Marry Me Chicken Pasta

Marry Me Chicken Pasta is my twist on Tuscan chicken: chicken cutlets fried until golden, then folded through pasta in a sun-dried tomato and cream sauce built in the same pan the chicken came out of. Two things separate mine from most versions of it. The chicken is floured and fried rather than poached in the sauce, so it keeps a crust instead of turning pale and soft, and the cherry tomatoes spend forty-five minutes in a low oven until they are sweet and concentrated rather than going in raw.

The tomatoes look after themselves while everything else happens on the hob, so the hands-on work is about twenty-five minutes, nearly all of it at the pan.

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Where the Name Comes From

It is a young recipe, which surprises people. Marry Me Chicken was written in 2016 by the food editor Lindsay Funston, and the story that gets told is that it was shot under the working title Sicilian Chicken Skillet until somebody on set tasted it and said he would marry her for it. The name stuck, and it has been rewritten by more or less everybody since.

What it has going for it is the sun-dried tomatoes, which give the sauce a sharp, savoury depth that a plain cream sauce never has, and the parmesan and the pan juices carry it. It tastes like more work than it is.

Marry Me Chicken or Tuscan Chicken?

They are close relatives and the names get used loosely. Tuscan chicken, as it is written online, is chicken in a cream sauce with sun-dried tomatoes and a handful of spinach. Marry Me Chicken is much the same sauce with more sun-dried tomato, usually a pinch of chilli, and no spinach.

Neither is a traditional Italian recipe, and it is worth saying plainly. Tuscan here describes a style rather than a place. Both are restaurant-style dishes built on cream, and the line between them is a handful of leaves.

A Closer Look at the Ingredients

• Sun-dried tomatoes The backbone of the sauce, and the reason it tastes savoury rather than merely creamy. Oil-packed are softer and sweeter and I use a spoonful of the oil from the jar to fry the chicken in. If yours come dry in a packet rather than in oil, soak them in warm water for ten minutes first or they stay leathery in the finished dish.
• Double cream Full fat, and there is a number behind that. Once the fat globules make up around a quarter of the cream by weight there is enough of their surface to hold on to the milk protein, and the protein cannot clump into curds. Double cream is about 48 per cent fat and sits comfortably above that line. Single cream is 18 and does not, which is why it splits the moment it meets the tomatoes.
• Parmesan Grate it from a block. Pre-grated has an enormous surface area for its weight and gives up most of its aroma to the bag long before it reaches your pan, so you need more of it to taste anything.
• Plain flour A dredge, not a roux. The chicken carries a thin coat into the pan and the small amount that comes off is all the thickening the sauce gets. It is why this one never turns pasty, which is the usual complaint about creamy chicken pasta.
• Vegetable stock Most versions of this use chicken stock. I use vegetable, which keeps the base lighter against all that cream and has the side effect of making the sauce itself vegetarian.
• Cherry tomatoes Slow-roasted rather than stirred in raw. Forty-five minutes in a low oven drives off the water and concentrates them, so they arrive sweet and jammy instead of watering the sauce down.

Ingredient Substitutions

• Double cream - crème fraîche or full-fat coconut milk both hold together. Single cream, half-fat cream and milk do not, and no amount of careful heat will save them once the tomatoes go in.
• Vegetable stock - chicken stock is what most versions use and makes the sauce a shade richer. Swap it straight across.
• Sun-dried tomato oil - fry the chicken in a spoonful of the oil from the jar for extra depth, or use plain olive oil if yours are the dry-packed kind.
• Parmesan - Grana Padano is the closest swap and cheaper. Pecorino works too but is saltier, so hold back on the salt at the end.
• Chicken breast - boneless thighs swap in straight across and are harder to overcook.

Equipment You’ll Need

How to Make Marry Me Chicken Pasta, Step by Step

1. Start the tomatoes first. Heat the oven to 140C and put the halved cherry tomatoes on the tray cut side up, with a drizzle of olive oil, salt and pepper. Give them room rather than crowding them together, or they steam each other and stay watery. Forty-five minutes at that temperature is not roasting so much as drying, and it is the whole reason they end up sweet. Everything else happens while they are in there, so put them in and forget about them.
2. Slice and flour the chicken. Cut each breast horizontally into cutlets so they cook in minutes and cook evenly. Salt the chicken itself before the flour goes anywhere near it, because seasoning the flour alone leaves the meat bland underneath. Coat each piece and shake the excess off. You will not use all the flour and that is expected. Lay them out in a single layer on a plate rather than stacking them, or the coating glues them together and comes off in sheets when you separate them.
3. Fry the chicken in batches. Heat the olive oil and butter together over a medium-high heat. The pair is deliberate: the butter is there for flavour and the oil raises the temperature it can take before it burns. Once the butter has stopped foaming, lay the cutlets in without crowding them and leave them alone for the first two minutes. Moving them early is how the coating ends up in the pan instead of on the chicken. Turn once, and take them out golden on both sides. They do not need to be cooked through at this point, because they go back into the sauce later. Rest them on a plate under another plate to keep the heat in.
4. Garlic, then stock. Turn the heat down and add the garlic to the same pan. One minute is enough, and it wants watching, because garlic in a pan that has just fried chicken will catch in seconds and turn bitter. Pour in the stock and scrape the base as it bubbles. Everything stuck down there is browned flour and chicken, and it is the difference between a sauce that tastes of the pan and one that tastes of cream.
5. Cream and parmesan, gently. This is the step that goes wrong. Bring the heat right down before the cream goes in, add the parmesan and let it simmer for a couple of minutes without ever boiling hard. Stir in the tomato puree, the oregano and the chilli flakes if you want them. A hard boil is what splits a cream sauce, and once the acidity of the tomatoes is in the pan too there is less margin than you think.
6. Sun-dried tomatoes and the chicken back in. Stir in the chopped sun-dried tomatoes, then return the chicken and any juices that have collected on the plate. Let it tick over until the sauce coats the back of a spoon. This is where the chicken finishes cooking, so if you are using the thermometer, 74C in the thickest piece is what you are after. Taste it now for salt, and remember the parmesan has already brought some.
7. Toss with the pasta and finish. Reckon on 75 to 90 g of dried pasta a head, so around 350 g for four, cooked to al dente and no further, because it carries on softening in the sauce. Keep a mugful of the pasta water back before you drain it: a splash loosens the sauce and helps it cling instead of sliding off. Fold the pasta through the pan, then top with the roasted cherry tomatoes, torn basil and a little more parmesan. The tomatoes go on at the end rather than being stirred in, or they collapse and you lose them.

Recipe Card for Marry Me Chicken Pasta

Recipe Card

Marry Me Chicken Pasta

Chicken cutlets fried golden, then a sun-dried tomato and cream sauce built in the same pan and folded through pasta, with slow-roasted cherry tomatoes on top. About twenty-five minutes of work at the hob.

★★★★★ 5 from 3 votes · Rate this recipe

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Prep

10 min

Cook

45 min

Total

55 min

Serves

4

Per serving

1060 kcal

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Equipment I Use

Baking TrayHybrid Non Stick Frying PanKitchen Thermometer

Ingredients

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3 Chicken breasts, medium-sized, each breast sliced into cutlets 100 g Plain flour 12 Cherry tomatoes, halved 150 g Sun dried tomatoes, finely diced 2 tbsp Olive oil, (you can use olive oil from the sun-dried tomatoes) 30 g Butter 4 Garlic cloves, finely diced 200 ml Vegetable stock 300 ml Double Cream, 48% fat, and full fat matters here 30 g Parmesan cheese, (plus an additional 10g for garnish) 1 tsp Tomato puree 1 tbsp Oregano 1 handful Basil leaves, for garnish 1 tsp Chilli flakes, (optional for heat) Salt, to taste Black Pepper, to taste 350 g Pasta, a short shape that grips the sauce, such as rigatoni, penne or farfalle

Instructions

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1

Tomato Preparation

Preheat the oven to 140C (284F) and place sliced cherry tomatoes on the tray. Drizzle them with olive oil, salt and black pepper. Slow-roast for 45 minutes.

2

Chicken Coating

Season sliced chicken breasts with salt and coat them in plain flour. Place the chicken on a plate, do not stack the slices, as they may stick together.

3

Pan-Fry Chicken

In a frying pan, heat olive oil and butter over medium-high heat. Once the butter has melted, pan-fry the chicken breasts until both sides are golden brown. You may need to do this in few batches. Transfer the cooked chicken to a plate and cover it with another plate to keep it warm.

4

Add Garlic

In the same pan add diced garlic and sauté for one minute. Next add vegetable stock and stir to remove any bits stuck to the pan.

5

Creamy Blend

5. Add double cream and parmesan cheese, then simmer for 2 minutes. Mix in 1 tsp of tomato puree, and season with oregano and chilli

6

Final Fusion

Add chopped sun-dried tomatoes and return chicken to the pan, continue to simmer until the sauce thickens and the chicken reaches 74C in the thickest piece. Season with salt and pepper to your taste.

7

Garnish & Serve

Cook the pasta to al dente in well-salted water, keeping a mugful of the cooking water back before you drain it. Fold the pasta through the sauce, loosening it with a splash of the pasta water if it needs it. Top with the slow-roasted cherry tomatoes, torn basil and a little more parmesan, adding the tomatoes at the end rather than stirring them in so they keep their shape.

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Chef’s notes＋

• Pasta: reckon on 75 to 90 g of dried pasta a head, so around 350 g for four. A short shape that grips the sauce, such as rigatoni, penne or farfalle, holds up better than anything thin. Keep a mugful of the cooking water back to loosen the sauce.
• Temperature: the chicken finishes cooking in the sauce. 74C in the thickest piece, or no pink and clear juices if you are going by eye.
• Keep the heat low once the cream is in: a hard boil splits a cream sauce, and the acidity of the tomatoes leaves less margin than a plain one would.
• Reheating: gently in a pan with a splash of cream, milk or water, stirring as it comes back. Avoid the microwave, which heats it unevenly and separates the edges before the middle is warm.
• For a date night: pick smaller breasts and butterfly them, which gives you something close to a heart shape on the plate.
• Wine: a chilled dry white, or a light red such as Pinot Noir if you would rather.

Nutrition per serving＋

1060 kcalProtein 54 gCarbs 104 gFat 49 gSat fat 24.9 gFibre 9 gSugar 20.9 gSodium 751 mgServing 585

Marry Me Chicken Pasta · https://chefsbinge.com/marry-me-chicken/

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Variations

• Long pasta Spaghetti and linguine look wonderful with this and plenty of people make it that way. The trick is to serve the chicken and sauce over the pasta rather than tossing it through, because thin strands soften fast in a hot cream sauce and turn slippery. Short shapes are the ones to fold in.
• Leftover or shop-bought roast chicken Skip the flouring and frying, build the sauce in a little butter and oil, and fold shredded chicken through at the end just to heat. You lose the crust, and you gain a dinner that takes fifteen minutes.
• Add spinach Two big handfuls stirred in at step six wilt in under a minute and take it in the direction of Tuscan chicken. It is the most common change people make to this dish anywhere.
• More sauce The second most common change. Half again on the cream, the stock and the parmesan is the sensible way to do it, but leave the tomato puree and the sun-dried tomatoes where they are or it tips sharp. Mine already runs generous on sauce compared with most versions, so try it as written once first.

Storing, Reheating and Freezing

Get any leftovers cooled and into the fridge within two hours rather than leaving the pan out to come down on its own. They keep for three days.

Reheat it gently in a pan over a low heat with a splash of cream, milk or water, stirring as it comes back together. The pasta will have drunk up a good deal of the sauce overnight and needs the liquid back. I would keep it out of the microwave: the sauce heats unevenly in there and separates at the edges before the middle is warm.

Freezing works, with one condition. Freeze the chicken and sauce on their own and cook fresh pasta when you come to it. Pasta frozen in a sauce thaws soft and there is no bringing it back. Thaw overnight in the fridge and reheat slowly, stirring, and if it looks grainy at first keep stirring over a low heat, because it usually comes back.

What to Serve With Marry Me Chicken Pasta

🍽 I like to keep the sides simple so the creamy sauce stays the star. A few slices of warm focaccia or garlic bread are perfect for mopping up every last bit, and a crisp green salad with a sharp dressing cuts through the richness beautifully. Some steamed greens on the side work a treat too, and a glass of chilled dry white wine rounds the whole plate off nicely.

FAQ for Marry Me Chicken Recipe

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A Few Words from the Chef

The hob is where I make it when I want it the same evening. If you would rather set it going and walk away, there is a slow cooker version too.