Creamy Chicken Pesto Pasta | You’ll Love This Easy Family Dinner

This post is sponsored by Smart & Final. All content and opinions are my own.

Are you looking for an easy chicken pasta dinner your family will love? Then this is the dinner for you!! My family loves this Creamy Pesto Pasta recipe.

Pasta is one of my favorite foods, especially when it has a creamy sauce. I love trying new pasta dishes out on my family to find ones we can add to our regular meal rotation.

Join the Smart & Final PastaThon!

What a great time of the year to give back and Smart & Final is here to help with their annual PastaThon.

Now through December 4, Smart & Final shoppers can support Caterina’s Club in-store or online during the 10th annual Pastathon by purchasing $10 virtual bags that will provide warm, nutritional meals for underprivileged children. Having served over 5 million meals to date, Caterina’s Club provides warm meals, affordable housing assistance and hospitality job training for homeless youth and low-income families throughout Southern California.

Smart & Final has everything you need to make the perfect pasta dish. Including bulk size bags of pasta.

I love getting 2lb bags of pasta and being able to split it into two meals during the week.

What goes well in pesto pasta?

You could add lots of things into your pesto pasta to make it taste yummy. Changing the type of noodles can even change up the texture a little bit. Here are a few of my favorite ingredients for pesto pasta!

• Shrimp
• Chicken
• Artichoke Hearts
• Pine Nuts’
• Fresh Basil
• Parmesan
• Arugula
• Sun Dried Tomatoes
• Peas

Do you just stir pesto into pasta?

You definitely can just stir pesto into pasta with a little olive oil. But, my favorite way to include pesto in a pasta dish is to make it into a creamy sauce, like I did in the recipe below!

How do you make the best pesto pasta with chicken?

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. penne pasta cooked and drained according to package instructions
• 2 large chicken breasts grilled and chopped
• 1 tbs. extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tbs. butter
• 3 tbs. flour
• 1/2 cup chicken broth
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 6oz jar or container of pesto
• 1/2 cup parmesan cheese
• 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese
• 1/4 cup pine nuts

Instructions:

1. Slice butter into a large skillet and melt with olive oil.
2. On medium heat add flour and whisk for a few seconds until combined.
3. Slowly whisk in chicken broth, then heavy cream.
4. Whisk your pesto into the cream sauce.
5. Add the cheese stirring until it’s melted and combined into the sauce.
6. Take sauce off the heat and in the skillet or a large bowl combine sauce with chicken and pasta.
7. Stir in pine nuts and enjoy!

Creamy Chicken Pesto Pasta

Yield: 6

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 35 minutes

This Creamy Pesto Pasta recipe is the perfect dinner idea for a large family. Such an easy pesto pasta dish that even the kids will love!

Print

Ingredients

• 1 lb. penne pasta cooked and drained according to package instructions
• 2 large chicken breasts grilled and chopped
• 1 tbs. extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tbs. butter
• 3 tbs. flour
• 1/2 cup chicken broth
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 6oz jar or container of pesto
• 1/2 cup parmesan cheese
• 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese
• 1/4 cup pine nuts

Instructions

1. Slice butter into a large skillet and melt with olive oil.
2. On medium heat add flour and whisk for a few seconds until combined.
3. Slowly whisk in chicken broth, then heavy cream.
4. Whisk your pesto into the cream sauce.
5. Add the cheese stirring until it's melted and combined into the sauce.
6. Take sauce off the heat and in the skillet or a large bowl combine sauce with chicken and pasta.
7. Stir in pine nuts and enjoy!