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Creamy Chicken and Bacon Pasta with Spinach and Tomatoes in Garlic Cream Sauce - an Italian-inspired dish with lots of vegetables! Sliced chicken breast and bacon are tossed with veggies and penne pasta in a delicious, creamy, homemade Alfredo sauce made with Parmesan cheese.
Family Dinner Win: Creamy Chicken & Bacon Pasta
Craving an easy-to-make comfort food that a whole family will love? Then, make this chicken and bacon pasta! Cream sauce absorbs the wonderful flavors from the ingredients in the recipe, and with every single bite, you get all the goodness and all the flavors! This is one of the best chicken pasta recipes you'll ever try! Serve it with my apple spinach salad, easy garlic bread, or homemade garlic butter dinner rolls. Also, don't miss my other family-favorites like chicken feta pasta, creamy chicken orzo with tomatoes and spinach, chicken burrata pasta, and sun-dried tomato chicken pasta.
Ingredient Notes
- Use thinly-sliced skinless, boneless chicken breasts or chicken tenderloin meat. Either cut of meat will work.
- Use shredded Parmesan cheese. Do not use grated Parmesan cheese, use the shredded kind. What I usually do is buy a block of Parmesan cheese and shred it myself. Freshly shredding the cheese results in the best sauce texture. You can, however, use store-bought pre-shredded Parmesan cheese. Just do not use the grated kind.
- You can use cooked spinach, frozen spinach, or fresh spinach. All will work.
- Make this chicken pasta gluten-free. All you need to do is use gluten-free brown-rice penne pasta instead of regular penne. You can also use gluten-free quinoa pasta, chickpea or lentil pasta.
How to Make Chicken Bacon Pasta (Step-by-Step Photos)
- Cook pasta: Bring a large pan of water to boil. Cook pasta according to package instructions. Drain.
- Cook the chicken: Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large skillet over high heat. Add chicken and cook on one side for 4 minutes over medium-high, sprinkling paprika and Italian seasoning on top. Flip and cook for 3 minutes on medium-high heat, then reduce heat to low-medium, flip again, cover, and cook until the chicken is no longer pink in the center. Remove from the pan and keep warm.
- Make the creamy sauce + add veggies: In the same pan, add heavy cream and bring to a boil. Stir in Parmesan, reduce to low-medium, and simmer until the cheese melts and the sauce is creamy, about 1-3 minutes. Add chopped tomatoes, spinach, garlic, and crushed red pepper; cook on medium just until the spinach wilts. Add sliced chicken and half the cooked bacon, then mix everything together.
- Add cooked pasta to the sauce: Top with the remaining bacon and thinly sliced chicken, then sprinkle with Parmesan before serving.
What is Half-and-Half and Its Substitutions
- You can use either heavy cream or half-and-half in this recipe.
- Half-and-half is the US milk product that combines ½ whole milk + ½ heavy cream or whipping cream to form a lighter cream (unlike heavy cream).
- Substitute ½ cup of milk + ½ cup of heavy cream for 1 cup of half-and-half.
- If you live in the UK, half and half would be the equivalent of single cream. Alternatively, you can mix half double cream and half regular milk (if you live in the UK).
What to Serve with Chicken Bacon Pasta
I love serving Chicken Bacon Pasta with crusty garlic bread, homemade garlic butter dinner rolls, crusty rye bread, or bread machine loaves to soak up all that delicious Parmesan sauce. Since the pasta is already hearty, I usually pair it with a simple salad like one of these:
Other Chicken & Bacon Pasta Recipes
Chicken and Bacon Pasta with Spinach and Tomatoes in Garlic Cream Sauce
Chicken pasta recipes can get boring. Not this Italian-inspired recipe! You'll fall in love with the flavors in this Chicken Pasta with Bacon, Spinach, and Tomatoes in Garlic Cream Sauce. Easy weeknight dinner that the whole family will love! Sliced chicken breast and bacon are tossed with veggies and penne pasta in a delicious, creamy, homemade alfredo sauce made with Parmesan cheese.
Ingredients
- 10 oz penne pasta (for gluten-free version, use gluten-free brown-rice penne)
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 lb chicken (skinless, boneless chicken breasts or tenderloins)
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning (thyme, oregano, basil - combined)
- salt to taste
- 1.5 cups heavy cream
- ½ cup Parmesan cheese shredded
- 5 tomatoes (medium, chopped in large cubes)
- 3 cups fresh spinach or 1 cup cooked spinach
- 5 garlic cloves minced
- ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes crushed
- 6 bacon strips cooked, drained off fat, and chopped
- ½ cup Parmesan cheese shredded, for serving
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of water to boil, add pasta, and cook according to instructions (usually 10 to 15 minutes). Drain the pasta. Proceed with the recipe while the pasta is cooking.
- Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet, on medium-high heat. Add chicken and cook on one side on medium-high heat for 4 minutes. While it cooks, sprinkle the uncooked sides of the chicken with paprika, Italian seasoning, and salt. Flip the chicken over, and cook on the other side for 3 more minutes on medium-high heat. Reduce heat to low-medium, flip chicken over again and cook, covered, for several minutes until no longer pink in the center. Remove chicken from the pan and keep chicken warm.
- To the same pan (but without chicken), add heavy cream and bring to boil. Only after the heavy cream starts boiling, add shredded Parmesan cheese. Immediately reduce to simmer (low-medium heat) and stir, while simmering, until the cheese melts and the sauce is creamy, for about 1 or 3 minutes.
- To the same pan with the creamy sauce, add chopped tomatoes, fresh spinach, garlic, crushed red pepper. Stir in the sauce on medium heat just until the spinach starts to wilt and sinks into the sauce. Add ⅓ of the cooked chicken (sliced into small strips) and half the bacon (already cooked and drained of fat). Mix everything. Remove from heat.
- Add cooked pasta to the skillet with the sauce and reheat on low heat. When ready to serve, top the pasta with the remaining half of bacon (cooked, drained of fat, chopped, gently reheated) and the remaining ⅔ of the cooked chicken (sliced into small strips, gently reheated). This is done for presentation purposes.
- When serving, top the pasta with ½ cup of shredded Parmesan cheese.
Video
Notes
- Cream: You can use either heavy cream or half-and-half.
- Lower-fat alternatives to cream: To replace 1 cup of heavy cream, whisk 2 tablespoons of cornstarch into 1 cup of milk. Cornstarch thickens without adding flavor. Or, use evaporated milk (NOT condensed milk).
- How to cook pasta al dente? Cook the pasta about 2 minutes less than indicated on the package instructions. "Al dente" literally means "to the tooth" or firm to bite.
- Do you rinse pasta? If using regular, wheat pasta, do not rinse it with cold water. Rinsing pasta with cold water removes the starch which helps absorb the sauce.
- If using gluten-free pasta, rinse it with cold water after cooking to prevent it from getting mushy.
Storage & Reheating Tips
- Fridge: You can store the leftover chicken bacon pasta refrigerated in an air-tight container for up to 4 days.
- Reheat: Reheat the pasta gently on the stovetop on medium-low heat, without simmering. Or microwave for 1 minute, checking for doneness every 30 seconds. Make sure the sauce does not overheat and separate. Keep in mind that reheating the cream sauce on high heat will cause the cream to separate.
- I do not recommend freezing this dish: If you freeze it, the creamy sauce might not have the same texture when you reheat it. It might separate.
Nutrition
Nutrition Information
Chicken and Bacon Pasta with Spinach and Tomatoes in Garlic Cream Sauce
Amount per Serving
Calories
1149
% Daily Value*
Fat
77
g
118
%
Saturated Fat
35
g
219
%
Trans Fat
0.2
g
Polyunsaturated Fat
9
g
Monounsaturated Fat
28
g
Cholesterol
225
mg
75
%
Sodium
755
mg
33
%
Potassium
1071
mg
31
%
Carbohydrates
65
g
22
%
Fiber
5
g
21
%
Sugar
9
g
10
%
Protein
48
g
96
%
Vitamin A
5361
IU
107
%
Vitamin C
31
mg
38
%
Calcium
438
mg
44
%
Iron
4
mg
22
%
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.
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 now make this every week and we all love it! Thank you for such a simple but satisfying recipe.
That's the ultimate compliment, Geraldine! ❤️ thank you for your lovely review. ❤️
I think the ingredients are great but the way it’s put together is the problem as well as needing more spices. Garlic and red pepper flakes need to be sautéed first before cream to bring out flavor. Also needs more of the spices in the sauce including garlic salt, onion powder , Italian seasoning for more depth of flavor. Little white wine burned off would also help with depth of flavor. Thank you
Those are all wonderful suggestions, Bernadette! Thank you for sharing them! 🙂
About to make this - but your instructions and the video don’t match…? Seems like the video is a better representation of how the dish should come together…?
HI Anon! I see what you're saying. I re-tested and updated this recipe a few years ago, and the video shows my original method of making this, while the instructions have been updated. Both methods worked for me, but the current version seems to work much better for most people.
1) My original version (video) uses half-and-half, and I combine the veggies, half of chopped chicken together with half-and-half, then bring everything to a boil, then add cheese, and reduce to simmer stirring the sauce until the cheese melts.
2) My current version (written recipe) adds heavy creamy to an empty skillet until it simmers, then the cheese is stirred in, and only then I add the veggies and half of the chopped chicken.
You can use either method (both worked for me) but a lot of people had a problem with cheese not melting properly in my original version (the video).
This is 2nd recipe of your that I tried and my picky family loved it!
Thank you for wonderful recipes!
Hi Ranka! Thanks so much for trying my recipes and taking the time to let me know. You totally made my day! 🙂
Family devoured every bite! Love this dish!
I made this recipe exactly as presented. While it had all the necessary components, It fell flat for me. I think the garlic needs to be added and sautéed briefly before adding the cream. I also think it needs some basil or other herb to jazz it up. I would also hold the bacon out and just sprinkle it on top.
I've probably made this recipe like 50 times and I have found the same thing. Usually I saute the tomatoes, garlic and red chilli flakes first before I add in the cream. Then warm it (don't boil) and add the parm (grating with the smallest grater option). Then add my spinach, bacon and chicken. And I have found that to have the best results 🙂
Thanks your tips, Shayla, they sound very helpful!
Julia? 1200 calories a serving? Really? Are you sure that's not for the whole pot?
Yes, unfortunately, it is per 1 serving.
Really good ! I made this last night and it was absolutely delicious. Everyone raved about it definitely will be making again.
I have made this recipe several times. My husband loves it and so do I!
This is a great recipe and we love the results. My son-in-law requests it every time I cook for them.
Hi Mary, I am so happy your family loves this recipe. Thank you for taking the time to leave a 5-star review - it means a lot to me! 🙂
Absolutely delicious! Great directions, easy to make. Love, love this dish!
Thank you, Pam, for your great review! 🙂
Followed exact recipe and it turned out so delicious! Didn’t have to change a thing. Will definitely make this again and again. Thank you Julia, for continuing to deliver great dishes.
Thank you, Anne, for such a wonderful review, I appreciate it! 🙂
My brother shared this recipe with me when it first came out and it has been a staple in my home ever since! when I first started making it, I was addicted, I made it every week for at least 2 months straight. I added jalapeños to mine after the 3rd or 4th time making it to just give it a little extra kick. So worth it if you love spice!
Oh wow, Alonah, your comment really made my day! 🙂 So glad this recipe is a favorite!
One of the best things I have ever made. At first I thought it was going to be too many steps- but worth the time and not as difficult as I thought it was.
Aww, thank you, Ruth Ann, for your wonderful comment. Glad you enjoyed it!
Because we rarely opt for a creamy sauce, I modified your recipe (which is ALWAYS a wonderful great base for us). I added a large garden zucchini (bite size), fresh mushrooms to the tomatoes, garlic, greens (did a mix of power greens and arugula because that's what I had) ~ after cooking the tenderloins with the spices (and then removed). We opted to layer our pasta bowls with the cooked penne, shredded parm, and the chicken/veggie mix and we LOVED it! My husband is on a sriracha kick -- he's been adding that to almost everything. We both LOVED this dish and loved we could modify. I'm on a wonderful Julia's Album "kick"!! Thank you so much ~~
Oh wow, Heather, I love that you turned this recipe into something much healthier, using so many extra veggies! Thank you for sharing your ideas - I am sure others might want to try making this dish your way!