So I leave you with this tasty plate of pasta my friends. It offers you a crazy fantastic and flavorful taste that I promise you will love this recipe! This pasta dish is one of my favorite recipes and I'm so glad I get to share it with my readers! And the marinade is gluten-free! I hope you enjoy this as much as my family and friends do!
Oh, I bet you are wondering what lens I landed on based on the photo shoot. Well, the truth is, I'm still not sure!! We shot these photos with a 50mm f/1.4 and an 18-300mm f/3.5-6.3G. I always shoot on manual mode with my 50mm f/1.8 but I can tell you I LOVE the clarity of the 18-300mm f/3.5-6.3G lens. But then again, that aperture span/f-stop doesn't go low enough to capture all my food shooting needs, so I'm leaning toward the 50mm f/1.4 for my food photography and maybe the 18-300mm f/3.5-6.3G for my everyday family and travel shots. I do know this...playing with lenses and seeing the differences gets you addicted very quickly and it's hard to not reach into my wallet for my credit card to just buy them all. Thank God my husband is my voice of reason! So, I guess I'll keep playing with the lenses and the shots and make a decision soon! If anyone has any input on lenses they love, I'd love to hear from you! Especially my food blogger friends...what are you guys using camera-based and lens based? Let me hear from you!
Happy eats on this ridiculous and fantastic tasting Garlic Basil Chicken Pasta with Alfredo Sauce!
Garlic Basil Chicken Pasta with Alfredo Sauce
Ingredients
- 2 lbs Chicken Breasts, Boneless, skinless
- 5 Tablespoons Olive Oil, divided (If you have a flavored olive oil, use it but regular works fine too!)
- 1 Tablespoon White Wine Vinegar
- ¼ cup fresh basil, finely chopped
- 1 shallot, finely chopped
- 5 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ⅛ teaspoon pepper
- 1 10 ounce tub Buitoni Alfredo Sauce (Found in your grocery refrigerator section)
- 1 box spaghetti noodles (You can use regular or Gluten Free)
Instructions
Marinating the Chicken
- Cut the chicken into bite sized pieces and place in a large Ziplock baggie and set aside.
- In a small mixing bowl, combine 4 Tablespoons of olive oil, white wine vinegar, fresh chopped basil, shallot, garlic cloves, salt and pepper. Mix well to combine.
- Pour marinade into the bag of raw chicken and close the Ziplock bag. Move the marinade around in the bag to ensure the chicken is coated well.
- Place the bag of chicken in the refrigerator and let it marinate for at least 3 hours. I recommend letting it marinate for 24 hours.
- After the chicken has marinated, take the remaining Tablespoon of olive oil and sauté the chicken in a large skillet. You will want to pour all the marinade from the baggie into the pan and sauté it with the chicken.
- Sauté the chicken until done and no longer pink, about 20 minutes.
Preparation for Serving
- While chicken is sautéing, cook the pasta according to package directions and heat the Buitoni alfredo sauce in a sauce pan according to package directions.
- When the pasta is done, drain the water from the noodles and place noodles in a big bowl. Add the cooked chicken and alfredo sauce to the noodles and toss to coat, ensuring the sauce coats the noodles and chicken well.
- Top the pasta off with shredded or shaved Parmesan cheese and serve immediately.
Notes
DrT
Delicious! We always avoid store bought alfredo sauce since it's so quick & easy to make from scratch (10 minutes; cream, butter, cheese, garlic) but marinating the chicken is excellent and... may I suggest adding peas. They really add a nice touch. A light alfredo sauce with peas & prosciutto over penne pasta... a fave.
Amanda Mason
Excellent recommendation on the peas and the prosciutto! So glad you thought it was delicious!