EASY Lemony Chicken Pasta Bake

Hey, I’m John Kanell, and today we’re making an easy, amazing lemony chicken pasta bake from my new book, Preppy Kitchen Super Easy. So let’s get started.

Season and Sear the Chicken

First off, we’re going to grab four boneless, skinless chicken breasts and season all over with salt, garlic powder, and pepper. We’re also going to set our oven to 350 °F so it’s nice and hot.

Under-seasoned chicken makes me sad—by the way—little more garlic powder. My chicken’s nicely seasoned, so now we’re going to grab 2 tablespoons of olive oil and an oven-safe pot or Dutch oven and get to work. Pop it over medium heat and get this oil nice and shimmery.

Prep the Vegetables

While my oil heats up and the chicken cooks, we’re going to do a little bit of prep work. I have half of a large sweet onion here, and we’re going to give it a nice slice. We’re going to grab two squash—these actually came from the garden today—slice them in half lengthwise and give them a chop as well. Beautiful, mostly uniform half-moons, about ¼ inch thick.

Sometimes when I’m really busy but still want to make a recipe for dinner, I do the prep work whenever I have a few minutes. So in the morning, after I have my coffee, I’ll slice some vegetables and pop them into the fridge, and I’ll continue prepping as the day goes on. When it’s time to make dinner, I can just do the final bit, and it’s still done, and I’m not stressing out at the end of the day when we’re tired and there’s no time and people are hungry.

Brown the Chicken

Add your chicken onto the hot pan and let it cook undisturbed for about 8 minutes. You know it’s going to be done when it releases from the pan and it doesn’t stick—it’s beautiful and golden. While that cooks, I’m finishing up my prep, so cut your other squash.

This is one of the recipes from the book where it’s a meal that I make at home that everybody loves, and it has these light, bright, easy flavors. The lemon in here with the tomatoes—so good. Everything cooks in one pan, and it is like no cleanup, easy, and delicious.

There are two lemons in this recipe: one’s going to be sliced, and the other is squeezed and zested. So just cut it into nice rounds. My final bit of prep is just to grab the other lemon, give it a good roll, all washed, so we’re going to give it a zest, pop that into a small bowl, cut it in half, and we’re going to juice it. Now all the flavor has been extracted from that lemon.

Okay, let’s check our chicken—beautiful. This needs to cook for about 5 more minutes. In the meantime, grab some rosemary and give it a chop. I only need about a tablespoon of this rosemary. This is one of those plants where, no matter where I am, I will gently caress it like this, walking around, and give it a sniff—I love the smell.

A few minutes later, and my chicken is golden and beautiful on both sides. Don’t worry about it being cooked all the way through; it’s going to go into the oven. We’re just browning it right now.

Build the Sauce

Now we’re going to set this back over medium heat, add 2 more tablespoons of olive oil, and our onion. We’re going to cook this for about 3 minutes while stirring frequently. We want the onions to soften up and also absorb some of that delicious flavor from the chicken.

My onions have softened up, so now we’re going to add our squash in and cook this for about 5 minutes while stirring occasionally. We want the squash to begin to brown, and they’re going to release so much water it’s going to prevent the onions from burning, which is nice.

If you want to change this dish and make it vegetarian, it’s so easy: you’re going to swap out veggie broth later on, but instead of the chicken, you could use white beans, acorn squash, butternut squash, chickpeas—really anything that’s hearty that’s going to give you some nice flavor and protein.

My squash is browning, so now I’m going to add ½ cup of white wine. This gives you a lovely flavor and also deglazes the pan. Now we’re going to add 1 teaspoon of salt and about ½ teaspoon of cracked black pepper. Add 4 cups of chicken stock as well as my lovely lemon zest and juice. We’re going to bring this to a boil and then add 1 pound of pasta. I like to use fusilli for this—it really grabs the sauce well—but any short pasta will work.

We’re going to cook this, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes or until the pasta begins to soften. You’re not cooking it through because it will go into the oven, and that would be really unfortunate. It should be nice and perfectly cooked when it comes out. This is going to be packed with flavor because we’re not cooking the pasta in nicely salted water; it’s being cooked in this beautiful brown broth full of flavor.

Finish and Bake

I have these beautiful cherry tomatoes right now. I’m just going to halve them. These will get tossed right in. If you want, you can grab some more cherry tomatoes and roast them separately—they’ll look really pretty on top, almost as garnish. That’s what we did for the book cover. If you don’t care about that, just toss them in, and it’ll be delicious, and you could add more. I would just urge you to find really delicious ones; these are like candy.

My pasta has softened nicely, so remove from heat, and now we’re going to stir in ½ cup of ricotta—so creamy, it really softens out all the acidity from the lemon juice. We’re also going to stir in our beautiful halved cherry tomatoes.

We are so close. All we have to do is arrange our chicken breasts right on top. I’m also adding an optional handful of whole cherry tomatoes. I’m also topping this with three sprigs of rosemary for some lovely flavor, and last but not least, those slices of lemon.

Now we’re ready to pop this into the oven, so grab your lid or some foil to cover it up. We want it to stay nice and moist; otherwise, it’ll get really crunchy, dry pasta, which is not delicious. It needs to cook for about 30 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through. You can temp it if you’re unsure.

Rest and Serve

Out of the oven, and look at this—very steamy but so fragrant and delicious. I love the way it looks, too. You’re going to let this rest for about 10 minutes. The pasta will continue to absorb water, and the chicken needs to rest as well.

Once it has rested, you’re going to finish this off with beautiful dollops of ricotta. You can have this in the pan or as you serve it. Over that ricotta, we can add a little bit of flaky salt for flavor, some more pepper, and a scant drizzle of olive oil.

I think we did a pretty good job—it looks so good. Oh my gosh, I wish you could smell this. Mmm, that is lemony, creamy, perfect, and just so hearty and delicious. I hope you get a chance to make this recipe from my new book.