Slow Cooker Saucy Chicken and Pasta
This Slow Cooker Saucy Chicken and Pasta meal is super easy and tastes fantastic. With a few ingredients, (five plus seasonings), you have your chicken and pasta all-in-one with a delicious sauce. The sauce is a combination of spaghetti sauce and alfredo sauce together. Delizioso! That’s Italian for “delicious,” and yes, I had to look it up.
This meal is not only amazingly tasty, but it’s great for not having a lot to clean up. My favorite!
The meat, the pasta, and the sauce are all cooked in the same crock pot, so no extra dishes to do. That would be the night I offered to do the dishes. Ha!
And you just know that with spaghetti sauce in it, it’s going to taste even better the next day. Give it that fridge magic!
Making Slow Cooker Saucy Chicken and Pasta
First, line your crock pot with a liner, if you use them. They make for a quick clean-up if you haven’t tried them.
Next, dump both jars of sauce into the crock pot followed by the water. Get all the sauce out of the jars by adding the water to one of the empty jars and shake. Dump that water into the second jar and shake. Now, pour that water into the crock pot.
Stir in the Parmesan cheese, Italian seasoning, and crushed red peppers. This is your saucy sauce.
Season both sides of your chicken breasts with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.
Then, push the chicken into the sauce, or simply flip them over so that both sides are coated with the sauce.
Cover the crock pot and cook on HIGH for four hours.
Uncover and shred the chicken. Either roughly shred the chicken while it’s in the crock pot, or remove the chicken and shred it on a plate, then add it back into the crock pot.
Add the uncooked pasta and stir so that it’s evenly coated in the sauce.
As far as the pasta goes, use whatever you have, such as penne or ziti. Use spaghetti if you want, just break it up so it’s completely in the sauce as it cooks.
How much pasta should I add?
You can add up to 12 oz. of uncooked pasta, which is great when feeding a family.
On the other hand, you could add less (8 oz.), which results in less food, but there will be more sauce.
As you probably already know, when the pasta cooks, it absorbs the moisture from the sauce. So less pasta = more sauce.
If you want more pasta AND more sauce, just add 1/2 cup more water.
Cover and cook on LOW this time, for 30 – 45 minutes, or until the pasta is done.
Additionally, you can sprinkle a cup or two of mozzarella cheese over the top to melt while the pasta is cooking. Yummy!
Serving
Serve this Saucy Chicken and Pasta meal with a simple side salad and some Cheater Bread Sticks to mop up any remaining sauce. Or, here a few other suggestions:
If you tried and love this recipe, please leave a 5-star rating on the recipe card and consider leaving a comment below. Thank you so much.
Slow Cooker Saucy Chicken and Pasta
Ingredients
- 23.9 oz. jar spaghetti sauce (or marinara)
- 16 oz. jar alfredo sauce
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 1 Tbsp. each: Italian seasoning and crushed red peppers
- 3 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
- salt, black pepper, garlic powder to taste
- 8 oz. uncooked pasta (such as Ziti or Penne)
- Optional: 1-2 cups shredded mozzarella to top
Instructions
- Line your crock pot if you use liners.
- Pour in the spaghetti sauce, alfredo sauce, water, Parmesan, Italian seasoning, and red peppers. Stir.
- Season both sides of the chicken with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Push the chicken into the sauce, so that the chicken is coated on both sides with the sauce.
- Cover. Cook on HIGH for 4 hours. Shred chicken. Add 8 – 12 oz. of uncooked pasta to the mix. (The less pasta, the more sauce there will be.) Cover and cook on LOW for 30 – 45 minutes, or until pasta is done.
- Optional: add 1 – 2 cups shredded mozzarella on top when you add the pasta. Serving suggestion: serve with side salad and bread sticks. Enjoy!
Nutrition
Slow Cooker Saucy Chicken and Pasta
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