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A delicious and simple Chicken Penne Pasta that is the perfect family dinner. The entire family loves it!
Whip up some Oven Roasted Veggies and Cheesy Garlic Bread to serve with this filling chicken penne pasta for the perfect dinner! Bacon Wrapped Asparagus Skewers are a great option for something extra special!!
Chicken + pasta = win
Not sure about you, but I can never have enough dinner recipes. Way too often it comes close to dinner time and I still have no clue what I’m making. Fortunately, we love pasta and always have the ingredients on hand to make it for dinner.
One of our favorite dinner recipes is out creamy penne pasta recipe. We love it so much that we decided to add chicken to it!
We all love Italian food so she knew it would be a hit. It was. In fact, it’s a new favorite and was devoured quite quickly. If you love pasta dishes with lots of cheese and delicious-ness you will want to give this one a try.
How to make chicken penne pasta
PASTA. Cook pasta according to packaged directions.
CHICKEN. Melt butter in a medium sauce pan, add chicken and cook until cooked through.
ROUX. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute over medium heat. Add flour and cook for an additional minute, stirring constantly.
SAUCE. Add milk and broth, stirring constantly. Cook until sauce boils and thickens.
CHEESE. Add parsley and parmesan cheese. Add desired salt and pepper. Continue stirring until cheese has melted. Serve immediately.
Variations
My kids all love this pasta probably because it’s so simple without a lot of extras. However, adding extras would be easy and yummy.
- Turn up the heat: Add a sprinkle of red chili flakes for some added spice
- Add spinach or kale
- Add some sun dried tomatoes
- Add broccoli florets
- Top with bacon crumbles
- Mushrooms
- Shrimp instead of chicken
- Change up the pasta shape. Any similarly sized pasta will work.
Storing Info + Bechamel Tips
Freezer meal: Pastas are among my favorite freezer meals. I typically like to double a recipe that I am already making then freeze the extra for another day. Allow the pasta to cool a bit and then place them in a freezer Ziploc. The pasta can be kept in the freezer for 3-4 months.
Thaw and then reheat on stove top. Heat it up low and slow and add a bit of milk to help revive the creamy smooth texture.
STORE leftovers in the fridge for 3-4 days or in the freezer for up to 3-4 months. Reheat on the stovetop or microwave. Add a bit of milk to help get a smooth texture.
Bechamel Tips
Béchamel is just a fancy French word for a basic white sauce. Tips for a good béchamel:
- Cook until it appears dry or like a wet sand and smells nutty, then add liquid.
- If the sauce isn’t thickening try pausing the stirring every so often. Sometimes allowing the sauce to thicken up a bit between stirs helps.
- Too thick? Add a bit more milk
- Too thin? Add a bit more wondra flour
- Using whole milk makes a creamier sauce but 2% will work
- Use warm milk as it mixes in better and don’t forget to add the milk slowly.
For more Pasta Dishes check out:
- Lemon Asparagus Pasta
- Italian Pasta Sausage
- Creamy Garlic Pasta
- Chicken Pesto Pasta
- Creamy Alfredo Pasta Bake
- Chicken Tetrazzini
Chicken Penne Pasta Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 lb penne pasta
- 4 tbsp butter
- 2 tsp minced garlic
- 3 chicken breasts cubed
- 3 tbsp all-purpose flour
- 1 cup chicken broth
- 1 cup half and half
- 1 tsp basil
- 1 cup grated parmesan cheese
- garlic salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Cook pasta according to packaged directions.
- Melt butter in a medium sauce pan, add chicken and cook until cooked through.
- Add garlic and cook for 1 minute over medium heat. Add flour and cook for an additional minute, stirring constantly.
- Add milk and broth, stirring constantly. Cook until sauce boils and thickens.
- Add parsley and parmesan cheese. Add desired salt and pepper. Continue stirring until cheese has melted. Serve immediately.
- Pour sauce over pasta and serve.
Video
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Does this recipe below still exist? The link brings me to this recipe now instead. The link below is a family favorite 🙂
https://lilluna.com/mozzarella-penne-recipe/
Thanks!
We do not have the Mozzarella Penne Pasta on the site anymore but the Chicken Penne Pasta is very similar to it. If you try it out let me know what you think. I’d love to hear if you like it more or less than the other.
It’s a Keeper 🙂
Woohoo!! Glad it is! Thank you!
Great recipe! SubstitUted ground saUsage with thinky sliced saUsage linkS. 4 teEnager approved!!
Thank you so much!! I am glad they liked it!
Very yummy and creamy!!
Thank you 🙂
Made your Mozzarella Penne last night and it turned out so yummy. Thank you for sharing this tasty recipe.????????
Oh, yay!! Thank you for letting me know 🙂 I love when it’s a hit!
Could I prepare this in the morning and keep it in the fridge until I’m ready to bake it for dinner?
Definitely! Hope you like it!! Thanks so much for stopping by!!
Awesome- I just prepped this and it is in the fridge ready to go into the oven tonight! I assume I will have to bake it closer to the 30 minutes since it will be cold from the fridge.
The only tweaks I made were using half & half instead of milk (not healthy at all, but I can’t resist using it in pasta dishes) and I only used 2 cups. My sauce thickened up just fine, it just took a long time. I also added some fresh basil that I’ve been growing. In the end everything I sampled tasted great and I can’t wait to eat the finished product! Dinner might have to be early tonight!
I can’t get my bechamel to thicken up…. advice?
Hmmm, did you cook the flour and butter for a few minutes until it was golden brown?
Mine wouldn’t thicken either. I remembered something I saw on the Chew that chef Michael Simon always says when they make bechamel….the flour and butter should look like wet sand before adding your liquid. 2 tbsps of butter and about 4 tbsps of flour in another pot, browned, and gradually added my milk that wouldn’t thicken and voilà. My 1st bechamel!
The key (for me at least) is to actually not stir constantly. It needs little breaks to thicken up. Not too long though, you don’t want it to curdle, just stop every minute or so for like 10 seconds. It works for me! It’s actually something I learned in a cooking class in high school. I was stirring without stopping for 10 minutes wondering why my sauce wasn’t getting thick. Then I was told, “you need to stop stirring so it has a chance to thicken”. Blew my mind!
Thanks so much for the tip!! Hope that helps anyone!!