A 20 minute fettuccini chicken cajun pasta that is going to knock your socks off,
and it is perfect for a busy weeknight, or if you are entertaining on the weekends
and you want to keep it very, very easy, but maximum flavor.
This dish is so delicious, we made something like this years and years ago and it still continues
to be one of you guys's favorites, and I couldn't wait to sort of re-share it, redo it, update it,
because it's time, you know? It's time we make so many good recipes on Laura in the Kitchen,
and sometimes if feels really good to go back to some old classics.
What you'll need for this is not a whole whole lot, and a lot of things are interchangeable.
You're going to start with peppers, onions, garlic. I'm using fresh tomatoes, you can use
canned diced tomatoes, you'll need some cajun seasoning. I've got some chicken tenderloins,
which I'll discuss in just a bit, and some chicken andouille sausage,
you can use any sausage you want, you can use chicken thighs if you want to,
chicken breast, it just happens to be what was on special, what had the best price.
When I cook for you, and I create these videos, and I write the recipes, I do try to keep in
mind giving you the opportunity to change whatever ingredient for what's available,
and what's most affordable, and for me this week, for whatever reason in both of my Shoprites,
the chicken tenders were a great price, so I went ahead and picked those up,
and it works really great here, if boneless skinless chicken thighs were on special,
I would have bought those and it would have been delicious.
So feel free to use what you have to use what's affordable and available, and just
take this as an idea. I'm going to go ahead and use some chicken sausage, I loved the idea of
this andouille chicken sausage. It just gives you flavor, smokiness, richness, it is chicken sausage
so it's not as fatty and it just pairs really well with everything else. The one downside to chicken
tenders is that I got to take that tendon out, but I'm going to show you how I do it.
I'm going to do the whole thing, I'm boiling water back there but I'm going to cook in my shallow
Dutch oven. To take out the chicken - the chicken - to take out the tendon from chicken tenders,
see this guy right here, it's stringy it's annoying, I don't want it, so what you do is,
this is what I do, I sort of loosen it, okay? Then you're going to have to take a piece of
paper towel, because it's very, very slippery, okay? Try and grab it, it's a little bit hard to
do because you can't hold down the chicken, okay, and then you just pull, and sometimes
it comes comes off in one piece, and sometimes it breaks up your chicken tender a little bit.
But that doesn't really matter. Let's do another one, here's your chicken tender take your tendon,
grab it, hold down your tender with a fork, you see? And then you just grab all in one
piece and it's so slippery, that's it. You don't want that, and then what I do is I just
cut this into chunks and you're good to go. And if you're doing this with chicken breast,
you won't need to do it if you're doing it with chicken thighs you won't need to do it,
but I'm just going to go ahead and do these two and get them ready. Chicken sausage comes out,
now the sausage is already cooked through, so I was just looking to give it a little bit of
color and render some of that flavor, which it did and that only took literally maybe two minutes.
I'm going to add a little bit of butter, about a tablespoon to whatever drippings are left in
my pan, get that in there and then I'm going to go ahead and add my chicken,
and I'm going to season that with a little cajun seasoning, spicy! It's a little smoky,
it's just going to do a great thing. I'm going to go ahead and let that cook, develop color.
While that happens, I am going to work on finely dicing up, I got a nice clean knife, get rid of my
chicken board. I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to dice up a pepper, some onions, some garlic,
and a few tomatoes. You could certainly just use, like I said, diced tomato, or like a small can
of Rotel, I just happen to still have tomatoes coming from the garden so I wanted use those up.
And I'm just going to go ahead and just give them all a nice little chop and get them ready.
Chicken is done and look at those gorgeous flavorings at the bottom of the pan. And
let me just tell you something, that makes a difference, that is flavor, that is depth.
That is going to give something to your dish that you wouldn't get if you didn't take the
time to really create that beautifulness. So now, to that I'm going to go ahead and add my onion,
my garlic and my pepper. I'm going to add them all at once, there's not a whole lot
of fat going on in here so I'm just going to go ahead and add just a little drizzle of olive oil,
I'm not going to add any more butter, just cuz there's still already butter in there. And I'm
going to cook those veggies for literally just a few minutes, I still want them to retain a little
flavor. I'm going to add a little more of that cajun seasoning. Again, this will not take very
long. Once my water comes to a rolling boil, we'll add the pasta in, I'll show you when we get to
that step. I'm just going to go ahead and babysit my veggies for literally just a few minutes.
Pasta in, give it a generous pinch of salt, work that into the water because
what makes pasta all stick together is just not giving it enough time in that
first 30 to 60 seconds to really submerge it in there, and for that starch to start coming out.
So one once it's nice in there, nestled and comfortable,
this is how easy this is. You add your tomatoes in, you add your cooked sausage,
and your chicken. Give it a really nice little stir, don't crank the heat up too,
too much because you don't need it. Now you see, you've got beautiful things stuck at the
bottom of that pan, use a little stock, I'm just using some of that starchy water. Okay,
and all that does is it lifts all that flavor. It gives you a base of just gorgeousness,
I'm going to go ahead and grab a little bit of chicken stock and some cream and some parsley.
Add a mix of chicken stock and just a little bit of heavy cream, not much. Just only like 1/4 cup
of cream to 3/4 of a cup or so of stock and then just a little bit of parsley. And then I'll save
the rest for when we need it. All I'm going to do to this right now, just keep it like this,
I'm just going to go ahead and keep it on warm. When the pasta is like shy 1 minute of al dente,
I'm going to tong it directly into this, bring that temperature nice and high,
cook it all together so that the pasta has a chance to absorb all that beautiful
flavor then we pull it off. Alright, I'm increasing the heat on my sauce,
my pasta is just like I said, about a minute away from being perfectly al dente.
Come on, I'm just going to grab it from my Dutch oven, I can't see! The steam,
and I'm short, so I'm losing on both fronts here. Alright, want to get all the pasta in there. Give
it like a minute or two to cook together because, you see, you've got that sauce.
That sauce needs to soak into that starch, so by letting it all cook together for that,
you know, last minute or two, it really makes such a big difference. And you would just not
believe what a boost of flavor that will give to the pasta, so it's kind of like when your lotion
just sinks into your skin rather than just sits on top and makes you feel all sticky.
That's what the pasta is, okay, the lotion is the sauce, the pasta is the skin,
and it needs to absorb so you got to give it a few minutes. And I like to kick it up with
lots of parmigiano and it also just acts like glue to hold hold it all together,
and for that sauce to really absorb. Now obviously, listen I don't need to tell you
that this is not an authentic Italian dish, but you know what we're about here at Laura
in the kitchen, we're about authentically delicious food, okay, we don't discriminate,
we are all about all the foods, cooking what you like, how you like it, when you like it.
Some things are authentic, some things are not, but the one thing that is always sure, we're
always sure around here is that always going to be authentically delicious, no matter what it is.
I'm just going to let it cook for a minute and I'm going to just turn turn it off. Look at that,
look what happens when you just let it all cook together. And then I turned it off, and let it
sit for a minute and look that sauce which was once liquidy, and that pasta which was once pale,
has absorbed it all and it is just smelling incredible. I'm just going to take a little taste
test, you know like a little pre- dinner snack situation. That's a must, I mean I cooked it,
I got a try, I got to try, that cayenne from the spice hit me right in the face. Joe and
I are going to have one delicious lunch. Oh, I just know it it's going to be so good. And I like
that there's just enough cream to hold the sauce together and give it that luscious feel, but it's
not a cream sauce, do you know what I mean? Oh my, it's instantly good, it is instantly delicious.
Mmm.. sausage is so good, mhm, it's a home run. And guess what,
20 minutes, use whatever sausage, no sausage at all, use whatever chicken,
use whatever pasta. You just have to make it. Full recipe on Laurainthekitchen.com,
hope you enjoyed spending time with me, you need to make this, I will see you the next one!
Bye-bye!