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A deliciously easy weeknight dinner idea with a chicken Alfredo pasta bake – a creamy sauce with chicken, pancetta, spinach and topped with cheese, it’s delightful.

Weeknight dinner ideas

I love cooking easy dinners, because why would I not?! I want to be able to come home from work, or throw something together quite simply that is super easy to make, with easy to buy ingredients, and delicious all the same. I love easy recipes, we all know this.

For those who like my savoury recipes I am sure you are already aware of my other easy pasta dishes such as my macaroni cheese or my sausage pasta bake for example, and this is chicken Alfredo pasta bake is another delicious one to add to the roster.

I am always here for you guys and what recipes you ask for, and I had the sweetest message asking for this. This recipe is delicious and I have made it several times since, but I hope you guys love it as much as I do.

An easy sauce recipe

For this sauce recipe, I wanted to make it as simple as possible. The recipe base for this starts off with a little olive oil in a large pan. I add in some pancetta to start cooking it off as I want it to crisp up as much as I can in the pan. I add in some cubed chicken breast, but you can chop up some chicken thighs as well. Start to cook the chicken so that it is starting to brown and is basically cooked through (no risk of food poisoning, here).

I then add in some chopped onion, and I always add in garlic for flavour, and I am a garlic lover so I always add in more than a recipe suggests, but I will put a delicious minimum in the recipe below.

The flour is designed to coat the onions, pancetta, and chicken to help thicken the sauce later on, so you need to start to fry that off. I use milk and a mix of single cream for the perfect level of fat content. Salt and pepper, and a little mustard flavours the sauce in the perfect way. You can use any mustard, but personally I adore wholegrain. You can also leave the mustard out, or add a little nutmeg instead but I find the additional flavours complement the recipe perfectly.

I stir through some chopped up spinach that I have not blanched or cooked because it cooks enough in the oven. I also stir through some mature cheddar cheese and parmesan, but you can use basically any cheese that you have in the fridge.

Which pasta should you use?!

I am a firm believer that you can use any type or shape of pasta that you have in the cupboard, but you should always cook it for less time than the packet says as you are going to be baking it in the oven for a considerably amount of time. I tend to go to rigatoni for my basic pasta, but like I say, any work.

You can also swap the pasta for gnocchi if you want to try something indulgent and delicious, or even something else such as orzo. The pasta (cooked at least 2 minutes less than the packet) just mixes through the sauce after it’s made, and then poured into the baking dish. I use a medium sized baking dish, but pretty much any size dish works as long as it fits.

I top the dish with some extra cheese that has been grated, as well as some stale breadcrumbs as I often do because I love the extra cheese and crunch that they bring, but these are optional, they just go gloriously golden and heavenly in the oven.

Swaps and changes

So, as mentioned above, you can basically use any pasta you want. The sauce itself works really well with some prepped potatoes in a dish as well as the mentioned different pasta shapes or gnocchi.

The spinach can be left out, or swapped for another vegetable if you’d prefer to have something else in the recipe. I use a brown/white onion, but a shallot gives a lovely sweetness, or a red onion if you just prefer it. I am a firm believer of just using whatever you have in the fridge of cupboard.

You can use double cream for a more luxurious dinner, or you can use all milk, but it will be less glorious. This recipe is a quick and easy sauce on purpose, compared to a normal and official ‘roux’.

You can swap the pancetta for lardons, or chopped bacon, or leave it out, but generally I find it gives such good flavour and a natural saltiness to the dish that I love. The chicken is hard to be swapped out as it’s a main feature, but it can be if you want.

How to make this recipe Free From

To make this recipe gluten free, you can use a gluten free flour for the sauce or cornflour, and swap the pasta to a gluten free pasta. As always, make sure all other ingredients are gluten free as well.

You can make this recipe dairy free, by using a soy cream and milk for the sauce, and leaving out the cheese but flavouring with a little nutritional yeast in the sauce. You may need to increase the quantity of cream as you won’t have the weight of the cheese in the sauce.

You can make the dish vegan as well by following the above, and swapping the real chicken to vegan chicken pieces instead (same as the bacon). Always make sure that all ingredients are free-from if you need to.

Tips & Tricks

This recipe is best served fresh, but it will last for 3 days in the fridge once made.
You can reheat the meal in the microwave in short bursts until piping hot, or covered in foil in the oven again until piping hot
You can freeze the dish for 3+ months once made, defrost in the fridge the night before re-baking.