Spicy Creamy Chicken Pasta

This Spicy Creamy Chicken Pasta is made with grilled chicken with lots of cajun spice lying on a bed of creamy lemon pasta. It's absolutely irresistible and such an easy weeknight dinner. It's gonna be awesome.

As the person who does all the cooking in my house, I often wonder if the fact that humans need to eat several times a day isn't a terrible evolutionary flaw. Wouldn't it be much easier if, like big cats, if we only ate one big meal every week and then just got on with other things the rest of the time? It could really free us up for so many other amazing things.

But then there's the side of me that really derives a lot of pleasure from eating (if not from washing dishes). Sometimes I wish I was acceptable to eat something every hour because there's so much great food to be explored and enjoyed. But our stupid bodies can't process that much deliciousness without becoming unhealthy. Sometimes it feels like we can't win. These paradoxical thoughts are when I know I need to ground into my gratitude practice. Just be thankful for what you have.

What makes this Spicy Creamy Chicken Pasta so awesome?

I can tell you that this Spicy Creamy Chicken Pasta is definitely something you're going to want to eat again and again. It's so flavorful, with just the right amount of spice and the contrasting acidic punch from the lemony pasta sauce. I just couldn't get enough.

And it gets bonus points for being easy to make. The chicken is heavily seasoned with cajun spice, so it doesn't need marinating, and the sauce comes together really easily as well. If you've planned ahead to make sure you have all the ingredients you'll need, you can easily put this on the table on a weeknight.

And you can always make extra chicken to add to other dishes if you're only feeding a few people. I recommend only making the amount of pasta you'll eat on the first go 'round. Cream sauces don't reheat very well. That chicken, though, would be great in wraps and sandwiches throughout the week, so go ahead and cook the entire package.

Magical Properties of Lemons

There are plenty of spices in this dish if you want to work with that fire energy, but lemons bring a balancing moon energy to the dish that makes it sing. If you're making this dish at the end of a long work day, you may want to call on the cleansing and rejuvenating energy of lemon. It also carries an uplifting energy of happiness and can be used in spells for friendship and love. So let the lemon in this dish give you a bit of an awakening and a joyful burst of energy.

For more on the magical properties of the ingredients in this recipe, check out the Kitchen Magick page.

Ingredients

Here's everything you'll need to make this recipe. The full details are in the recipe card below.

• Linguine - or fettucine or other long thick pasta
• Mini chicken fillets - also called chicken tenders
• Cajun seasoning
• Parmesan cheese
• Salt and pepper
• Garlic - chopped or paste
• Butter - salted is fine, whatever you've got
• Crushed red pepper flakes
• Lemon juice - bottled is fine
• Chicken stock - I use stock cubes, use whatever you have available
• Double cream - aka heavy cream
• Fresh parsley - not necessary but very nice

Tips for making Spicy Creamy Chicken Pasta

There are a couple of components going on here, but we're going to cook the sauce in the same pan as the chicken, so clean up is not the end of the world. First off, you want to get a good coating of spices onto your chicken, so use your tongs to transfer your mini fillets to a mixing bowl, then toss them together with the Cajun seasoning and Parmesan cheese. Then you'll sautee them in butter until cooked through and stash the chicken on a plate until you're ready to bring everything together.

In the same skillet, you'll add more butter, along with your garlic and chili flakes. Let that cook for a minute until fragrant to infuse the butter with that good flavor. Then add in the chicken stock and cream. I also like to add another pinch of cajun seasoning, or just toss in any remaining seasoning from the chicken. Let this come to a bubble and simmer gently to thicken. Then we'll stir in a bunch of Parmesan cheese.

And of course, in the background of all this, we were letting our pasta become al dente. When you're ready to serve, toss your pasta in the sauce, then plate it up and add generous portions of chicken on top of each bed of creamy pasta.

If you're ready for something truly awesome on a weeknight, you've just gotta make this Spicy Creamy Chicken Pasta. I can't wait to have it again.

Looking for more awesome pasta recipes? Try this Orzo Pasta with Bacon & Peas or some Sun-Dried Tomato Chicken Pasta.

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Recipe slightly adapted from Half Baked Harvest.