Penne with Chicken and Broccoli
Serves 2
Cooking Time 2 to 3 hours on High
Slow Cooker Size 3½ to 7 Quarts
WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS: Penne with chicken and broccoli offers an appealing mix of flavors and textures,
making this dish a dinnertime favorite. But move it to a slow cooker, and the result
is a huge letdown, with flabby pasta, drab broccoli, and dry chicken. To ensure that
our pasta didn’t become overcooked and blown out in the slow cooker, we toasted it
briefly in the microwave. Adding it to the slow cooker with hot liquid jump-started
its cooking; we used chicken broth rather than water to ramp up the savory depth of
the dish. Considering our options when it came to the chicken, we selected tenderloins,
which were already fork-friendly and required no prep—they simply needed to be stirred
into the pasta at the outset of cooking. To keep our broccoli from becoming overcooked
during the long stint in the slow cooker, we saved it until the end, then microwaved
it briefly and stirred it into the chicken and pasta. Chopped sun-dried tomatoes helped
to brighten our pasta dinner, and a small amount of grated Parmesan turned the cooking
liquid into a light, creamy sauce when added at the end. Click here for more information on cooking pasta in the slow cooker and making a foil collar.
See the sidebar that follows the recipe.
|
1¾ |
cups chicken broth |
|
4 |
ounces (1¼ cups) penne |
|
1 |
tablespoon olive oil |
|
⅓ |
cup oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, chopped coarse |
|
|
Pinch red pepper flakes |
|
|
Salt and pepper |
|
8 |
ounces chicken tenderloins |
|
6 |
ounces broccoli florets, |
|
½ |
cup grated Parmesan cheese |
1. Line slow cooker with aluminum foil collar and spray with vegetable oil spray. Microwave broth in bowl until steaming, about 2 minutes. In separate bowl, microwave penne and 2 teaspoons oil at 50 percent power, stirring occasionally, until some pieces look toasted and blistered, 2 to 4 minutes. Transfer hot pasta to prepared slow cooker and immediately stir in hot broth (pasta will sizzle). Stir in tomatoes, pepper flakes, ½ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper. Season chicken with salt and pepper and nestle into pasta. Cover and cook until pasta is tender, 2 to 3 hours on high.
2. Microwave broccoli and remaining 1 teaspoon oil in bowl, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 3 minutes. Remove foil collar. Gently stir in broccoli and Parmesan and season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve.