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Chicken Mozzarella Pasta with Sun-Dried Tomatoes - Italian-inspired dinner with the best homemade creamy pasta sauce! The sun-dried tomato pasta sauce is made from scratch using basil, red pepper flakes, garlic, paprika, cream, and shredded Mozzarella cheese.
I am a huge fan of pasta, and some of the most popular pasta recipes on this site include this chicken mozzarella pasta that you are reading right now, creamy chicken pasta with bacon, and pesto chicken pasta. One thing all these pasta recipes have in common is that they use creamy, comforting sauces.
If you want to try chicken pasta that is more refreshing, without the creamy sauce, I whole-heartedly recommend family favorite chicken pasta with spinach and tomatoes or super flavorful Italian sausage pasta.
Creamy Sun-Dried Tomato Pasta with Chicken
- This recipe features sun-dried tomatoes and basil. Both ingredients are popular in Italy and in the Mediterranean region.
- The most prominent flavor in this recipe is the homemade sun-dried tomato sauce. The sauce is made from scratch by combining cream with shredded Mozzarella cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, basil, and red pepper flakes.
- Cooked chicken and penne pasta are then smothered in this delicious creamy Mozzarella pasta sauce. There is enough sauce to coat every single bite.
Ingredients for sun-dried tomato sauce
- 3 garlic cloves
- 4 oz sun-dried tomatoes
- olive oil
- salt
- paprika
- basil
- 1 cup half-and-half (or ½ cup heavy cream + ½ cup milk)
- 1 cup Mozzarella cheese, shredded
- ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
How to make sun-dried tomato sauce
- In a large skillet, cook 3 cloves of minced garlic and 4 oz of chopped sun-dried tomatoes in 1 tablespoon of olive oil on high-medium heat for about 1 minute.
- Add ½ cup of heavy cream + ½ cup of milk (or 1 cup of half-and-half) to the same skillet and bring to a boil. Reduce to simmer.
- Add 1 cup of shredded Mozzarella cheese.
- Simmer and stir until the cheese melts and forms a creamy pasta sauce.
- Add 1 tablespoon of dried basil, paprika, and at least ¼ teaspoon of red pepper flakes. Stir to combine.
- Season with about ¼ teaspoon of salt.
Cooking Tips
- Use either sun-dried tomatoes without oil or sun-dried tomatoes in oil (in a jar). Note: if using sun-dried tomatoes in oil (in a jar), make sure to drain sun-dried tomatoes from oil, before using them.
- Sprinkle a small amount of paprika over the chicken before cooking - it adds flavor as well as the color to the dish.
- Make sure to reserve some pasta water as you will DEFINITELY need it to thin out the cream sauce.
- Feel free to increase the amount of spices for this recipe: basil, red pepper flakes, paprika. This will make the sun-dried tomato sauce even more flavorful!
- Make sure to season the chicken mozzarella pasta with just the right amount of salt. That means you might have to add more salt. Salt will enhance the flavors of basil and sun-dried tomatoes.
How to Make Chicken Mozzarella Pasta
1) In a large skillet, on medium heat sauté garlic and sun-dried tomatoes in the olive oil. Remove the sun-dried tomatoes from the skillet.
2) Season sliced chicken with salt and paprika.
3) Add the chicken to the skillet and cook on high heat.
4) Add back the sun-dried tomatoes. Add half-and-half and shredded Mozzarella cheese.
5) Bring the mixture to boil, then reduce to simmer and stir the sun-dried tomato sauce until the cheese melts.
6) Add spices: basil, crushed red pepper flakes, salt.
7) Add cooked and drained penne pasta and stir to combine.
More recipes featuring sun-dried tomato pasta
- Creamy Shrimp Pasta with Mozzarella Sauce features shrimp instead of chicken.
- Asiago Chicken Pasta with Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Spinach - this sun-dried tomato pasta is made even more flavorful with the addition of Asiago cheese and spinach.
- Scallop Pasta features scallops - another protein you can use in place of chicken in a recipe that is otherwise very similar to this one.
- Creamy Mozzarella Pasta with Smoked Sausage is a great choice if you want to make the same pasta with sausage.
- Sun-Dried Tomato and Mushroom Pasta is the meatless version of this recipe.
Sun-Dried Tomato Pasta with Chicken and Creamy Mozzarella Sauce
Ingredients
- 3 garlic cloves , minced
- 4 oz sun-dried tomatoes
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 lb chicken breast tenderloins , sliced
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon paprika
- 1 cup half and half (or use ½ cup heavy cream + ½ cup milk)
- 1 cup mozzarella cheese , shredded (do not use fresh Mozzarella, use pre-shredded Mozzarella)
- 8 oz penne pasta (for gluten free, use gluten free brown rice pasta)
- 1 tablespoon basil
- ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- ½ cup reserved cooked pasta water or more
- ¼ teaspoon salt to taste
Instructions
- In a large skillet, sauté garlic and sun-dried tomatoes (drained from oil) in 2 tablespoons of olive oil (reserved from the sun-dried tomatoes jar) for 1 minute on medium heat until the garlic is fragrant.
- Remove the sun-dried tomatoes from the skillet, leaving the olive oil.
- Add sliced chicken (salted and lightly covered in paprika for color) and cook on high heat for 1 minute on each side. Remove from heat.
- Cook pasta according to package instructions. Reserve some cooked pasta water. Drain the pasta.
- Slice sun-dried tomatoes into smaller pieces and add them back to the skillet with chicken.
- To make creamy pasta sauce, add half-and-half (see substitution for half-and-half in the Recipe Notes section below) and Mozzarella cheese to the skillet, and bring to a gentle boil.
- Immediately reduce to simmer and cook, constantly stirring, until all cheese melts and creamy sauce forms.
- Add cooked and drained pasta to the skillet with the cream sauce, and stir to combine.
- Add 1 tablespoon of basil, and at least ¼ teaspoon of red pepper flakes. Stir to combine.
- If the creamy sauce is too thick: Add about ½ cup of reserved cooked pasta water to the skillet to thin it out. Do not add all of pasta water at once - you might need less or more of it.
- Season the chicken pasta with salt and more red pepper flakes, to taste, if needed. Let it simmer for a couple of minutes for flavors to combine.
- Note: Make sure to salt the dish just enough to bring out of the flavors of basil and sun-dried tomatoes.
Notes
- What is half-and-half? Substitute ½ cup of milk + ½ cup of heavy cream for 1 cup of half-and-half.
- If using sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil (in a jar), make sure to drain sun-dried tomatoes from oil, before using them. Reserve 2 tablespoons of this drained olive oil.
- Do not use fresh Mozzarella. Fresh Mozzarella is usually sold as a large ball or small balls in a brine or water solution. Do not shred fresh Mozzarella. Use pre-shredded Mozzarella cheese sold in bags.
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.
This recipe was originally published in October 2014 and updated in 2018.
I loved, loved, loved this recipe. Just superb! Thank you SO much for sharing.
Hi there Julia! I made this pasta for me and my boyfriend and I must say it was absolutely delicious!! Delicious as in the best pasta I have ever cooked!! I altered the ingredients just a little bit to much success!! I added bacon, mushroom, half parmesan cheese and mozzarella cheese (for more bite), sage, spinach and extra cream yum yum!! Thank you sooo sooo much for posting this wonderful recipe ! Will be on the eye out for more xx
Made this tonight. Added a bit of Gorgonzola and Parmesan. Amazing!
I made this last night.....and OMGoodness........the sauce, oh the sauce.....I could not keep out of. I kept taste testing just to see if it was really as eyes rolling in the back of my head delicious as I thought it was, and it was. When I get a "babe, you did real good" out of my husband....you know it's good.
I am unclear about how to cook the chicken. I'm reading it as cook it 1 min on each side with high then remove. Is that enough time for it to cook all the way? Also I only found sun dried tomatoes in a bag with no oil. Will those work on? Thank You!
Absolutely Love this dish.. I have never made a meal from scratch ever... Until i saw this post and thought i should try it... It turned out amazing.. Had a few other try it to verify the my opinion was correct..Lol.. I did tweek it a lil .. I used pepper jack cheese instead of mozzarella.. And i cooked everything seperate and when all was finished i put it all together.. It was really good. Thank u for the idea. . my kids however thght it to be a lil spicey but they are young and very picky..:-)
I followed your recipe to a T & it turned out awesome. Thanks so much for sharing. Have you tried with shrimp vs chicken?
What wine goes well with this dish?
My dish was a glob of bland, especially once the dish cooled down even a little, Have to add a lot of salt at the end. Very bland and way too thick, even with tweaking it at the end with lots of salt and splashes of the pasta water. It looks great and thanks for sharing, but my kitchen's a mess and I spent a lot of time in it.. was not what I thought it would be. Eh, it was worth the try, maybe it is just not my type of dish. Maybe substituting the mozzarella with parmesan to make more like an alfredo, it would work for me, but imo the mozzarella isn't right.
How do I make this more saucy? I made this last night, however, it just wasn't enough sauce to coat all the pasta. We liked the sauce, just wanted more of it. Also, I used milk instead of half and half.
The recipe calls for 8 oz of pasta which is half a box. A box is 16oz. Did you use 16 oz with this recipe? I doubled the ingredients and used a box of pasta and it worked. I also used half a cup of the pasta water.
Hi Julia, going to try this dish tonight but I have a question....What is a cup of half and half? Is this a typo?
half and half is a thick cream..
I made this recipe yesterday and LOVED it! For those who didn't like it due to "being to bland" or "thought it was greasy:", there is no reason that this should be the case if you followed the directions and/or season to taste. Every recipe has a "baseline"and then gets modified by the seasoning. Working with the seasoning is key here.
Made this tonight! Was very good. There was a lot of chicken... a bit too much. I was hesitant to try this recipe seeing as my boyfriend and I aren't big tomato fans... But it was great! Next time I won't be shy with those sun dried tomatoes and I'd add bacon too! I didn't have half and half on me so I substituted with milk and butter...oops. (when in doubt, cornstarch that shit haha) anyway, drooling!! The man loved it 🙂
This dish was AMAZING. I did not cook in the steps you did because it's never a good idea to put garlic in a very hot pan! I used the same ingredients, but in different steps and it was crazy good. Definitely making this one over and over. And it was not too oily at all!
Great recipe find! Made with a few mods of my own. Didn't have all the ingredients, so I subbed this for that, ect. One thing I did add was a generous teaspoon of smoked paprika. Added good smoky flavor. As they say, "recipes are a guide, baking is an exact science".