Recipes and Resolutions: Quick and Easy Chicken and Broccoli “Alfredo”

This is a great meal for nights when you need a quick one.

I love chicken and broccoli alfredo, and my kids love chicken/pasta/broccoli with olive oil and garlic. Last year I found this “cheat” recipe for chicken and broccoli alfredo in a magazine, and my family really liked it. We’ve made it often since then, and I made it last night. It’s a great meal for a night you need something fast. Because of the things I’ve learned to keep in the house most of the time, I almost always have pasta on my pantry shelves, chicken tenders and a bag of frozen broccoli florets in the freezer, as well as cream of mushroom soup on the shelf. You can use any kind of pasta. I’ve used egg noodles in the past. This time we used whole wheat spaghetti. You can throw in mushrooms if you have them, which we did, so I sliced them up, sauteed them, and threw them in.

Here’s the recipe:

INGREDIENTS

Cooked pasta

1 cup fresh or frozen broccoli florets: we used a whole bag of frozen but we have used fresh in the past as well.

2 TBSP Butter

1 lb skinless boneless chicken breasts cut into 1 1/2″ pieces: we use the frozen boneless skinless chicken tenders, maybe five or six of them.

1 can Campbell’s Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup (any variety like regular fat free etc.)

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup grated parm cheese

1/4 cup ground black pepper

Optional: sliced fresh mushrooms that he sauteed first.

DIRECTIONS:

1) Prepare pasta according to package directions. Add broccoli during last four minutes of cooking time. (We just nuked the frozen broccoli and threw it in the mix at the end.) Drain pasta and broccoli well in colander.

2) Heat butter in 10″ skillet over medium high heat. Add chicken and cook til well browned, stirring often.

3) Stir soup, milk, cheese, black pepper and linguine mixture into skillet. Cook until mixture is hot and boiling. Pour over pasta and broccoli (and mushrooms) and serve with additional Parmesan cheese.