Healthy Eats: Italian Marinated Chicken with ‘Creamy’ Lemon pasta
I love Italian food as much as the next person but I think there’s very much a ‘british italian’ way of cooking that involves massive portions, cream and a whole lot of white refined flour carbs. In coming up with this recipe, I’ve tweaked everything to make it much more healthy. My kind of healthy eating isn’t about counting every calorie obsessively, it about creating great flavours, lightening things up and making it more nutritious. This meal is filling, healthy and you’re not sacrificing any of the flavour you’d expect from Italian style cooking.
Serves 2
Chicken
2 chicken breasts
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1 teaspoon italian dried herb seasoning
black pepper
1 teaspoon dijon mustard
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon water
Pasta
Ingredients:
- 4oz wholegrain pasta (I chose fusilli so the sauce would cling within the grooves)
- 100ml low sodium chicken broth
- 1 medium onion, finely sliced
- 1 small courgette (finely chopped)
- half a cup of finely sliced white mushrooms
- 1 tablespoon fresh basil leaves, finely chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- salt and pepper, to taste
- 1 tablespoon half fat creme fraiche
- juice of 1 lemon
- 1 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese
Directions:
1) Fill a pan with water and bring to the boil. Envelope the chicken breasts in clingfilm or baking parchment and beat lightly with a rolling pin to slightly flatten them. This will decrease the cooking time. Cover both sides of the chicken breasts in the marinade. Heat a little olive oil in a frying pan and place the chicken breasts in there, browning on both sides, then turning down to a low heat to cook for a further 10-15 mins.
2) Add your wholegrain pasta to the boiling pan of water and cook until al dente (around 10 minutes).
3) Heat a little olive oil in a small pan and add the onions, courgettes and mushrooms, sautéing until golden brown. Reduce the heat to medium and add the garlic, cooking for a minute or so. Add the black pepper, salt, creme fraiche, chicken broth, lemon juice and Parmesan. Turn the heat back up to high to reduce the sauce and thicken.
4) Take the chicken breasts off the heat and slice. Add the sauce to the pasta with the fresh chopped basil and combine throughly. Serve with wafer thin shavings of parmesan and additional basil leaves or alternatively some parsley.
