What’s For Dinner? – Truffled Chicken Pasta

People seem to either be fans of foods flavored with truffles or not fans at all. Very few are neutral when it comes to this particular food item. If you fall into the “fan” category you will likely love this dish. If not, you can still give it a try and enjoy it anyway by simply omitting the truffle cheese and substituting good parmesan cheese instead.

The sauce on the pasta is quite rich so a 1 ib bag of pasta can feed 5-6 people.

Truffle Chicken Pasta

1 lb. pasta (we used a gluten free rigatoni but you could use any pasta you prefer)
Chicken broth (we like Better Than Bouillon or homemade)
Sliced cooked chicken breast (about 1/2 per person for the number of people you are serving)
1 pint heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon truffle salt
1 cup truffled cheese
2 cups good parmesan cheese
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
Fresh or dried thyme leaves to taste

Start by cooking your pasta in chicken broth rather than just plain water. Doing so immediately adds flavor to your finished pasta. Do not add salt at this point as the chicken broth will already have salt added. The chicken broth should be just enough to cover the dried pasta but not much extra as you want most of it to cook out by the time the pasta is cooked to al dente. When your pasta is finished cooking you should still have a small amount of liquid in the pan.

While the pasta is cooking put the cream in a sauce pan and add the sliced chicken, the truffle salt (if using), the pepper and thyme leaves and simmer this while the pasta cooks. Once the pasta is cooked through, do not drain. Add the chicken and cream mixture and stir to combine. The sauce may look a little runny at this point depending on how much broth was remaining. Now stir in the cheeses. Trader Joes often has truffled parmesan cheese and other soft truffled cheeses that can be grated by hand. We added about 1/2 cup of each. Next we added the remaining 2 cups of plain parmesan cheese and stirred lightly to combine. At this point if your pasta sauce seems too thick, add a bit more chicken broth to loosen it. If it seems too runny still, add a bit more cheese a little at a time until the consistency is how you want it.

Serve in bowls topped with a sprinkle of parmesan on top. With a side salad and some crusty bread…yum…dinner is served!