Need a quick dinner? This Gluten-Free Chicken Pesto Pasta comes together in just 15 minutes. With dairy-free basil pesto, juicy chicken, and gluten-free noodles, it’s a creamy, comforting meal perfect for busy weeknights.
"I love Pesto with pasta. This chicken pesto pasta sounds delicious and simple to make. I would love to make it for lunch asap. Thanks for sharing". -Ophelia Tang
A Quick Look At The Recipe
- ⏲️Ready In: 15 Minutes
- 👪Serves: 4
- 🍽 Calories and Protein: 604 kcals and 37 grams of protein
- 📋Main Ingredients: chicken breasts, gluten-free soba noodles, pesto sauce, mushrooms, and garlic.
- 📖 Dietary Notes: Dairy-free, gluten-free, and nut-free.
- ⭐ Why You'll Love It: This quick chicken pesto pasta is creamy, flavorful, and comes together in just 15 minutes for an easy weeknight dinner.
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This creamy chicken pesto pasta is the perfect weeknight dinner when time is tight. It comes together in just fifteen minutes, making it a great option for busy days (like the recipes in the Busy Mom's Cookbook). As a mom of three, I’m always looking for dinners that feel comforting but don’t take forever to make.
One of my favorite tricks is to cook once and use the extras later. Make a double batch of pesto or chicken and turn the leftovers into chicken pesto pizzas the next night. Since the pesto sauce skips parmesan, the dish stays naturally gluten-free and still tastes rich and creamy. And if you’re looking for more ideas, check out these 15 easy gluten-free dinner recipes.
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💭Why You'll Love This Recipe
Flavorful: All the classic flavors of pesto sauce and comforting pasta, but without dairy or gluten.
Light: This gluten-free dairy-free chicken pesto pasta is lighter than normal, given that it uses soba noodles. Perfect for an easy lunch or dinner.
Quick to make: Using leftover chicken and an easy homemade sauce, the dinner comes together in roughly 15 minutes.
Ingredients and Substitutions
One of the perks of this creamy chicken pesto pasta is that you probably have most of the ingredients on hand already!
- Cooked chicken breasts: Always cook more chicken than you need! Keep it in the fridge to make recipes like this creamy pesto easy. We use leftover chicken from Dutch oven whole chicken more often than not.
- Dairy-free, creamy pesto sauce: This pesto recipe without pine nuts or cheese has the addition of spinach to boost your veggie intake! Of course, store-bought pesto, oregano pesto, or this nut free pesto works as well.
- Soba noodles: Also known as buckwheat noodles, they're super thin and cook in about 10 minutes. We use them in this soba noodle bowl the most.
See the recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities.
Flavor Variations
- Spicy: Add a kick of heat with red pepper flakes.
- Extra add-ins: Sundried tomatoes and roasted cherry tomatoes are always tasty.
- Alfredo: Make this dairy-free pesto chicken pasta into an alfredo pesto by mixing in coconut milk alfredo sauce, then whip up this slow cooker chicken alfredo the next night.
How To Make Creamy Pesto Pasta
Step 1. Toss in the mushrooms and garlic and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook for 2-3 minutes until cook until soft.
Step 2: Make the pesto by combining all ingredients into a powerful blender and blending until smooth.
Step 3. Boil the noodles and heat the pesto and chicken with the mushrooms before combining it all together.
Important Teaching Tips
This creamy pesto chicken pasta is easy to whip up. However, it does require some meal prep.
To make this recipe a 15-minute meal, the chicken must be cooked ahead of time. Grilled chicken cut up, or roasted, shredded chicken both work for the recipe. Likewise, the flavored chicken will work as well as most flavors will pair nicely with pesto sauce.
Blend the dairy-free pesto as chunky or smooth as you like. If you find it's a bit thick, add a splash more oil or even water to thin it out.
The soba noodles cook QUICKLY once in the water, so, have everything just about ready before you cook them.
How To Serve It
Almost any salad recipe can be paired nicely with creamy chicken pesto pasta.
We actually love ours with a side of root vegetable medley.
Gluten-Free Chicken Pesto Pasta FAQs
Homemade, dairy-free pesto works in place of sauce for almost anything. Use it as the base of a pizza, smeared onto a sandwich or as the dressing in a wrap with grilled vegetables.
Any vegetable will work in pesto pasta. Roasted cherry tomatoes, roasted cauliflower or even snow peas are great flavor additions.
More Dinner Recipes You'll Love
If you tried this Gluten-Free Chicken Pesto Pasta Recipe or any other recipe on my blog, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it goes!
Dairy and Gluten- Chicken Pesto Pasta
Video
Equipment
- Cast iron pan for cooking
- Mini food processor
Ingredients
- 1 cup creamy pesto sauce
- 1 tbs avocado oil
- 2 chicken breasts cooked
- 14 button mushrooms sliced
- 1 garlic minced
- Soba noodles for four
Instructions
- Make the pesto. Combine all ingredients into a powerful blender (like a vitamix) and blend until smooth.
- Boil water and cook noodles according to package directions. Rinse and drain.
- While the water for the noodles is boiling, heat some oil in a pan over medium heat. Toss in the mushrooms and garlic. Sprinkle with a bit of salt and pepper. Cook for 2-3 minutes until just starting to soften.
- Add the chicken to the heat. Lower the temperature slightly and add the pesto sauce to the pan only to warm it (2-3 minutes).
- Assemble your dish. Place noodles into the bowl and top with pesto sauce. Swirl it around to combine it and top with nutritional yeast or vegan parmesan cheese if you'd like.
Notes
Disclaimer:
Nutrition values are estimates only, using online calculators. Please verify using your own data"
Nutrition
Shelby S says
This comes out SO creamy it's perfect for hot days.
Cori @ Sweet Coralice says
I love Chicken Pesto Pasta! This sounds super easy to make and that makes for a perfect dinner/lunch option ?
fitasamamabear says
Pesto pasta is awesome!! I love this one for a quick dinner- makes life easy 😀
La Shell says
Pesto is so intimidating to me I really want to try it but I'm yet to use it. Will have to check it out because I love chicken with pasta!
fitasamamabear says
Ah that's fair! To me pesto seems really fancy but it so simple to make- which is why I love it haha
Ophelia Tang says
I love Pesto with pasta. This chicken pesto pasta sounds delicious and simple to make. I would love to make it for lunch asap. Thanks for sharing.
fitasamamabear says
I'm a sucker for pesto pasta too! It's so simple but so tasty. Enjoy it!
Megan Miller says
I might need more garlic but I love it! It's a good summer (end of summer) recipe!
fitasamamabear says
Haha I normally more for myself too! But Everyone else seems to like slightly less- garlic rocks!
Farrah says
Pesto is one of my favorite things! 😀 This looks super good! Hope I'll get to enjoy it for dinner sometime this week! *-*
fitasamamabear says
Pesto goes on everything! I love it too 🙂
Olivia says
Mmmm that looks delicious, going to save this to try it out for dinner soon. will let you know how it goes!
fitasamamabear says
Sooo simple! And you can't go wrong with pesto.. or pasta haha let me know!
Crystal Lam says
I love pesto! I need to try this out asap!
fitasamamabear says
Pesto works for everything- so yummy! Enjoy 🙂
Ter says
That's a must try!!!! I can't believe how few ingredients it requires. I know I can do this one! May try it with zucchini noodles.
fitasamamabear says
So so simple! I honestly eat it all the time haha It makes for the fastest dinner ever- zucchini noodles would be yummy!