Marry Me Chicken Pasta

Golden pan-fried chicken cutlets smothered in a rich creamy Tuscan-style sun-dried tomato sauce, tossed in the pasta of your choice and topped with parmesan and fresh herbs. A Perfect easy weeknight dinner. 

Ingredient Notes

Chicken

I recommend using chicken cutlets for this recipe. Cutlets are chicken breasts that have been pre-cut in half horizontally. They are thin, so they cook quickly and evenly. Unlike larger or bone-in cuts of chicken, they can easily be browned and cooked in the pan before making the sauce in under 10 minutes. 

Substitutes for chicken cutlets: 

• You can substitute boneless skinless chicken thighs for the cutlets without altering the recipe. 
• You can use boneless skinless chicken breasts if you take the extra step of portioning them into cutlets yourself (see below for instructions).
• ‍You could also use any cut of bone-in chicken if you don’t mind doing the extra work of cutting or shredding the chicken from the bone before adding it back into the pasta. If you go with a bone-in cut of chicken you will need to cook them separately in the oven or air fryer and add it into the sauce with the pasta.
• The easiest substitute would be a pre-made rotisserie chicken or leftover shredded chicken.

Sun-Dried Tomatoes

Though their concentrated sweet and tangy flavor can be divisive, sun-dried tomatoes are an essential ingredient in marry me chicken. They give the sauce its signature Tuscan-inspired flavor. There are a few different types of commonly available sun-dried tomato products you can use, as well as a few alternatives for people who aren’t sun-dried tomato lovers.

If you want to use sun-dried tomatoes: 

• I recommend using the oil-Packed sun-dried tomatoes sold in jars. Packed in oil they remain soft and so are ready to add to your dish straight from the jar. You can even use the oil for frying the aromatics to infuse the dish with even more tomato flavor.
• If you can’t find oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes you may be able to find dry-packed tomatoes sold in bags. These have a milder tomato flavor and will need to be rehydrated before using by blanching them for a few minutes in a small pot of boiling water. 

If you don't want to use (or can't find) sun-dried tomatoes: 

• You can oven-dry your own tomatoes. Not a time saver, obviously, but a relatively simple option if, like me, you don’t have easy access to store-bought sun-dried tomato products. 
• Use a pint or so of cherry tomatoes instead. Cherry tomatoes will need time to break down otherwise they will be too firm in the final recipe. If using, you’ll want to cook them down until they burst and become jammy before adding them to the recipe either in the pan before you add the stock in step 4 of the recipe below, or roast them separately on a sheet pan in a 425F oven for about 15-20 minutes before adding them to the sauce.
• Omit the sun-dried tomatoes from the recipe and add a bit more tomato paste into the sauce. This will result in a simpler milder flavor that’s not exactly marry me chicken, but will still be a delicious and creamy chicken dish. 

Cream

Marry me chicken is an indulgent dish and it’s meant to be that way. You’ll want to use a cream product that is relatively high in fat. I recommend using either double cream (48% fat) or whipping cream (36% fat) to achieve the right consistency in the sauce. 

Alternatively, you could substitute the heavy cream with half and half (10-18% fat), whole milk (3.25%) or even more chicken stock if you really want the finished dish to be lighter, but your sauce may turn out too thin and less flavorful.  

If you’re looking for an easy weeknight chicken dinner that’s made without the heavy cream, try this Chinese-style garlic ginger soy braised chicken.

Pasta

Technically, the various pasta shapes are meant to be paired with particular sauce types - different shapes are better or worse suited to sauce-delivery depending on the consistency of the sauce. Practically speaking, though, any pasta shape will do just fine. Use your favorite pasta shape or whatever you have on hand. 

I prefer to serve my cream-based pasta sauces with skinny long pasta shapes like spaghetti or linguine, but short twisted pasta shapes like fusilli or short tube shapes like rigatoni or penne also pair well with cream sauce.

Parmesan

Avoid pre-shredded parmesan and go with a fresh block you grate yourself. Pre-shredded parmesan contains additives that prevent it from clumping and it doesn’t really taste the same as fresh parmesan. As an added bonus you can freeze the rinds of parmesan blocks and add them to soups to add flavor and texture. 

Pecorino is another option that tastes similar enough to work well as a substitute. 

Spinach

Most recipes for marry me chicken don’t contain greens but I opted to add some to this recipe because wilting greens in pasta is a very fast and easy way to add nutritional value to a meal. The fastest cooking and most tender green you can use in this dish is baby spinach, but if you don’t mind completing a few extra steps you can use any other green you might have on hand. 

• If using a larger soft green, like full-sized spinach, chop it into smaller pieces before adding it to the sauce and cook as you would the baby spinach. 
• You can also use sturdier greens like kale or collards. These will need to be cut into smaller pieces, added to the sauce earlier in the cooking process and you may need to extend the cooking time of the sauce to wilt them down sufficiently.

When I have a glut of sturdy greens in my garden I like to use this recipe to cook and freeze them in portions that can easily be added to recipes like this marry me chicken. 

Technique Notes

How to Make Oven "Sun-Dried" Tomatoes

Drying your own tomatoes is a relatively easy project that might be a good option for you if you’d like to make something like marry me chicken but can’t find sun-dried tomatoes or if you’re looking for something to do with a glut of home grown tomatoes. 

You can make a batch of oven-dried tomatoes in advance and either store them submerged in oil in a jar in the refrigerator for up to 6 months or freeze them for up to a year.

Properly oven-dried tomatoes can be kept at room temperature for a few months, but I prefer to refrigerate mine for extra caution. If you plan to store yours for more than a few weeks, don’t add any herbs or garlic to the tomatoes and consider dipping them in vinegar before adding them to the jar and submerging them in oil.

To Make Homemade "Sun-Dried" Tomatoes: 

1. Any type of tomato can be dried but plum-shaped, paste or roma varieties - like San Marzano or amish paste - are ideal because of their denser flesh, lower moisture content and smaller size.
2. Cut smaller tomatoes like plum or romas in half and slice larger ones into several thick wedges. Aim to cut your tomatoes into uniform sizes so they dry evenly.
3. Arrange tomatoes, cut-side up, on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. 
4. Season with salt and pepper but use a light hand - the flavor will intensify as the tomatoes shrink and dry. 
5. Roast in a 200 degree oven for 2-3 hours or until they are dry but still pliable and no moisture comes out when pressed. Check occasionally to remove smaller tomatoes that dry more quickly. Turn the oven temperature down if the tomatoes begin to char before they are fully dried.  
6. To store your oven-dried tomatoes either transfer them to a jar, cover them with olive oil and keep in the refrigerator for 4-6 months or freeze them in a single layer on a baking sheet and transfer to a freezer safe bag or container to store in the freezer for up to a year. Frozen oven-dried tomatoes may need to be quickly blanched to soften before using.

For more Italian-inspired meal ideas try this shrimp scampi pasta with spinach or these cheesy Italian meatball sliders.

How to Make Chicken Cutlets

Buying pre-cut chicken cutlets is faster and easier than cutting your own chicken breasts into cutlets but pre-made cutlets are not always available, and are usually more expensive. If you’d prefer to start with boneless skinless chicken breasts and cut them yourself into cutlets: 

• Lay the chicken breast flat on a cutting board, press down on the top of the breast with your non-dominant hand, keeping your fingers away from the knife. With your dominant hand, use a smooth motion to slice horizontally through the middle of the chicken breast with your knife parallel to the cutting board starting with the thickest part of the breast. 

• It’s important to slice your cutlets so that they are an even thickness - about ½ to ¼ of an inch thick. This will allow them to cook evenly so that they are ready at the same time. If necessary, pound the cutlets after cutting them until they are more or less an even thickness.
• Freezing your chicken breasts for about 20 minutes prior to cutting them will make them easier to slice. If you do this you may need a few more minutes in the pan to cook. 

Dredging Chicken Cutlets

Dredging your cutlets in flour before pan-frying them is not a strictly necessary step but it makes them easier to work with: 

• A coating of flour allows the cutlets to brown without sticking to the pan and creates a crisper outer crust, which is good when using skinless cuts. When coated with flour, cutlets will lift easily from the pan before they’re finished browning. Which means you can move them around the pan, if necessary, to ensure they are evenly browned.
• You can add seasoning to the flour, but I prefer to season the chicken with salt and pepper and then dredge it through the flour. This way you know your seasonings are on your chicken, not left behind in the excess flour.

Make it Easier

Try one of these chicken recipes next! Pozole-inspired chicken tomatillo soup, creamy Burmese coconut chicken curry, or Mexican chicken tinga tostadas.

This recipe is fairly simple and sort-of a one-pan meal (if you don’t count the pot for the pasta), but if you want to speed things up try these shortcuts: 

• Use pre-made cutlets rather than chicken breasts. 
• Use leftover shredded chicken or a store-bought rotisserie chicken instead of the cutlets. Make the sauce and add the shredded chicken to the pan along with the pasta. 
• Substitute about 1-2 teaspoons of Italian seasoning mix for the spices listed in the recipe below.