Ingredients:
For the Chicken:
1 ½ lbs boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into cubes
1 tbsp Cajun seasoning, no-sodium
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic + herb seasoning
1 tsp all-purpose chicken seasoning
1 tsp paprika
1 tbsp olive or avocado oil
Salt & pepper to taste
For the Sauce:
4 tbsp butter
5 cloves garlic, minced
4 tbsp all-purpose flour
3 cups heavy cream
1 cup chicken broth
1 ½ cups grated Parmesan cheese
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp garlic & herb seasoning
1 tsp all-purpose chicken seasoning
1 ½ tsp Cajun seasoning
½ tsp smoked paprika
Salt & pepper to taste
For the Pasta Bake:
1 lb penne pasta, cooked al dente
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
1 ½ cups shredded Munster, or Monterey Jack cheese
Chopped fresh parsley (for garnish)
Optional: extra Cajun seasoning for topping
This Cajun Chicken Alfredo Pasta Bake is TOO GOOD to Gatekeep
Method of making
I’m going to show you how to make a delicious Cajun chicken alfredo pasta bake that’s bold, cheesy, creamy, and guess what? Ricarda free. So, with that being said, let’s get to cooking.
Once our water is boiling, we’re going to start off with adding some salt because, of course, our pasta is bland.
Once we’re done, we’re going to add our pasta and cook it down until it’s al dente. We have our large size chicken breast. I’m going to basically slice it in half.
also known as butterflying simply because, as I said earlier, the chicken breast is really huge. We’re going to start off with a drizzle of avocado oil. All right. And we’re also going to hit it with some ground black pepper and salt. Make sure you season it up really, really well. Right. In order to have a nice, delicious, flavorful dish, you have to you got to start from the base.
This Cajun Chicken Alfredo Pasta Bake is TOO GOOD to Gatekeep
You have to if something doesn’t have seasoning, once you add it to whatever and you incorporate it, something is going to be bland. Add some garlic powder. Okay, perfect. We’re also going to add some onion powder, Cajun seasoning, no sodium Cajun seasoning for an delicious Cajun flavor.
Not to mention the great thing that I appreciate about my seasoning, due to the fact that it doesn’t have any sodium, I could control the amount of salt added to the chicken at any given time while still getting all of that Cajun flavor as much as I desire, basically. All right, that’s it. We’re going to go in with some low sodium, very low sodium garlic and herb seasoning. I mean, it’s only right.
We’re making Alfredo.
jazz it up a bit. I’m going to add some of my allp purpose chicken seasoning.
This Cajun Chicken Alfredo Pasta Bake is TOO GOOD to Gatekeep
However, no chicken ingredients. And I’m also going to add some paprika for color. And we’re just going to combine seasoning onto the chicken. And once we’re done, we’re going to grab our skillet and we’re going to brown our chicken. You can look and tell that this chicken is going to be so delicious just by looking at it.
Every piece of chicken is literally coated in our delicious Cajun seasoning.
Right. Anyway, let’s bring in our skillet and let’s get to cooking. Got our skillet ready. We’re going to add a couple tablespoons of oil and we’re going to cook our chicken until it’s cooked all the way through. So, basically just browning our chicken today. We don’t have to sear it. Just make sure your chicken reaches an internal temp of 165° F. I went ahead and I tasted the chicken. And when I tell you, my goodness gracious, flavor, flavor, flavor, and more flavor.
This Cajun Chicken Alfredo Pasta Bake is TOO GOOD to Gatekeep
Okay. And the great thing about it is it’s not salty, cuz I can’t stand a overly salty dish. If it’s too salty, I would not be able to finish it. But this right here, oh my goodness. You have all of the different seasonings that um intertwine with one another, just making it one delicious mixture. Now, here’s the thing. If you don’t have the seasonings that I use, of course, season your chicken however you prefer. Keep in mind if this Cajun seasoning that you’re going to be using contains salt, scale back. Don’t use as much Cajun seasoning because you don’t want your dish, like I said, to be salty. I got to be honest, I prefer low sodium or no sodium products because it allows you to have that flexibility when it comes to adding the amount of salt that you prefer. If this chicken don’t come out of this pan, I swear. It’s like, come on already. All right, we have all of this beautiful Cajun seasoning stuck to the bottom of our pan, which is definitely what we want to happen. At this time, we’re going to add some butter because we want that nice creamy, buttery flavor throughout the dish that we’re going to be creating, of course. Give it a quick stir. Pan is nice and hot, so butter is going to melt in literally 2.5 seconds. At that point in time, you want to introduce your garlic to the pan, of course. Add a good amount of garlic. Give it a good stir. Mhm.
This Cajun Chicken Alfredo Pasta Bake is TOO GOOD to Gatekeep
Give the garlic about 30 seconds to become fragrant. And once that garlic is toasted, we’re going to introduce some allpurpose flour to our pan. And this is going to work as a thickening agent when we start to add our liquid.
We’re going to cook our flour down until it becomes slightly toasted. Turn that flame down. You don’t want to burn the flour. We are not creating a gumbar roof.
All right, perfect. No lumps, no bumps.
We’re going to add our heavy cream. If you want to add half and half for this recipe, you definitely can. I mean, after all, we are using flour as a thickener. Not to mention, we’re going to be adding our Parmesan cheese as well, which is going to help to thicken up the sauce regardless. Give it a good stir. And in about 3 minutes on medium heat, our sauce is going to start to thicken up.
This Cajun Chicken Alfredo Pasta Bake is TOO GOOD to Gatekeep
Going to add about a cup of chicken broth as well. Give that a good stir.
Make sure the cream along with the broth is perfectly combined. We’re going to take this opportunity to season our sauce. All right. We’re going to start off with adding a little bit more garlic powder. Yeah, you added garlic before.
Yes, I know this garlic has a different uh flavor profile nevertheless. And it’s going to bring out even extra flavor that we are looking for in our sauce.
We’re going to add some more Cajun seasoning.
This Cajun Chicken Alfredo Pasta Bake is TOO GOOD to Gatekeep
We’re also going to add some of our garlic and herb seasoning. This garlic and herb seasoning is a step up from Italian seasoning. It has all of the Italian seasoning ingredients plus more. A little bit of allpurpose chicken seasoning. Low sodium as well. And let’s go in with some smoky flavor. So, we’re going to add our smoked paprika. Give that a stir once again. And at this point in time, the bottom of the pan definitely feels really smooth. And this sauce smells amazing. And it hasn’t even start simmer yet, right? Oh my goodness. Oh yes. I’m super excited. I notice as the sauce begins to thicken, I’m getting more and more excited. Let’s add some freshly grated Parmesan cheese. And we’re going to continue stirring because we want our sauce to have a smooth consistency.
So, it’s really important that you add it small quantities at a time while continuously stirring. All right, at this point in time, we’re going to go and check on our pasta. But in the meanwhile, let’s turn the sauce off because it is Let me show you how silky smooth and how creamy delicious this is.
This Cajun Chicken Alfredo Pasta Bake is TOO GOOD to Gatekeep
Set aside from the seasonings that’s in the sauce, right? Like our chunky bits of garlic. Check that out.
This is a sauce.
[Laughter] Right. Hypothetically speaking, let’s say if your sauce is a little bit too thick, you can definitely add either some pasta water to loosen it up. Pasta water obviously from the pasta that we just made. Or you could use maybe, let’s say, some chicken broth or even water.
However, if your sauce is too thin, then you can definitely add maybe some more cheese, like that Parmesan cheese, and it would definitely thicken it up as well. Ready to go. We boiled our pasta until it was al dente. And that was basically it. As you saw, we added some salt to the water to give it some extra flavor. We’re going to continue to fold our pasta into this delicious, decadent, rich, creamy sauce. This has to be the sauce of all Cajun sauces. Goodness gracious. Look at how the sauce is just hugging the pasta.
Just when you thought we were done, we’re going to bring back in our beautiful chicken pieces. Perfectly seasoned Cajun chicken bites. And we’re going to fold our chicken into the pasta as well. Go ahead and reserve this right here.
This Cajun Chicken Alfredo Pasta Bake is TOO GOOD to Gatekeep
Let’s slide this to the side and let’s bring in our 9 by13 glass casserole dish. We went ahead and added some oil simply because we don’t want our pasta to stick to our casserole dish. We’re going to spread it out.
I’m going to grab a handful of monster cheese and mozzarella. And I’m going to add some of our cheese. If you want to include, let’s say, maybe mozzarella and Monterey Jack cheese. You could definitely rock out with that as well, to be honest with you. Going to add a couple of our chicken pieces. Mhm. Just scatter it around.
Trust me on this. It’s going to really stand out on presentation. And of course, we’re going to go in get a better hold this time. And we’re going to add the remaining pasta to this casserole dish. Spread it on out once again. More of that beautiful cheese blend.
This Cajun Chicken Alfredo Pasta Bake is TOO GOOD to Gatekeep
Add it to the top. The monster cheese has a mild sharpness to it that I really appreciate and it’s very creamy. So, it’s going to go perfectly with our decadent sauce. It’s going to be the perfect combination. Not to mention our mozzarella is soft and it’s also going to provide that beautiful cheese pull.
Oo m going to place the remaining chicken on top and it’s going to be beautiful when it comes to presentation. Small amounts of cheese. Small amounts of cheese. And that’s basically it. At this point, we’re going to garnish our beautiful Cajun chicken alfredo pasta bake with some parsley. Once we’re done, we’re going to place it into our 375° Fahrenheit oven for about 25 to 30 minutes. Let’s see what our chicken Alfredo pasta bake is working with. Mhm.
Oh, check out that beautiful cheese bowl. Yay, baby. Probably out of frame by now. All right, as you can see, this is super cheesy and from the looks of things, it’s super creamy as well.
And I am going to be honest with you.
This Cajun Chicken Alfredo Pasta Bake is TOO GOOD to Gatekeep
I’m super greedy. Let’s get it. Oh my goodness. I have a couple words for you guys and it starts and it’s going to end like this. Definitely give this recipe a try because it’s going to be so worth it, my loves. Decadent. It has beautiful Cajun flavor. It’s infused with that creamy, decadent Alfredo goodness that we love when it comes to Alfredo. Not to mention, we have the cheese pull of all cheese pull. So, it’s definitely nice and cheesy. If you’re looking for your seasonings, cooking with Tammy.shop. And that’s it, my loves.
This is it. I’m going to take a bite for you and I’m out of here.
Those things remind me.
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