Experienced cooks will raise their eyebrows when they see how this HEALTHY Creamy Chicken and Broccoli Pasta Bake is made. But don’t judge until you try it – it works!!! Made from scratch, not a drop of cream, this is a complete meal that takes 5 minutes to prep, made in ONE baking dish and it’s absolutely delish. {350 cal per serving!}
The World’s EASIEST Chicken and Broccoli Pasta Bake!
This is comfort food for busy people, dedicated to all those back home in Australia and everyone else around the world suffering through a blustery cold winter!
The method I use for this Ultra Lazy Healthy Chicken Pasta Bake certainly is unorthodox. Just plonk flour, uncooked pasta, raw chicken, vegetables, milk and chicken broth into the baking dish, give it a quick stir, then pop it into the oven. Pull it out partway through cooking, stir through cheese, then finish baking.
And what comes out is quite extraordinary. When you crack through that golden topping, you will be greeted with perfectly cooked pasta smothered in a creamy sauce that you’ve just made without a single drop of cream, without having to make a roux on the stove the traditional way béchamel and cheese sauces are made.
Not a hint of flouriness (thanks to the gluten in the pasta which also helps thicken the sauce) and the pasta is perfectly cooked – I blame my Japanese mother for raising me as a total snob about overcooked rice and this snobbery extends to pasta. There is actually sauce (hands up if you’ve suffered through dry pasta bakes!), and it’s a complete meal that’s light on the pasta, and heavy on broccoli + lean chicken.
I’m going to be completely honest with you about the difference between this and the traditional way of making creamy pasta bakes. My “go to” way is to start with a roux – like in this Seafood Gratin Pasta Bake, my Baked Mac and Cheese and my mother’s Chicken and Mushroom Macaroni Gratin ( <<— Childhood favourite, right here!). The sauce is silken and there’s more of it compared to this Ultra Lazy way.
If you look very closely, you will see that the sauce is a tiny bit split on the base of the baking dish. But you need to look really close to see it and it doesn’t taste split.
Very, very small compromise for a quick meal, in my humble view. 🙂
(Here’s a close up – you can see what I am describing in the bottom left corner)
I didn’t create this Chicken and Broccoli Pasta Bake as a hack. It came about because of a man who lives in his van at the local dog park who I regularly take hot meals to. He always insists that I mustn’t go out of my way to bring him meals, and that in itself plus me being me just feels some sort of obligation to ensure I take meals to him regularly.
I had skipped a few days and I was standing in my kitchen, flustered at the mound of dirty dishes and peeved because of a failed video shoot and wanted to make something quickly.
Threw this Ultra Lazy Pasta Bake together using leftover vegetables thinking it “should be ok”, was blown away how well it actually worked, got the thumbs up from the homeless man, had it myself for dinner then decided to share it here. 🙂 – Nagi x
More big, juicy pasta bakes
Baked Ziti – the mother of all pasta bakes!
Tuna Pasta Bake – the highest and best use for canned tuna!
Baked Mac and Cheese – and try the Shrimp version!
Cheeseburger Casserole (Homemade Hamburger Helper)
Browse all pasta recipes
Watch how to make it
Ultra Lazy HEALTHY Chicken and Broccoli Pasta Bake recipe video!
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Ultra Lazy Creamy Chicken and Broccoli Pasta Bake
Ingredients
- 400g / 14 oz chicken tenderloin (raw) , breast or thigh, cut into 1.5cm / 3/5″ pieces
- Salt and pepper
- 1 tsp dried thyme (or other herbs and/or spices of choice)
- 250g / 8 oz spiral pasta, uncooked (See Note 1 for other shapes)
- 1/4 cup flour (all purpose / plain)
- 1 1/2 cups chicken broth/stock , warmed
- 2 cups milk , warmed (any fat %)
- 1 large garlic clove , minced
- 2 tbsp / 30g unsalted butter , recommended but optional
- 1 large broccoli or 2 medium broccoli or cauliflower, broken into small to medium florets (Note 2 for subs)
- 1 1/2 cups (tightly packed) shredded cheddar or colby cheese (or tasty cheese, pizza mix etc, Note 3)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 200°C/390°F (180°C fan-forced).
- Sprinkle chicken with salt (be generous), pepper and thyme, toss to coat.
- Spread pasta in a 23 x 33cm / 9 x 13" baking dish. Sprinkle flour all across the surface (don't dump in clump else it won't dissolve). Pour over milk and broth, add garlic and butter. Stir.
- Spread chicken over the top, then broccoli.
- Cover with foil, bake for 15 minutes (or 20 minutes if milk & broth were cold).
- Remove foil, STIR WELL. Add most of the cheese, then STIR WELL again. Top with remaining cheese.
- Return to oven. Bake for 15 – 20 minutes until top is golden and sauce is thickened (See note 4 for troubleshooting).
- Stand for a few minutes then serve immediately!
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
More chicken and broccoli recipes
For those of you who, like me, find yourself putting both of these in your trolley week after week…
Life of Dozer
I always joke about how when I’m away, Dozer doesn’t miss me at all because he’s too busy enjoying his own holiday with a Golden Retriever boarder.
But apparently, when she takes Dozer to the beach, he breaks away from the pack and sprints up to “dark haired people of my shape”, then bolts back when he realises it’s not me.
I didn’t know what to react to first – pleased as punch at the first sign that he does actually seem to miss me, or bursting into laughter at her delicately phrased description that Dozer only runs towards vertically challenged, dark haired women with generously sized bottoms!!!
We’re eating it right now… Yum! Five stars out of five!
Really like this dish it did take an extra 20-30 mins and I did also fry half red onion and mushrooms for some added veg. Another winner thanks Nagi
I’m a longtime fan but a first-time commenter. I made this tonight as I thought I had some old broccoli to use up, but when it came to adding it, I couldn’t find it (it was hiding behind some leftovers). Luckily, I had two punnets of sliced white mushrooms, which I subbed in place of the broccoli. I didn’t have any milk but had cream, so I used 1 cup of cream and 2.5 cups of stock. I tasted it at the first toss stage and thought it needed extra flavour, so I added garlic powder, onion powder, and dried parsley. I used Fibre Gourmet (a low carb/ high fibre pasta available in the US which takes twice as long to cook) rotini and let it sit in the oven until it was time to eat. It came out perfectly. Otherwise, I followed the recipe as written. I will 100% make it again, but it does benefit from a bit of “jushing” up with whatever extra herbs and spices you have in your pantry. When serving, a tiny sprinkle of dried chilli flakes gives it the perfect kick—Chef’s kiss! Thanks to the team for this recipe.
Had to cook this chicken and broccoli dish and extr20mins. Foil a no no. Not happy
Adding an extra comment to previous post, I’m just glad I previous cooked broccoli and pasta for 5-10 mins before I added raw Chicken, then cooked uncovered for 20 mins. Meal so so
This was really yummy, super easy to make and I always appreciate a recipe with minimal cleanup, bonus points for that! I did have to bake it for an extra 15 minutes though (covered) for the pasta to be cooked through and the sauce to thicken, I guess my oven isn’t as strong. But I’ll definitely be making this again and will just plan for the extra baking time!
This was delish. You can’t go wrong with chicken and broccoli! I used brown rice (GF) noodles and almond milk and it worked just fine. Also, used reduced fat Mexican cheese – fab and a Montreal Chicken seasoning.
This is the second time I’ve made this and I only made two tweaks: using Italian seasoning instead of thyme and I steamed the broccoli (just barely soft) before adding it.
OMG I really messed up! The flavors would probably have been delicious if only I hadn’t used Chickpea Rotini pasta. That pasta basically melted into the dish! It was a gloppy mess and at first I couldn’t figure out what had happened until I realized there was no distinct pasta pieces in the dish. I added about 3/4 cup 1/2 and 1/2, more cheese (parmesan), some pepper flakes, more salt just to counteract all that chickpea sludge. The broccoli pieces were perfectly cooked and the chicken was tasty with the Thyme–also added some fresh grated nutmeg. Just wanted to warn everyone to use regular pasta and not chickpea pasta!! With the changes we still were able to enjoy our dinner, sorta.
We love this recipe, but we used the recommended pasta and therefore didn’t end up with ‘sludge’.
I think it’s unfair to rate it less just because you used the wrong pasta, as that’s on you.
I didn’t think 5 servings would feed my family of 4 (only 250g of pasta? No way!) so I increased the size to 6 servings (also because I had 500g of chicken) – and that got us 5 servings (enough left for lunch tomorrow). For people who like creamy pasta bakes this is a great easy option compared to some of the more involved ones. Next time I would probably put less cheese in the sauce, and more on top, and make sure the pasta was mostly underneath the sauce for the final cook (the pasta on top was a bit crunchy, which I like but others maybe less so).
“ Step 5. Cover with foil, bake for 15 minutes (or 20 minutes if milk & broth were cold).”
This is why I love Nagi, She even makes allowances for fools like me who didn’t read the recipe properly 🙂
This is a lovely creamy dish. It’s regularly requested by my family! There is a similar dish of Nagi’s but it uses rice instead of pasta and that is also delicious. Real comfort food!
So… I never, and I mean never, follow recipes verbatim. This was a fabulous starting point! Used Barilla penne rigate, Pacific Foods cream of mushroom soup, lots of herbs, garlic and dehydrated onions (go Lifehouse?Litehouse?). My men loved it thanks! When I can ‘do this in my sleep’ life is going to be wonderful! 😀
Wow, this was sooo good. I planned on having leftovers, but it disappeared very quickly. Another easy but oh so tasty recipe. We loved it.
I did this by the instructions the first time and it was delicious! I’m wondering if I can use 2 cups of shredded chicken I have in my freezer if I thaw that out?
This is one of my go-to recipes. It’s quick, easy and the flavour is good. Needs a good stir at the end to remove the graininess (as per the notes) but I love this one.
Made this last night and it was delicious! I added in probably 5-8 cloves of garlic, increased the milk to 2.5 cups and added in .5 cup of cream. I also had to bake it at 400 degrees F for 65 minutes, but I think next time I’ll see if I can shorten it to 50 or 55 because the pasta was a little too soft for me. Lastly, I used leftover Thanksgiving turkey that I chopped up and added to the last 25 minutes of the bake time. I read a lot of comments about it being bland so I did add in Italian seasoning, thyme, a bit of garlic and onion powder, salt and pepper. For the chicken broth I used a big scoop of Better Than Bouillon. It was super creamy and flavorful. I think next time I could put a breadcrumb topping or crushed Ritz crackers and add it to the second half of baking after everything’s been stirred up
Made this with GF pasta (coeliacs) and it worked well. Very easy and its all gone.
Thank you for posting this. My husband husband has celiac disease, and after reading the notes in Nagi’s recipe I was afraid to use gf pasta. Dinner is now confirmed!
This is really good! Definitely will be adding to our routine of easy weeknight meals.
I used frozen broccoli and although I thawed it, I don’t think I got enough water out. It totally added to the bake time. So in a pinch – I will use frozen broccoli again, but I will try to remember to buy fresh for the next time I make this!
Thank you for the wonderful recipe!
Love these recipes where you cook everything in the one dish. Great when you are short on time. Love that you can double, even triple the quantities, especially if feeding a large crowd.
I have made this twice. First time exactly how stated and although simple and lovely I found it a little bland. Second time I swapped the milk for a can of creamy chicken soup I had in the cupboard and added a teaspoon of crushed garlic and some cracked black pepper. It was well received by family and asked to be made again.