Smoked Mozzarella Chicken With Pasta

We did our not-Valentine dinner on Saturday and I made pasta carbonara, which is one of those recipes that sounds impressive and costs almost nothing. A box of spaghetti, four eggs, a hunk of Parmesan, and half a pound of pancetta I splurged on at Jewel — the whole thing was maybe nine dollars. The technique is the trick: you pull the pasta off the heat and work fast so the eggs emulsify rather than scramble. Ryan watched me do it and said it looked like a chemistry experiment. He is not wrong. It worked perfectly and we ate it with candlelight and a cheap bottle of wine and it was better than any restaurant we could have gone to for four times the price.

Ryan is on a 24-on, 48-off rotation and the rhythm of our life builds around it. When he is at the firehouse, I batch cook and stay up too late reading and call my mom back at a reasonable hour. When he is home, we actually sit down for meals instead of eating standing over the counter. I have started thinking of my cooking as falling into two categories: solo sustenance and together food — things worth setting the table for.

This week at school: one of my students who has struggled with transitions all year walked himself to speech therapy for the first time without a prompt. His aide came back and told me and we both just stood there for a second. Progress in special ed does not always look dramatic. Sometimes it looks like a seven-year-old walking down a hall by himself because he finally knows he can.

The blog post this week is carbonara with a section on the science of emulsification, because I think people are scared of it and they should not be. The only thing that ruins carbonara is a hot pan. Take it off the heat, add your egg mixture, stir fast. That is all of it. Under ten dollars. Nicer than anything you would order out.

The carbonara worked because I stopped being afraid of it—and this smoked mozzarella chicken pasta works for exactly the same reason. It’s the kind of dish that belongs in the “together food” category, the kind worth setting the table for, the kind Ryan will watch me make and probably say something like that smells incredible on a 48-off night. One skillet, real ingredients, the sort of melty, smoky payoff that feels like a restaurant but costs like a Tuesday. If you’ve already made your peace with emulsification, this one will feel easy.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 25 min | Total Time: 40 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

1 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch pieces
8 oz penne or rigatoni pasta
4 oz smoked mozzarella, diced
2 tbsp olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
1/4 cup fresh basil leaves, torn
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp kosher salt, plus more to taste
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 cup reserved pasta water

Instructions

Cook the pasta. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook pasta according to package directions until al dente. Before draining, scoop out 1/4 cup pasta water and set aside. Drain and reserve.
Sear the chicken. Pat chicken pieces dry and season with salt and pepper. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken in a single layer and cook, undisturbed, for 3–4 minutes until golden. Flip and cook another 3–4 minutes until cooked through. Transfer to a plate.
Build the sauce. Reduce heat to medium. Add garlic and red pepper flakes to the same skillet; cook 30 seconds, stirring constantly, until fragrant. Add cherry tomatoes and cook 4–5 minutes, pressing them gently with a spoon, until softened and beginning to release their juices.
Combine. Return chicken to the skillet. Add drained pasta and reserved pasta water; toss everything together over medium heat for 1–2 minutes until the sauce coats the pasta and liquid reduces slightly.
Finish with cheese and basil. Remove the skillet from heat. Scatter smoked mozzarella and torn basil over the top; fold gently until the cheese begins to melt into pockets throughout. Taste and adjust salt. Serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Smoked Mozzarella Chicken With Pasta — The Science of Making Simple Feel Special