Tuscan Chicken Pasta

The community center workshop was Saturday and I came home with my arms full of someone else's gratitude, which is a different weight than your own and heavier in the good way. Twenty-eight women. Two hours. Forty meals assembled. A woman named Connie from Provo who is not LDS, who heard about the workshop from her neighbor Sister Martinez, who said to me afterward: I have been trying to feed my family well on forty-five dollars a week for three years and I thought I was doing something wrong. I said: you were not doing something wrong. You just needed a system. She said: I have a system now. I said: you have a system now.

Three local women asked if I would bring the workshop to their community centers. I have appointments next week with two of them. The third left me a voicemail that ended with: please come, we need this. I am going. I do not know how to say no to we need this, and I have decided I do not want to learn.

Back-to-school week: four days until the first day of school. Ethan is mildly nervous and entirely not saying so, the way twelve-year-old boys carry their nerves, folded small and put somewhere in the inside pocket of their composure. I made his favorite Sunday dinner as a send-off: slow-cooked chicken alfredo over fettuccine, which takes four hours in the slow cooker and requires almost no skill except the patience to wait for it. He ate two bowls. He said: thanks, Mom. In the specific voice that means more than thanks, Mom.

Noah starts preschool next month. I reminded him this week and he said: I know. I am going to be the funniest one. I said: where did funny come from? He has been saying best for two months. He said: I changed my strategy. I said: that is a solid strategy. He is four and he has a strategy. I do not know what to do with this child except feed him well and get out of his way.

This is the recipe I made for Ethan on the Sunday before school started — my version of a slow cooker Tuscan chicken pasta, which sits in the same spirit as a chicken alfredo but with sun-dried tomatoes and spinach stirred in, the kind of meal that makes a pot of something ordinary feel like it was made specifically for one person. It takes almost no active effort, which was exactly what I had left after a Saturday that used everything I had in the best possible way. I put it together before church, let it go, and by dinner it was ready in the way that felt almost unfair for how good it tasted. He ate two bowls. That’s the whole recipe review right there.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 4 hours | Total Time: 4 hours 15 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 cup chicken broth
1 cup heavy cream
4 oz cream cheese, softened and cubed
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes (packed in oil), drained and roughly chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
Salt and black pepper to taste
2 cups fresh baby spinach
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
12 oz fettuccine or penne, cooked according to package directions
Fresh basil for garnish (optional)

Instructions

Layer the slow cooker. Place chicken breasts in the bottom of a 6-quart slow cooker. Season generously with salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, and onion powder.
Add the sauce base. Pour chicken broth and heavy cream over the chicken. Add the cubed cream cheese, minced garlic, and sun-dried tomatoes. Do not stir — let it layer.
Cook low and slow. Cover and cook on LOW for 3.5 to 4 hours, until the chicken is cooked through and tender enough to shred easily with two forks.
Shred the chicken. Remove the chicken breasts and shred them on a cutting board. Return the shredded chicken to the slow cooker and stir everything together until the cream cheese is fully incorporated and the sauce is smooth.
Add the spinach and Parmesan. Stir in the fresh spinach and grated Parmesan. Replace the lid and let sit for 5 minutes until the spinach is wilted and the cheese is melted into the sauce.
Combine with pasta. Add the cooked, drained pasta directly to the slow cooker and toss to coat, or serve the sauce ladled over pasta in individual bowls.
Serve. Garnish with additional Parmesan and fresh basil if desired. Serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Tuscan Chicken Pasta — The Sunday Dinner That Said Everything Ethan Couldn’t