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Asiago Chicken Pasta with Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Spinach - with everything smothered in a delicious Asiago cheese sauce. Easy recipe that tastes great and looks great.
If you love Asiago cheese, this is a great recipe to try! Asiago definitely has a very strong and distinctive flavor, and when melted into a creamy sauce for this Asiago Chicken Pasta, that flavor becomes more smooth yet you can still recognize it's an Asiago cheese. To me, using Asiago cheese in a pasta sauce is my favorite way to use it. And it is perfectly complemented by chicken sauteed with garlic, spinach, and sun-dried tomatoes!
Short pasta, such as penne, is perfect for creamy pasta recipes like this one - Asiago cheese cream sauce perfectly coats every single pasta bite. Both pasta and chicken are literally drowning in the Asiago sauce deliciousness! This recipe can easily be made gluten free by using gluten free brown rice penne.
Asiago Chicken Pasta with Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Spinach
Ingredients
- 8 oz penne pasta (use gluten free brown rice penne, for gluten free version)
- ⅓ cup sun-dried tomatoes with oil 2 tablespoons
- 1 lb chicken breast sliced in half, chopped
- 3 garlic cloves minced
- salt
- ¼ teaspoon paprika
- 1 cup half and half and more - (half milk - half cream to form a lighter cream)
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup Asiago cheese shredded
- 2 cups spinach fresh
Instructions
- Cook pasta according to package instructions. Drain, rinse.
- Use sun-dried tomatoes in oil - if the sun-dried tomatoes are too big, chop them into smaller bites.
- Heat sun-dried tomatoes (cut them) in 2 tablespoons of olive oil and chopped garlic on medium heat. Add chopped chicken breast to the sun-dried tomatoes and oil - generously season the chicken in the skillet with salt and paprika. Cook chicken until it's cooked through completely.
- To the same skillet with chicken and sun-dried tomatoes, add 1 cup of half and half and ¼ teaspoon salt - bring to boil. Add ½ cup of grated Asiago cheese (half of what the recipe calls for) and stir for about 30 seconds to melt the cheese. Reduce the heat from boil to medium and continue stirring to make sure all cheese melts. At this point, if the sauce is too thin, gradually add the remaining ½ of Asiago cheese on medium heat, constantly stirring all around the skillet.
- If the sauce gets too thick, add another ⅓ cup of half and half and stir.
- Taste the sauce - if ¼ teaspoon salt was not enough, add more.
- Add cooked and drained pasta to the sauce. Add spinach, mix everything - cover with the lid and let the pasta sit to allow spinach to wilt, on low simmer. After spinach has wilted, stir everything together to combine, taste and add more salt, if needed.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition Disclaimer:
The nutritional information on this website is only an estimate and is provided for convenience and as a courtesy only. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed. It should not be used as a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
I made this tonight for my sister's and I at the cottage by the lake. I followed the recipe as stated except I ramped up the veggies by adding on small zuchinni and a few baby Bella mushrooms. It was delicious. I like that the meat and veggies were main with pasta as an accent. Would make this again.
Thank you! So glad you enjoyed it! And, yes, I like my most pasta dishes to be more like main dishes, filled with protein (meat) and fiber (veggies), not just carbs.
I have made this for my wife and i.
It was excellent!
I will make it for a large gathering next weekend
It will be one of my favs
Thank you, so much, Jim! I am glad you've been enjoying the recipe!
Could you make this and serve as a cold pasta salad?
Made this recipe tonigjt and it was fantastic. I added fresh tomatoes as well as the sun dried as well as some fresh basil. Family loved it!
This recipe is definitely going to be delicious. I would try it out this weekend.
If we have leftovers, do you think it would be ok to freeze for future eating?
Very good! Need to tweak just a little for our, but still very nice in flavor!
OMG....I made this with a few modifications. I added a can of cream of celery and 2 heaping spoons
I don't like sun dried tomatoes. The rest of the ingredients sound very good. What can I use instead of sun dried tomatoes?
What can I replace sun dried tomatoes with? I don't like them but the other ingredients sound good. If there is nothing I can replace it with, will it be okay if I just omitted it?
Is this healthy? If not, how could I make it healthier?
Probably added the cheese in to clumpy a manner, but it didn't lump up, rather it was attracted to and adhered to the chicken which caused the chicken to clump together. Good flavor after aloud to sit for a few minutes after cooking. Can you suggest a more flavorful cheese?
Probably added the cheese in to clumpy a manner, but it didn't lump up, rather it was attracted to and adhered to the chicken which caused the chicken to clump together. Good flavor after aloud to sit for a few minutes after cooking. Can you suggest a more flavorful cheese?
Made this for dinner tonight, so much yum! The sun dried tomatoes added so much flavor, the ones I used had herbs in them so I think that also added some flavor. I could've eaten the whole pan..it was so gosh darn good!
So glad you enjoyed this dish! Yes, if the sun-dried tomatoes have some herbs added, it's even better for this pasta dish!
I'm sorry to say I followed this recipe to the letter (except I used a bit less garlic), and it was so awful we threw out all the leftovers. I was expecting a smooth, creamy sauce as described, but what we got was all watery and runny. The asiago flavor is nasty with chicken. Yuck.