Easy Chicken & Pasta Bake With Alfredo Sauce will become your new staple one-pot pasta dish. Cheesy creamy pasta is loaded with simple ingredients like penne pasta, chicken, and creamy alfredo sauce. Customize it even further by adding veggies such as broccoli, peas, and spices. It is easy to throw together which makes it a great weeknight meal.
We like to serve the simple Chicken Alfredo Bake with a fresh green salad or Caesar salad, with dinner rolls, garlic bread, or some roasted veggies - beets, carrots, asparagus, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower.
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Ingredients
- It’s an excellent fridge-cleaner dish as you can incorporate many veggies, and use leftover chicken dinner in this pasta bake. Everything goes in already cooked and you just have to bake it until the cheese is melty and bubbly. The whole family will love the flavor with or without the extra veggies. Although the homemade alfredo sauce is the star ingredient in this dish.
- Penne pasta - just like in our Fajita Pasta we like to use simple penne or fusilli, rotini, and ziti pasta types for our pasta bakes. These tubular pastas are great for thick sauces and the ridged ones hold up the sauce even more. Essentially any small pasta with nooks and crannies is your best bet here.
- Alfredo sauce - a simple sauce made with milk, butter, flour, and cream. This is the world’s easiest homemade sauce to make and you should have 0 excuses to not make it on your own. Jarred versions are bad for you and contain GMO and favorite enhancers that are just not needed at all.
- Chicken - leftover chicken or rotisserie chicken from the store can be used here. However, I prefer making it fresh and cutting it into bite-size pieces. I do love boneless skinless chicken breasts but chicken thighs are always better than white meat thanks to their moist and tender texture.
- Whole milk and cream make the best delicious sauce - using both of these combined, will give you the creamiest, richest results. You can certainly use half and half instead of the heavy whipping cream or use more milk instead, but the result is slightly different.
- Cheese - as this dish holds the title of the best comfort food (in our house at least, well like many other pasta bakes) you should not hold yourself from using plenty of gooey melty cheeses. And here we need to use at least two types - good parmesan cheese (or similar hard cheese is fine too) and mozzarella. For convenience's sake, you can use pre-grated packaged cheeses but I prefer buying a ball of mozzarella and grating it myself. It melts beautifully!
- Garlic - in theory, you can skip this but it gives the alfredo sauce that needed a kick of flavor and makes it not too bland. I used just 1 ½ teaspoon of mixed garlic but feel free to double it, especially if you know the garlic that you’ll be using is not so strong.
For the full list of ingredients, please scroll down to where you'll find the recipe card.
Loving this easy one-pot recipe? Try our other family favorites such as Chicken Fajita Pasta, lazy man Cabbage Soup and of course TikTok's viral spicy vodka pasta.
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Cook the pasta according to the package directions. Use leftover chicken or pan-fry boneless skinless chicken breasts or thighs for a couple of minutes until done and cooked through.
Melt the butter in a large pan over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Whisk in the flour and cook for 1 minute.
Pour in the milk and cream in batches, then simmer, whisking constantly, until the sauce has just thickened. The sauce is ready when it coats the back of a wooden spoon.
Season with salt and black pepper.
Remove from the heat and stir in parmesan. Stir continuously until cheese is melted.
In a large bowl combine pasta, and chicken and pour in the sauce. Combine and mix well until all the paste is nicely coated in the sauce mixture.
Grease a baking dish (I used 8x11) lightly with oil or butter. Transfer half of the pasta mixture to the dish and top with 1 cup of mozzarella cheese. Repeat with one more layer of pasta and cheese.
Bake for 20 minutes (uncovered), until cheese is melted and golden brown.
Serve with fresh parsley.
Tips
- Cooking this pasta dish for less servings is totally doable. Divide the main ingredients in half and bake in a smaller baking dish. The baking time may be slightly reduced to avoid overcooking.
- More herbs can be sued in the pasta such as marjoram, thyme, rosemary, oregano, and basil. Anything Italian will work here.
- Increase your veggie intake by adding blanched broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, or spinach (frozen or fresh) right before baking.
- As the ingredients are going in already cooked, such as pasta and chicken, I recommend keeping an eye on the bake. Avoid overcooking the pasta as it becomes mushy and soggy very quickly absorbing too much sauce when baking.
- Don’t forget to salt your pasta water when cooking the pasta. The same goes for chicken, season chicken with salt and pepper while cooking.
Freezing and Storing Instructions
You can make ahead the pasta bake, cover it and keep it in the fridge for 30 minutes or 1 hour. But pasta will start to absorb the sauce and may be overcooked once in the oven. It only takes a couple of minutes to assemble this dish so try to make it as fresh as it comes.
For storing. Any leftovers can be stored in the same casserole or an airtight container in the fridge for 2-3 days. Pasta will absorb the sauce as it sits and additional Alfredo will be needed during baking. Reheat in a warm oven until just warmed through. Or reheat individual portions in the oven.
I don’t recommend freezing leftovers as the pasta will become soggy and mushy once thawed.
Sides For Chicken Alfredo
What to serve with Chicken Alfredo Pasta?
We like to serve a variety of dishes with this recipe. Some of our favorites include:
- a fresh green salad or Caesar salad
- with dinner rolls, garlic bread, and focaccia bread.
- roasted veggies - beets, carrots, asparagus. As your oven will be busy, we like to make the side dish in Air Fryer such as crispy Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, or spicy jalapeno poppers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, in this recipe we need to cook pasta al dente and then add the sauce and bake it. You can definitely bake raw pasta directly in the oven with the right amount of liquid. However, this method usually ends up with soggy pasta because you can't control the cooking time of the pasta. After removing the pasta bake from the oven, it continues to cook even more and absorbs the sauce making the pasta too large and soft. This is also a reason I don't like to cook raw pasta in soups.
The reason why we cook the pasta al dente before baking is that it doesn't overcook in the oven later. The pasta should be soft but still quite firm before adding it to the casserole. Also, it helps the pasta to absorb just the right amount of creamy sauce without making the pasta too thick and soft.
There can be a couple of reasons why it's dry. Not correct oven temperatures (also every oven is different), too much pasta and too little sauce, pasta is overcooked before adding to the casserole. For this recipe, we only bake it for 20 minutes and I don't cover it, however, if in past you have not been successful with pasta bakes, just cover it with aluminum foil and perhaps cook for extra minutes than stated in the recipe.
The easiest way and what I'd do is to make another batch of the same sauce. Stir it in the pasta and bake along with the melted cheese. Or another way is to stir in pasta some warm milk or cream, melted butter, or good olive oil.
Thank you so much for reading about chicken & pasta bake. Please feel free to comment with any questions you may have! I love reading your feedback.
Rita
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If you love pasta bakes and casserole recipes, you should definitely try one of these next time.
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Easy Chicken & Pasta Bake With Alfredo Sauce
Ingredients
- 10 ounces penne pasta cooked al dente
- 3 cups diced cooked chicken
- 3 tablespoons butter or ghee
- 2 tablespoons flour gluten-free if using
- 1 ½ teaspoons minced garlic
- 1 cup whole milk
- 2 cups heavy cream
- ¾ cup grated parmesan cheese
- 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese divided use
- salt and pepper to taste
- cooking spray
- 2 tablespoon parsley chopped
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Cook the pasta according to the package directions. Use leftover chicken or pan-fry boneless skinless chicken breasts or thighs for a couple of minutes until done and cooked through.
- Melt the butter in a large pan over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Whisk in the flour and cook for 1 minute.
- Pour in the milk and cream in batches, then simmer, whisking constantly, until the sauce has just thickened. The sauce is ready when it coats the back of a wooden spoon.
- Season with salt and black pepper.
- Remove from the heat and stir in parmesan. Stir continuously until cheese is melted.
- In a large bowl combine pasta, and chicken and pour in the sauce. Combine and mix well until all the paste is nicely coated in the sauce mixture.
- Grease a baking dish (I used 8x11) lightly with oil or butter. Transfer half of the pasta mixture to the dish and top with 1 cup of mozzarella cheese. Repeat with one more layer of pasta and cheese.
- Bake for 20 minutes (uncovered), until cheese is melted and golden brown.
- Serve with fresh parsley.
Notes
- Cooking this pasta dish for less servings is totally doable. Divide the main ingredients in half and bake in a smaller baking dish. The baking time may be slightly reduced to avoid overcooking.
- More herbs can be sued in the pasta such as marjoram, thyme, rosemary, oregano, and basil. Anything Italian will work here.
- Increase your veggie intake by adding blanched broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, or spinach (frozen or fresh) right before baking.
- Why is my pasta bake dry? There can be a couple of reasons why it's dry. Not correct oven temperatures (also every oven is different), too much pasta and too little sauce, pasta is overcooked before adding to the casserole. For this recipe, we only bake it for 20 minutes and I don't cover it, however, if in past you have not been successful with pasta bakes, just cover it with aluminum foil and perhaps cook for extra minutes than stated in the recipe.
- How do you fix a dry pasta casserole? The easiest way and what I'd do is to make another batch of the same sauce. Stir it in the pasta and bake along with the melted cheese. Or another way is to stir in pasta some warm milk or cream, melted butter, or good olive oil.
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Easy classic creamy sauce pasta bake with chicken. Great for any occasion.