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Who doesn’t love Olive Garden chicken with pasta? Our house loves pasta but it’s a rare treat. With a crockpot, it can be more often, and this recipe will probably hit our table at least once a week. If you don’t have time to cook and you want something that tastes good to throw on the table, this is the recipe for you. It doesn’t require a lot of prep time and in the end, it is so, so delicious. This recipe can serve six so, if you’re a family of four there’s a little extra for lunch the next day.
Ingredients:
- 2 pounds of chicken breasts
- 16 ounces of Olive Garden Italian Dressing
- 1 cup of parmesan
- 8 ounces of cream cheese
- 16 ounces of cooked ziti or elbows
Directions:
- Wash and butterfly the chicken breasts so that they lay thinner and flat on the bottom of the crock pot.
- Pour the 16 ounces of Olive Garden Italian dressing over both chicken breasts.
- Sprinkle the parmesan on top of the chicken and Italian dressing.
- Cube the cream cheese block and sprinkle it on top of the chicken and dressing as well.
- Cover the crock pot and cook for six hours on low or four hours on high.
- At the four to six hours mark it is time to start cooking the pasta.
- Get a 3 to 4-quart pan and add water. Place on medium-high heat until it starts to boil.
- Add the pound of uncooked ziti or elbows to the pan once it starts boiling. This should take anywhere from 8 to 12 minutes.
- Once the pasta is finished, rinse the pasta in a colander under cool or cold water.
- Shake off the excess water and set it aside.
- Using two forks, shred the chicken.
- Place the pasta on each plate and add a scoop of the chicken mix on top of each serving of pasta.
- Sprinkle additional parmesan on top of each individual pasta serving.
- Serve warm.
Tips:
- The pasta can also be penne pasta if ziti or elbow macaroni cannot be found.
- Each individual serving can also be topped off with a little bit of garlic powder and Italian seasoning if you’d like.
- This makes a great main dish but it shouldn’t be the only thing that you eat. It would pair with some nice grilled broccoli on the side of roasted garlic.
- This recipe can be saved in the refrigerator for up to a week in an airtight container.
- Doubling the recipe and using it for lunches throughout the week is a good idea.
- The chicken portion of the recipe which goes on top of the pasta does freeze well. However, the pasta portion does not. If you would like to save for the long term, it’s suggested that you cook a double or triple batch in the crockpot and freeze the chicken part. Then whenever you would like to make this, take out of an individual serving previously frozen and separated, and reheat and place over freshly made pasta.
- This recipe is 414 calories, 25 grams of carbohydrates, 34 grams of protein, and 19 grams of fat.
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