Description
This chicken pesto pasta consists of brined chicken breasts, homemade pesto and fresh fusilli pasta. Serve the pesto pasta with roasted tomatoes. Enjoy!
Ingredients
Units
Scale
- 4 chicken breasts, preferably with skin on
- 15ml (1 tbsp) oil
- 2.5ml (1/2 tsp) sea salt
- 15ml (1 tbsp) fresh thyme [optional]
- 200g (7oz) dried pasta
- 125ml (1/2 cup) pesto
- 12 cherry tomatoes
- 60ml (4 tbsp) parmesan cheese, grated
- Basil, to serve
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 230°C/450°F/gas mark 8.
- Brush the chicken with oil then season generously with sea salt. Top with your favourite herbs.
- Place the breasts on a baking sheet and bake in the oven for 15-18 minutes or until cooked. Chicken’s internal temperature should be at least 74°C/165°F, so please use a cooking thermometer to be on the safe side. Remove from the oven and let the meat rest while you’re preparing the pasta.
- While the chicken is cooking in the oven and then resting, cook pasta according to package instructions.
- Drain the pasta, then immediately return it to the same pot over a medium heat.
- Stir in the pesto and let everything heat through.
- Serve the pasta with the chicken and tomatoes. Sprinkle with basil and cheese. Enjoy!
Notes
- If you can’t find any chicken breasts with skin on, you can cook this recipe in an alternative way, as follows. Heat 15ml (1 tbsp) oil in a large frying pan. Fry the thinly sliced chicken breasts until browned. Stir in the pesto until everything is evenly distributed. At this point you can decide whether you would like to add more pesto but you can even use cream to make it more sauce. How much you use is entirely up to you. Add the cooked pasta and stir. Serve with cherry tomatoes. Enjoy!
- In this recipe I used thyme but rosemary works really well too.
- You can roast the cherry tomatoes along with the chicken. Place them in a baking pan and drizzle with oil. They take about 5 minutes to cook. The tomatoes are ready when their skins crack.
- Use as much or as little pesto as you like.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Bake
- Cuisine: Italian