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Copycat Olive Garden chicken and pasta is a delicious slow cooker dinner that’s easy to make.
Copycat Olive Garden Chicken And Pasta: It’s As Good As They Say!
I believe this one originated on Tik Tok. There’s a lot of recipes that go viral from there just like that feta and tomato pasta. There’s a reason they become viral; they’re usually easy and very tasty. This copycat Olive Garden chicken and pasta is no different.
This recipe makes a lot so if you have family who have huge appetites–meaning teenage boys–then there won’t be any leftovers. For lighter appetites there will be leftovers but hear me out here–this tastes even better the next day! I usually dislike any reheated chicken, but this is very good.
The Pasta
That would be any tubular shape you like. I used penne here but ziti, rigatoni or elbows will do just fine. So will small or medium shells. As always, use what you have.
One thing here is this is not a total slow cooker recipe. You cook the pasta conventionally. I’d like to try this where you’d let the pasta cook along with everything else, but there’d have to be more liquid added in order to cook the pasta. The recipe doesn’t have that much liquid so there’d have to be adjustments. You might be able to get away with it if you used regular egg noodles, but I’m not sure. So if anyone feels like experimenting, please let me know your results.
The Sauce
The sauce is pretty simple. It’s broth, salad dressing and cream cheese.
The recipe calls for the brand-name Olive Garden dressing. I was careful to use that because in a comparison of other Italian dressings on the store shelf, it looked somewhere between the creamy and traditional varieties. Since I want something I make to come out as it should, initially I will use exactly what’s called for in the recipe. The good thing here is you don’t use the entire bottle so you can pop it in the fridge to either use on salads or for another time you make.
Personally, I found the finished product a bit on the dry side so I just added a bit of cream to make it more juicy.
The Recipe
Copycat Olive Garden Chicken and Pasta
Ingredients
- 1.5-2 pounds boneless skinless chicken breast
- 8 oz Olive Garden Italian dressing from a 16oz bottle
- 1 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese jarred is fine too
- 1/2 tsp. black pepper
- 1/2 tsp of parsley
- 1/4 cup of melted butter
- 8 oz Chicken broth
- 4 oz heavy cream
- 8 ounce block of full fat cream cheese
- 16 ounces penne pasta
Instructions
- Add the chicken breasts to the bottom of your slow cooker.
- In a separate bowl, mix the Olive Garden Italian dressing, cream, butter, broth, parmesan, pepper & parsley until combined.
- Pour the mixture over the chicken breasts
- Place the cream cheese on top.
- Place the lid on the slow cooker and cook on high for 4 hours or low for 5-6 hours.
- When the chicken is tender boil your pasta according to box directions and drain.
- Shred the chicken with 2 forks mixing everything together.
- Toss the pasta in with the chicken and sauce and sprinkle with extra parmesan cheese if desired.
