One Pot Pasta

It's ALL the rage - short quick videos of recipes, and even better - make your meal in one pot! No pesky additional pots to clean!

I've done it. A pasta purist would probably cringe, as I poured dried pasta on top of cooked vegetables and chicken, and added barely enough water to cover, let it come to a boil, then drain off my excess liquid, add cream and cheese, and voila, dinner.  But hey, I only had to clean one (massive) pot and I kinda like the result.

This recipe is adapted from Tasty's One Pot Cajun Pasta to my tastes because I don't like spicy food.  Never feel beholden to a recipe word for word - I adapted the recipe to my needs.  Also because I don't really like bell peppers.

only the finest of dinnerware, from the dixie collection

One Pot Pasta adapted from Tasty's One Pot Cajun Pasta

Serves approximately four.

Ingredients:

• One chicken breast, cubed (cut it as small as you'd like)
• 8 ounces of mushrooms (I use crimini)
• Half of a medium onion, sliced and sliced in half again
• Any other vegetable you'd like to throw in (pictured is kale because it was on sale, but I also recommend asparagus, or you can use bell peppers)
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 8 oz pasta (cavatappi pictured)
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 1.5 cups water
• 0.5 cups cream (I use half and half)
• 1/2-2/3 cup of parmesan cheese
• Salt and pepper
• Dried oregano

Directions:

1. Using a large pot (I have a 4.5 quart Le Creuset) warm up the pot on the stove.
2. With one teaspoon of oil, cook mushrooms and onions together until browned. Remove from pot.
3. Throw in vegetables and brown (or if using kale, until wilted), and remove from pot
4. With a teaspoon of oil, add garlic.  Add chicken. Season with salt, pepper and 1 teaspoon of dried oregano.  Cook until no longer pink-ish.
5. Re-add all vegetables to the pot.
6. Add pasta.
7. Add chicken broth and water.  (add enough to only just cover the pasta. Do not submerge the pasta. That is too much liquid.)  Try to scrape the bottom of the pot.  
8. Cover and bring to a boil.  Stir for as long as it takes pasta to cook (cavatappi took 12 minutes.)  Liquid should reduce as you stir.
9. Remove excess broth with a ladle - you want it to be slightly wet but not overly wet, if that makes sense.  There should be about 1/4th cup of liquid left in the pot.  The excess broth should be delicious.
10. Add cream (or half and half) and stir in.
11. Add parmesan cheese slowly and stir to combine. Continue adding until sauce thickens.  It should start getting cheesy gooey stringy but not quite mac and cheese gooey.  
12. Serve!