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This Lemon Chicken Angel Hair pasta recipe is fresh and light (for a pasta dish). It’s flavoured with freshly squeezed lemon, torn basil leaves and a little parmesan. The creamy sauce is also made from yoghurt, so it’s a little healthier than your standard creamy pasta sauces.
What is angel hair pasta?
Angel hair pasta is an ultra-fine Italian pasta. So fine that the threads could resemble light hair. Its name is officially Capelli D’Angelo. You can also buy Capellini pasta which is slightly thicker. Either will work for this recipe.
Is this recipe healthy?
As far as pasta goes this recipe is fairly healthy. It uses yogurt instead of fattening cream for the sauce and also uses lean chicken breast. It also contains a generous portion of healthy broccoli.
The entire meal comes in at 600 calories, which is modest for a pasta dish, and it has 11g of fat. If you want to reduce the calories and fat more then serve without parmesan. You can also reduce the portion of pasta a little to make it a lighter meal.
How long does it keep?
You can keep this dish for up to 3 days in the fridge, make sure it’s fully covered. You may find that the pasta is a little overdone when reheating, however. I don’t recommend freezing this as the yogurt sauce may separate during the process.
Ingredients
For this recipe you’ll need
- Chicken breast – skinless
- Chicken stock – you can use fresh or from a stock cube
- Low-fat natural yogurt
- Garlic – peeled and minced
- Lemon – around half a lemon per portion – cut a couple of slices for each portion and then squeeze the juice from the remaining fruit.
- Broccoli – cut it into small pieces
- Angel hair pasta or capellini
- Fresh basil leaves
- Freshly grated parmesan – use freshly grated and don’t be tempted to buy the pre-grated stuff which contains additives which prevent it from melting.
Substitutions
- You can use full fat yogurt if you prefer – which will actually result in a creamier sauce, although there will be a trade off in increased calories
- You could use spaghetti or linguine for this recipe too, if you prefer a ‘meatier’, thicker pasta
- Broccoli can be substituted for sliced green beans, mangetout (snow peas) or sugar snap beans.
How to make it
To make this chicken angel hair pasta first, make the marinade for the chicken. Mix together the yogurt, chicken stock and garlic and lemon juice. Place the chicken in a baking dish and cover with the marinade. Make sure it’s smothered with the sauce all over and then set aside for 20 minutes. You can leave out to come up to room temperature which will help it cook evenly.
Heat the oven to 180C / 350F. Place the chicken in the oven and cook for 30 minutes. After cooking leave it to rest for 5 minutes.
Bring a pan of salted water to the boil and add a little olive oil. Add the broccoli and cook for one minute. Add the pasta to the water and cook for 1 minute less than the packet instructions.
Drain the water from the pasta and slice the chicken into thin slices. Add both the pasta and chicken to the pan along with the juices from the chicken baking tray. Tear in the basil leaves and stir everything together well. Serve and scatter the parmesan on top.
If you are looking for more great pasta recipes then check out this linguine bolognese or this king prawn pasta with chilli and garlic. Yum!
Products that work well for this recipe:
Food Hugger Set
Joseph Joseph Fold Flat Grater
T-fal Nonstick Pan
Lemon Chicken Angel Hair Pasta
- Total Time: 55 minutes
- Yield: 1 1x
Description
This Lemon Chicken Angel Hair Pasta is really fresh and light, flavoured with freshly squeezed lemon and basil. The creamy sauce is made from yoghurt, so it’s a little healthier too!
The default recipe serves one
Ingredients
- 1 small chicken breast (around 120 g)
- 60ml chicken stock (1/4 cup)
- 2 tbsp low-fat yogurt
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 1/2 lemon
- 80g broccoli, cut into small chunks (around 1 cup)
- 85g angel hair pasta
- 5–6 basil leaves
- 20g freshly grated parmesan
Instructions
1. In a bowl, whisk together the chicken stock, yoghurt and garlic clove until the yoghurt isn’t lumpy. Place the chicken in a baking dish and cover with the sauce – making sure it’s fully covered. Place the lemon slices on the top and leave for 20 minutes.
2. Heat the oven to 180 c / 350 f. Place the chicken in the oven for 30 minutes. If the chicken breast is particularly large it may need a little longer. Once the chicken is done remove from the oven and leave to rest for 4-5 minutes. Don’t discard the sauce as you’ll add it to the pasta later.
3. After resting remove the chicken from the baking tray with some tongs and slice thinly on a chopping board.
4. Bring a large pan of heavily salted water to a rolling boil and add a few of drops of olive oil to the water. Add the broccoli to the water and cook until the water reaches a full boil again (which should take around a minute).
5. Add the pasta to the boiling water and twirl around the edge of the pan until the pasta is fully submerged in the water. Cook for 1 minute less than the packet instructions.
6. Drain the water from the pasta and broccoli and add the chicken and all the sauce from the baking tray into the pan. Tear in the basil leaves and stir together well. Top with the parmesan.
Notes
Angel hair pasta cooks REALLY quickly. Make sure you are fully prepped for steps 5 & 6 and perform them quickly. The pasta should only be in the pan for a further minute or so after boiling.
If you’ve chopped the broccoli small enough then this results in crunchy al-dente veg. If you prefer your broccoli to be softer in texture then add this to the boiling water for an extra 1-2 minutes before adding the pasta.
Heating the water to a rolling boil will help stop it sticking together as it keeps it moving in the pan.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 40 minutes
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Hob / Bake
- Cuisine: Italian
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1
- Calories: 600
- Fat: 11g
- Carbohydrates: 66g
- Protein: 57g
Keywords: italian, dinner, pasta, capellini, angel hair pasta, lemon, yogurt, parmesan, chicken, healthy
I can’t figure out why, but for some reason this seemed like a particularly good “cooking-for-one” recipe. While it was really simple (not even a lot of prep), there’s were lots of fresh flavors. I used whole grain pasta so it was even healthier. Although I thought I would miss olive oil on the pasta, I found the sauce from the chicken to meet that craving and felt incredibly full afterwards.
★★★★★
So glad you liked it Aubrilyn! It is definitely a good ‘for one’ recipe – I think pasta always hits the spot when you need something easy and delicious that you can make in a small portion.