caesar chicken tortellini;
This past week was a struggle. Actually, all (two) weeks since Thanksgiving. Even with the Hello Fresh meals eliminating some meal planning and grocery shopping, I’ve felt like a crazy person. Just this past weekend there was our company holiday party, a LAN party with the guys at work, a visit to a Shiba inu adoption event, brunch with friends, and an entire day driving to and advising for my sorority. While all those things were fun, needless to say, it’s been a little crazy. I could have used a weekend break from the weekend!
I remember when I was close to graduating college, I would freak out wondering what would happen after graduation, how would I make friends, and what would I do with all that time? Time not spent on homework or in class or working on group projects. I can only look back now with a laugh and say: “HAH”. There are just too many things always on my want-to-do list ~ which is really a wonderful problem to have, though I could use some more sleep!
So I asked T to help out this week and come up with a few ideas for dinner. This is double-duty — it helps me out with not having to think about planning, and if he chooses the meals, I know he’ll enjoy them. The first one he picked was Caesar Chicken Tortellini! And boy, was it yum — and the kicker — super simple to make. Marinate the chicken — I used Ken’s steakhouse dressing and a touch of Kraft dressing because I had some left over. I prefer the “lite” oil-based dressings because I think they have just as much flavor and somehow seem like a better marinade, though I’m pretty sure that creamy will work fine too. I even used the water I usually throw in an empty dressing bottle to clean it out into the water for the tortellini, although I’m 99.9% sure that it added nothing because it was was so diluted.
We had the tortellini with individual garlic monkey breads, but I’ll post that recipe separately because they were delicious on their own! Could always have gone with a side salad or some fruit, but why would you choose that over garlicky-buttery-bread? You got me. This tortellini recipe was adapted from Des on life’s ambrosia.
caesar chicken tortellini;
Ingredients
- 1 lb chicken breasts
- ¼ cup prepared caesar dressing
- 1 lb rainbow tortellini
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 shallot, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- ½ tsp. dried basil
- salt & pepper
Instructions
- Pound the chicken to ¼” thick and marinate for 30+ mins in the caeser dressing.
- Heat salted water to a boil, and cook the tortellini. Drain when pasta is al-dente.
- Heat the olive oil in a skillet and cook the chicken 5-7 mins. When cooked through, remove from heat and cut into bite-sized pieces.
- Using the same pan, cook the shallots, garlic and basil for 1 min. Add ¼ cup caesar dressing (use leftover marinade) and ¼-½ cup water. Cook until reduced.
- Stir in the chicken and pasta and toss together to coat. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
1 Comments
garlic monkey bread; – tipsychocochip
December 9, 2015 at 10:03 pm
[…] we made individual garlic monkey breads as a quick side to caesar chicken tortellini the other other night! They were quite tasty, and simple to boot, considering I pretty much […]