Easy, Italian-style recipe: Sun-dried Tomato and Mushroom Pasta in a Garlic and Basil Cream Sauce. Enjoy this meatless pasta as is, or serve it with grilled chicken or grilled veggies!
If you're looking for a delicious and easy-to-make pasta recipe to add to your weekly/monthly recipe rotation, try this sun-dried tomato and mushroom pasta in a garlic and basil creamy sauce. The combination of flavors in this dish is SO GOOD, it's pure comfort food that you will be tempted to eat right out of the pan:
The fettuccine pasta is tossed with sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, mushrooms, and basil in a very tasty, creamy and velvety sauce.
This Italian-inspired dish is great served with garlic bread on the side. And a big fresh salad. And please, don't forget about a glass of wine.
I've been eating the leftovers for 3 days now, and the pasta + the sauce still taste just great! The pasta is best reheated in a pan, on medium heat, with a little bit of milk added gradually to thin the sauce as it gets reheated.
This delicious, meatless pasta dish is TOTALLY WORTH making it!
Sun-dried tomato and mushroom pasta in a garlic and basil sauce
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 8 oz mushrooms sliced
- 3 garlic cloves minced
- 3.5 oz sun-dried tomatoes diced
- 2 chicken bouillon cubes (use Vegetarian "Chicken" Bouillon for vegetarian version)
- 2 cups water
- ½ cup half and half
- ½ cup heavy cream
- ½ cup Parmesan cheese shredded
- 1 tablespoon dried basil or up to 2 tablespoons minced fresh basil
- ½ lb fettuccine pasta
Instructions
- Heat olive oil on medium-high heat, add sliced mushrooms and garlic - and cook the vegetables for about 3 minutes. Add diced sun-dried tomatoes. Reduce heat.
- Dissolve 2 cubes of chicken bouillon in 2 cups of boiling water. Carefully add the broth to the skillet - continue to cook the vegetables in a chicken broth on medium heat until the mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes absorb some of the broth and the broth reduces somewhat. Add half and half, heavy cream and bring to boil just for a short moment. Add Parmesan cheese and cook the sauce, stirring, for a couple of minutes, on low-medium heat until the cheese melts. Add the basil.
- If your sauce is too thick at this point - add another ½ cup half and half. If your sauce looks thin to you - do not continue simmering the sauce to thicken it as you will be adding pasta shortly (in the next step) - and pasta will absorb some of the sauce liquid. Even if the sauce looks thin now, it will not be so thin once you add pasta.
- Cook fettuccine al dente according to the package instruction. Drain and rinse in cold water (this will stop the cooking). Add the fettuccine into the sauce and continue cooking the sauce with the pasta in it, on medium heat, for a couple of minutes (or more - to achieve the desired thickness) stirring constantly to coat well.
- Note: do not add salt to the creamy sauce because it should already be salty enough from the dissolved chicken cubes. Only in the very end when the sauce is done, you may add some 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.
Thank you for this recipe. My wife called it a keeper, as did I. After reading some of the comments, I cut back on the liquids, by skipping the half and half. Other tweaks include using bowtie pasta and adding a pinch of cayenne.
Cheers.
Ric, I’m so happy to hear it was a keeper for both of you! Love the tweaks you made — bowtie pasta and a pinch of cayenne sound like great additions. 🙂
Can this be frozen?
Hi Judy, I do not recommend freezing creamy dishes as they lose their texture, the sauce gets grainy and separates once thawed.
Definitely tasty but I took on board the comment about perhaps thickening with cornflour. I used a dessert spoonful in a little of the cream and this thickened it sufficiently. I also added some cut up rotisserie chicken for my carnivore other half. I used single cream instead of the combination. I think that next time, I will experiment with a cup and a half of broth rather than 2. The last comment I have is that next time I will put the fettuccine on the plates and add the sauce mixture to it. Dishing it up a la recipe wasn’t easy with the pasta included.
Thank you, Chris, for your super helpful feedback and the tips on how to make this better! 🙂
Can I skip the cheese. I hate cheese. Thanks
Hi Debbie! If you skip cheese, use just 1/2 cup of very strong chicken broth (for flavor) - using chicken bouillon cubes. And, use only heavy cream (no half-and-half). Start with 1/2 cup and then add more if needed.
Another alternative is using a slurry (roux) of butter and flour to thicken up the chicken broth (in that case, use only 1 cup of chicken broth). Then, gradually add heavy cream.
Followed to the recipe once I converted the measurements into uk format and it turned out perfect. Thanks
I cooked this last night for dinner. It was delicious. All the ingredients work well together. I'm having some more in half an hour for lunch. Very nice. Thank you.
Can’t i use real broth instead of cubes ? And what about the seasoned oil in jar of sun-dried tomatoes?
sounds good but id like to know can something be done to cut calories
Hi Ann, you could try using half-and-half or low-fat milk and thicken it with a little cornstarch or a flour roux (slurry). You can also cut the cheese amount in half. I really need to make a lower-calorie version of this recipe so I can share it with everyone—it's definitely on my to-do list now!
Could you use evaporated milk instead of heavy cream?
Hi Scot! Yes, you can!
If I want to add protein via a meat option, would you suggest chicken, sausage (ground or link), or ground beef?
Kim
What happened to the salad that was posted!