Easy Green Chile Chicken Pasta is a complete meal for 2-3 people that can be thrown together in 15 minutes, simple to tailor to your family’s tastes
This Easy Green Chile Chicken Pasta was an obvious and failproof recipe to come up with. I happened to have a package of Knorr Creamy Garlic Shells that looked like a great starter for a 1-dish meal, especially combined with a can of canned chicken breast from Costco. Costco has its Kirkland brand of chicken breast that comes in a six-pack of 12.5 oz cans.
Right now, I’m also making plans for two 5-day camping trips in September, one in northern California and the other in Telluride. This dish is ideal for camping as all the ingredients don’t need to be refrigerated and to cook the dish, you just mix the half dozen ingredients in a saucepan on a camping stove and it’s ready in less than 15 minutes. I’ve used Knorr products plenty of times before, so I expected this mix to be a promising start. Once I tasted it before adding seasonings, I found it to be rather bland; I couldn’t really taste the garlic. On the other hand, the consistency was good, so I seasoned it to taste and it turned out really well.
I’m not particularly excited about pasta in cream sauce, even with really good chicken in it; it’s just not very interesting. But when you add seasonings and vegetables you can turn it into a quite satisfying meal. In this case I happened to have fresh mushrooms and frozen peas which I thought were very complementary. I have more of the Kirkland canned chicken, so I’m planning to make it again on the next camping trip, but I’ll use a 15 oz can of peas instead. I’ll leave out the fresh mushrooms because they don’t pack very well. For seasonings, I added cumin, garlic powder and the McCormick Grill Mates Bacon Chipotle flakes. The cumin and garlic definitely enhanced the dish; but it was the Bacon Chipotle that made this truly distinctive. If you want to keep it really simple, just rely on the Bacon Chipotle flakes.
The Knorr Creamy Garlic Shells is just a single serving package, but with the added chicken and peas it can serve three to four people. Hope you like it!
- 1 12.5 oz can chicken breast (such as Kirkland or Kroger)
- Juice from canned chicken (about ½ cup)
- 1 cup milk
- ½ cup water
- 1 package Knorr Creamy Garlic Shells
- 1 cup frozen peas or 1 15 oz can peas, drained
- ¼ tsp cumin
- ¼ tsp garlic
- ¼ tsp McCormick Bacon Chipotle seasoning + more for topping.
- ¼ cup diced green chiles
- optional: ½ cup sliced mushrooms (canned is ok)
- optional: 2 tbsp sour cream for added richness.
- In saucepan on stove, combine the chicken broth, milk and water and bring to a boil.
- Dump in the package of Creamy Garlic Shells (and mushrooms if you want), reduce heat to slight boil and cook 12 to 15 minutes, covered, until shells are soft.
- Stir in the chicken, green chile, peas, and seasonings and blend well, adjusting seasonings to taste. If desired, stir in sour cream.
- Sprinkle with Bacon Chipotle Seasoning and serve.
Leave a Reply