10-ingredient Sun-dried Tomato and Goat Cheese Pasta with Chicken

This is a super-simple, healthy weeknight meal we make all the time! It’s all ready in 25 minutes, and is so deliciously flavourful!

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I always feel a bit sad when holidays end, and when I’m sad or stressed I always crave pasta. My mom says the same! Apparently this has something to do with how your body craves carbs when your cortisol levels are high. To me, it’s just comfort food! When I was little, if you asked me what my favourite food was, I would always say spaghetti. The same is probably true today! We don’t shy away from pasta in this household. Carbs are just fuel for tomorrow’s workout, and we burn a whole lot of them! Anyways, we’re all getting back in to the swing of normal life after the holidays. Work, school, etc. I thought everyone would enjoy a really easy (and I mean really easy) healthy dinner meal. There are only ten ingredients in this recipe. You pop pretty much all of them in a blender, and then simmer it all together in a pan until the chicken is cooked while your pasta boils. That’s it!

I make this recipe, or variations of it, before races quite a bit. Pasta or rice (easy carbs!) with an easy protein like chicken or salmon is usually our pre-race meal. We typically avoid eating anything that might make our stomachs upset or gassy, like beans. Pasta and chicken are easy to digest, and will give our bodies the fuel it needs to race the next day! The ingredients for this one are just so easy to find at a grocery store, no matter where in the world you are. It’s also easy to make, even if our hotel room only has a mini-kitchen or if our Airbnb only has the basics. If I can’t find a blender, than I’ll just chop up the ingredients and they’ll boil down in the pan, then I’ll melt the goat cheese in to it at the end.

Sundried tomatoes and goat cheese are just sooo good together. Add some basil, tomato and roasted red pepper and, I mean… yum. There is no cream element in this recipe, but blending it all with the little bit of goat cheese makes it taste so creamy. If you use fresh tomatoes like I did, you might wonder why your sauce is so orange. Fresh tomatoes will always cause a sauce to be orange! I used bone broth as well, which is just like a healthier one-upped version of chicken broth. Bone broth is made similarly to chicken broth, but the bones are boiled in the broth longer to extract collagen from the bones. Collagen is super good for your joints, which as athletes, we love!

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10-ingredient Sun-dried Tomato and Goat Cheese Pasta with Chicken

Servings: 4

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 15 minutes

Total time: 25 minutes

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INGREDIENTS

• 4 chicken thighs or two chicken breasts, cut in to large chunks

• 4 cloves of garlic, diced finely

• 1 onion, diced

• 2 large tomatoes

• 1 bunch of basil (about 4 sprigs with lots of leaves)

• 16oz/460g jar of roasted red peppers

• 1/3 cup julienned sun-dried tomatoes in oil

• 1 700ml jar/tetra pack of bone broth or chicken broth

• 60g/2oz goat cheese

• 1 pack of pasta of your choice

INSTRUCTIONS

Cut your chicken in to large chunks. Put a pan on the stove on high heat, and pour in some of the oil from the sundried tomatoes to heat until it shimmers. Add your diced chicken, and leave it to brown for 2-3 minutes.

While your chicken browns, dice your onion and garlic. Once your chicken is nice and brown on one side, flip it to brown the other side, then remove it from the pan on to a plate. It’s not cooked yet! It will finish cooking in the sauce, later on.

Add your onions to the pan your chicken was in, on a medium-low heat. Cook them for about 5 minutes until they’re a bit translucent, then add your garlic. Cook for 1 more minute, just to cook down the garlic a little. Alternatively, you could add your onion and garlic straight to the blender with the rest of your sauce ingredients, but in my opinion raw onions and garlic and just too strong. I much prefer to take 5 minutes to cook them, and it makes the sauce taste better! Raw garlic hurts a lot of people’s stomachs, too, which is why I suggested to cook it a bit.

At this point, fill a large pot with enough water to cook your pasta. Add 1tsp of salt to the water, and set it on a high heat to bring to a boil.

Turn the heat off under the pan, and scoop the onions and garlic in to your blender. To the blender, add your tomatoes, basil, roasted red peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, and half the jar of bone or chicken broth. Blend it up in to creamy oblivion!

Pour your blended sauce back in to your pan, and set it on a medium-low heat. Add the chicken back to the pan, covering it in the sauce to finish cooking it. Once the sauce starts bubbling, you can turn this down to a low heat and put a lid on it.

Your pasta water should be boiling, so add your pasta to it. The package your pasta is in should have a cooking time specified… set a timer for half the time specified on the package. Once your timer goes off, strain your pasta, and add it to your sauce. Stir your pasta in to the sauce, and set another timer to finish cooking the pasta in the sauce. This is how the Italians do it, apparently! I was taught this by an Italian chef ;)

If your sauce needs thinning, add some more of the leftover chicken broth.

Serve it up! You can top this with more basil, parmesan, red pepper flakes or parsley if you want!

Did you make this recipe? Tag @thefittestfoodie_ on Instagram so I can share it!