4.16.2012

Chicken Pasta with Buttery Lemon Sauce

I tend to like slightly tart food more than really spicy food (although I will NEVER turn down good Mexican food...) but I wasn't sure about this recipe at first. I was wrong. This is really good, and better than that, really fast. Original recipe here, but I've made several changes.

Ingredients:
1 chicken breast
1 cup whole wheat rotini pasta
1/3-1/2 lb asparagus, 1.5" lengths
1 cup frozen peas
1 Tlbs butter
4-5 cloves of garlic, minced
1.25 cups chicken broth
2 tsp cornstarch
3/4 cup plain non-fat Greek yogurt
juice of half a lemon (1-2 Tlbs)
dash of salt
1/4-1/2 tsp ground pepper
dash of red pepper flakes

Saute the chicken in a skillet (or grill it if you are lucky enough to have one of those), then set it aside. Meanwhile, boil the pasta. During the last two minutes, toss in the asparagus and the peas, then drain and set it aside. When the chicken is done, put the butter in the pan and saute the garlic for a minute or so. Mix the chicken broth and cornstarch together, then add it to the pan. Bring it to a boil, then let it thicken, stirring constantly, for 1-2 minutes. Take the mixture off the heat, and mix the yogurt, lemon, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes together. Add the yogurt mixture to the garlic/broth mixture, and stir to combine. Pour the sauce over the pasta, peas and asparagus. Top with grated parmesan and serve with chicken (this makes two servings).

This was really good and definitely kicky. Also, it is ridiculously fast. Including grilling the chicken, it took me about 20 minutes from prep to serve....just the kind of meal I like after a day of school and meetings. Changes I made were to change the heavy cream to Greek yogurt, increase the amount of sauce and decrease the amount of pasta, increased the amount of pepper and decreased the amount of lemon and salt, and dramatically increased the amount of garlic (although I did have small cloves...there was probably 1 Tlbs chopped).

Rating - 4.5/5
Why? Despite all the changes (I made this on Saturday night with a friend too), I still think it is a little too lemony (I reduced the amount of lemon above). However I do love that it is sooooo fast and easy, relatively healthy, and very filling.

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