Impromptu Chicken Alfredo Pasta Recipe

Posted on January 16, 2023  •  7 minutes  • 1408 words

A couple of nights ago I decided to try and make some “alfredo” sauce for Chicken Alfredo pasta and it was delicious so I figured I’d share my recipe here.

I’m not a cook and I don’t really measure anything so use the below as a guideline only and have fun!

Ingredients

• 1 cup of heavy cream (I actually did measure this!)
• Half of a half of a block of marble cheese so I guess 1/4 block
• Half of a block of cream cheese
• 1 inch cube of hard butter
• Olive oil
• 1 small onion
• 2 “quarter size” areas (in the palm of your hand) of Litehouse freeze dried garlic (love this stuff!)
• 2 “quarter size” areas (in the palm of your hand) of salt
• I dunno maybe 16-20 twists of a black pepper grindy thingie
• Pasta. I used Olivieri 3 Formaggi Fresh Pasta Tortellini pre-made pasta from Walmart. It comes in a two pack where one pack is one serving (more on that later)
• Leftover Costco rotisserie chicken, chunked

Preparation

1. Cut up an onion into small squares/pieces. I guess this is what’s known as dicing
2. Cry a little for the onion’s sacrifice to give you sustenance
3. Make your marble cheese smaller so it melts better
   • Realise your grater is dirty in the dishwasher and you don’t want to quickly wash it manually because that’s why you have a dishwasher so use a knife to cut the marble cheese into small pieces
4. Cut the cream cheese into small pieces
5. Realise that cream cheese will reform itself back into larger pieces when it touches other pieces of cream cheese
6. Try to chop it again into small pieces and get annoyed
7. Give up and chop it into a couple of smaller chunks while using the same precautions as keeping matter and anti-matter from coming into contact with each other
8. Clean hands because cream cheese has found it’s way everywhere and you hate sticky mushy stuff on your hands

Doing the Thing To Make The Sauce/Pasta

1. Heat a large cast-iron skillet* on medium heat. When it’s getting hot add the cube of hard butter and swish it around to coat the pan
   • *Or whatever pan you have really. You don’t have to go buy a cast-iron skillet just for this. I just like using cast-iron but if you wanna go stainless steel, copper, T-Fal, Rock, whatever, you do you. Hell a flat rock heated over an open flame might even work I don’t bloody know, not a chef remember? You need a surface to mix these things together on and heat
   • We now return to your regularly scheduled instructions
2. Add the onion and keep it moving around every 30 seconds to a minute with a spatula to keep it from burning
3. After about 2-3 minutes, add 1 of your “quarters” of salt, 1 of your “quarters” of garlic, and 8-10 twists of your pepper grindy thingie
4. Mix that all in with the onions with your spatula. Remember to keep the onion moving
5. After about 10-ish minutes the onions should be a lovely brown colour with a soft texture. Maybe. Heat varies and I have time blindness so… make onions brown and soft. Scoop them out of the pan and into a waiting bowl for safe keeping
6. Reduce the heat to halfway between low and medium, which is medium-low heat I guess
7. Pour in some olive oil. How much? I dunno use your discretion. I made a circle about 3 inches wide
8. Swish the olive oil around to coat the pan
9. Pour in the heavy cream
10. Realise you should probably keep this moving
11. Panic look for your whisk
12. Start whisking the heavy cream in circles to keep it moving. Go with a speed of like 2 wrist up-downs per second
13. After 2-ish minutes, add the onions into the sauce and keep whisking
14. After 1-ish minute, add the second “quarter” of salt. Say “ooooo” as you notice the cream bubble where the salt hits it
15. Break out into song inspired by Journey

16. Add the second “quarter” of garlic
17. Use the remaining 8-10 twists of ye old pepper grindy
18. Whisk some more
19. After another 3-ish minutes (cream should have been heating/whisking for about 6-7 minutes at this point) remove the pan from heat
20. Wander around the kitchen for a bit before you settle on a place to lay the hot skillet down. Keep whisking
21. Keep wandering around the kitchen while you look for a trivet for the hot skillet. Keep whisking
22. Finally set down the skillet on the trivet. Keep whisking
23. Add the grated/cut up marble cheese
24. Keep whisking until cheese is melted/incorporated
25. STOP whisking
26. Add the cream cheese, careful not to put it in the same spot. You don’t want this stuff to touch!
27. Realise cream cheese melts a lot slower than other cheeses
28. Start to whisk only to realise that the cream cheese will just mash itself into the whisk so stop doing that nonsense immediately or you’ll end up with cream cheese in your whisk and not in your sauce
29. Put the skillet back on the heat
30. Use a spatula to start folding the cream cheese into the heavy cream/cheese mixture
31. Realise the sauce is almost ready and you didn’t start the pasta yet
32. Start boiling that water. Thankfully you have an induction plate so this is relatively quick
33. Keep folding that cream cheese in, it should be melting pretty well now
34. Add one pack of pasta to the boiling water
35. Think it doesn’t look like much pasta for 2 people… 🤔 decide to add the second pack of pasta as well
36. Think now it looks like too much pasta 😕 but too late now ¯\(ツ)/¯
37. Remove the sauce from heat again. Keep folding/moving the sauce around. The sauce will be thiccc at this point
38. Pasta takes 6-8 minutes. Use directions on package, but want the pasta to be “al dente” because it will cook a little bit more when we add it to the sauce. I don’t know who Al Dente is but I kept asking the pasta what it’s name was and it never did answer me so I just used it after the recommended 6-8 minutes
39. Realise you should have started the pasta earlier
40. When the pasta is almost ready, remember that you were going to have “chicken" alfredo and you forgot about the chicken
41. Panic cut up some chicken into small chunks, taking breaks every 20-30 seconds to move the sauce around in the skillet
42. Strain the pasta, but save a half cup of pasta water. You don’t need all this pasta water though!
43. Put the sauce back on the heat
44. Add the pasta to the sauce and fold it into the pasta
45. Add the chicken to the sauce and fold it into the pasta. This will be a VERY thick hard to move mixture at this point. If you ate it like this it would probably solidify into a solid mass in your stomach requiring surgery to remove. You could probably add it to a mold and make bricks out of it tbh
46. Start slowly pouring the pasta water into the sauce while folding with the spatula. Take your time because the mixture will go from very thick to runny again quickly
47. When you have a consistency you like, stop adding pasta water
48. Keep stirring/folding/incorporating for a few minutes to make sure all the pasta and chicken have had a chance to meet the sauce, get to know each other, have a little chat, wonder where Al Dente is, maybe get a little jiggy with it
49. Serve and enjoy!

Post Eating Notes

• Is all this sauce moving needed? No idea I’m not a cook remember but it worked for me so…
• Two packs of the pasta were PLENTY for two people. Realistically probably should have only added the single pack but it was delicious and we ate all of what I made so no regerts
• I need to work on my cooking planning so I’m not as panicked (yea that’s never going to happen)
• This pasta dish is probably absolutely TERRIBLE for you but it was delicious and I don’t plan on having it every night/week so live your life, eat the pasta
• Let me know if you try this and what you think!

Thanks so much for reading ^‿^

Claire

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