If you’ve been reading along, you might remember that back in November I went to Roanoke and competed in the 2013 Frugal Food Lion Cook Off. I was partnered with Elizabeth from E, Myself and I, and we totally kicked butt and won! Woot Woot!
I was SO nervous about the whole thing, so the night before the event BigBear and I went to Food Lion and I did a little “trial run”. I knew that we had a budget of about $15 but that was all I knew. I figured we would be using the Food Lion ” My Essential” brands too, which is perfect because that’s what I normally buy anyways. 🙂
So off we went to our local Food Lion. I grabbed a bunch of things with a small idea in my head and we went home to practice my dish. I set everything out on the counter started a timer for “30 minutes” and just went at it in my kitchen. I felt like I was on “Chopped” haha. I think I finished with 4 minutes left on the clock and I wasn’t really “running around” too much.
So 30 minutes later, this is what I presented to BigBear as my final dish haha. It turned out to be some of the best darn pasta that I’ve ever made. It was so good and we just couldn’t stop eating it!
I thought “YES, if they have some of these items then I’ve got this”! Well they did end up having some of the things I used at home for practice but I had made one dish…..at the competition we had to make 3 parts to the meal so… my “practice dish” didn’t make it’s full appearance at the Cook-Off but it gave me some great ideas to incorporate into my winning dish (that I’ll be posting on the blog soon)!
But that didn’t mean that I wanted to just sweep this one under the rug and not tell you about it! No way! It’s too good for that! We had it for dinner last night and BigBear just loves it so much that I had to limit him on how many bowls of it he could eat! I think it’s the brown butter on the pasta; it’s just addictive. I also absolutely love the pops of color that the spinach and tomatoes give to the pasta dish!
Oh and by the way…. GUESS WHAT I just did!! I just bought my ticket for BlogHerFOOD 2014 in Miami! Ahhhhhhhh I am literally jumping for joy right now! I’ve never been to BlogHer Food and I’ve never been to Miami so double ahhh! Are you going? I’d love to see you there!
oh…and ps… 17 days until we leave for Hawaii! I can’t wait to share that with you! I’ll be sharing tons on twitter and Instagram so make sure you’re following me over there!
Brown Butter Chicken Pasta
Easy 30 Minute Brown Butter Chicken Pasta
This super easy Easy 30 Minute Brown Butter Chicken Pasta helped me win an award for a cooking competition and it'll help you win dinner time with it's amazing flavor!
Ingredients
- 1 box (16oz) bowtie pasta (or any small shape), uncooked
- Salt and Pepper
- Olive Oil
- Soul Seasoning (I used the Food Lion Brand, it is a seasoning salt)
- 2 cups fresh spinach
- 2 cups halved cherry tomatoes
- 2 cups sliced mushrooms
- 6 -7 boneless, skinless chicken tenderloins (or 2-4 chicken breasts)
- 32 ounces chicken broth
- 1 stick of butter
- Parmesan Cheese* optional
Instructions
Melt the butter in a large stock pot on medium heat. Once the butter is melted, continue to cook butter until it bubbles and turns a caramel brown color.
Add bow tie pasta to stock pot and stir. Let cook for 1 minute while continuously stirring.
Add in chicken broth and stir. Reduce to a simmer.
Simmer until all liquid is absorbed by pasta, stir occasionally.
While the pasta is simmering in the chicken broth, add 1 tablespoon of oil to a skillet and heat on medium to high heat.
Cut chicken into bite size cubes and season with a little soul seasoning, salt and pepper.
Add chicken to the hot skillet and cook until done.
Remove chicken from skillet and set aside, cover with foil to keep warm.
Add the mushrooms and tomatoes to the skillet. Sprinkle with a dash of soul seasoning. Add in the tomatoes and saute until mushrooms are soft.
Once the mushrooms are tender, add in spinach and cook until spinach has wilted.
Once all of the chicken broth has been absorbed into pasta, toss the mushrooms, tomatoes and chicken into the pot with the pasta. Add in the chicken and stir well to combine everything. Sprinkle with Parmesan Cheese and serve!
You can never go wrong with these ingredients – I’m not at all surprised it came out so great. I want this for dinner!
They’re so good together!
I’m not a pasta lover but i fall in love with this recipe and even my picky eater love it.
YAY! I’m so glad to hear that!
yumm this is my kind of pasta, love all of those ingredients!
Hope you get to try it soon!
This might be dinner tonight–it looks and sounds amazing! Hope I get to see you in Miami!
I hope I get to see you too!!!
This looks fantastic, Angie! Your pics are gorgeous 🙂
Thank you, Becca!
Looks great!
Looks delicious 🙂
It looks like you did an AMAZINGG job!!! LOVE this!
Angie, I can totally see why you won the competition. I mean, look at that gorgeous bowl of pasta. I love the brown butter. Congrats! Pinned.
I love how the dish looks and I was intrigued reading the post. But I must say, it was neither easy nor a 30 minute meal for me. I can attest to the fact that there’s a fine line between browned butter and burnt butter. I’m anxiously awaiting my 2nd attempt and hoping I fare better. If not, I may be resigned to simply drooling over the pictures.
I’m sorry the dish didn’t turn out for you. I’d imagine that burnt butter would probably not taste the same 😉 I’m also sorry that you didn’t find it to be easy or under 30 minutes. It’s never taken me longer than 30 minutes to make, so that’s why I named it that. I normally have two pots going, one for the pasta and one skillet type pot for the chicken and veggies and by time my pasta is done, I’m finished cooking the chicken and veggies and just dump them into the pasta. Let me know if you try it again with better results.
Tried this last night and I must say it was one of the most fulfilling dinners I’ve had in a long time. So easy, so delicious and even better, so quick! I was wondering if there are nutritional values posted anywhere for this. Thanks, this will be a weekly staple now:)
Becca, I’m so glad that you like it! I tried to come up with the nutritional value for it but I’m hesitant to post it because I know people use different brands and serving size amounts sometimes and I’m not a nutritionist so I’m worried that it won’t be the correct calorie count but for anyone that wants to calculate them http://caloriecount.about.com/cc/recipe_analysis.php is a good site to do it on.
I can’t wait to try this recipe. Thanks!
My family would love this, yum!!
I know that using chicken stock adds flavor, but I’m out of it. I have everything else. Would using water be okay?
Brown butter rocks the casbah, and pasta!
looks delish!
Love your pics and so can’t wait to try this! Love easy meals like this
This is a wonderful looking recipe!
I love that you used browned butter in pasta. I usually only see it in baked goods, but putting it in a savory dish sounds even better!
This recipe looks heavenly! I love spinach so this is going on my list of dishes I want to try 🙂
I’m pretty sure I’ve said this before, but I seriously cannot get over how good this looks. All pasta should be served with browned butter!
Oh I love browned butter pasta! Everything in this sounds fantastic. Even better that it’s a quick meal.
I could eat this 8 nights a week. Yes. I know I said 8. I could eat it twice on Sundays. 😀
Ummmm can I eat this for breakfast? It looks amazing!
Congrats on winning the competition at the cook-off! That’s awesome. I shop a lot at Food Lion too so am glad to see that you do too. Your pasta does look fantastic and yes, I think the browned butter on there would make anyone swoon. It looks amazing.
Looks amazing!!! I am adding this to my list of go to foods 🙂
What Soul Seasoning? Not sure we get this in Canada.
It’s just a seasoning salt 🙂
Do you pre-cook the pasta prior to putting it in the brown butter?
Nope! 🙂 The pasta will cook in the chicken broth.
Simply Outstanding!
I’ve made this 3 times and my family and friends all love it