Easy Lemon Chicken Pasta

Springing forward, paired with a beautiful day called for a light dinner. One of my students had given me a large bag of lemons picked from his parents tree, so lemons were my inspiration while searching for a new recipe to try. I also wanted something quick and easy because I wanted to take the dogs for a nice long walk after I got home from the gym. Chicken was on sale so I searched the Food Network's website and found Easy Lemon Chicken Pasta which is a recipe from the show Down Home with the Neely's.


Easy Lemon Chicken Pasta
The Neely's

Ingredients

• 1 pound dried penne
• 2 chicken cutlets, cut into fingers
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 3 cloves garlic, sliced
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 tablespoons roughly chopped fresh parsley, for garnish
• 2 lemons, juiced
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan

Directions

Cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water, until al dente. Drain well.

Season chicken with salt and pepper. Heat a large grill pan over medium high and add chicken. Grill until golden and completely cooked. Remove to a plate and slice.

Add the garlic and red pepper flakes to a saute pan with 3 tablespoons of olive oil and saute until fragrant. Add the cooked pasta and turn heat off. Mix all together.

Remove pasta to a large bowl. Add chicken to the warm pasta and season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle in chopped parsley. Add the juice of 2 lemons and mix. Before serving top with Parmesan.

Cook pasta according to package directions, drain.

Sprinkle salt and pepper onto two boneless skinless chicken breasts. I also sprinkled with garlic powder and seasoning salt.

Grill the chicken until cooked completely, the recipe calls for using a grill pan, but we used our outdoor grill.

Slice the chicken.

Slice, or press three cloves of garlic.

Add garlic and red pepper flakes to thee T of olive oil in a saute pan (I added one additional T of olive oil.)

Saute until fragrant.

Add the pasta and turn off the heat.

Mix together.

Add the chicken to the warm pasta and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Sprinkle with parsley.

Juice two lemons and stir into the pasta mixture.

Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese before serving.

The Neely's Easy Lemon Chicken Pasta is ridiculously simple to prepare and is very good. I was surprised that such great flavor could come from such minimal ingredients. Because it was such a beautiful evening, Terry grilled the chicken on our outdoor grill. We grilled triple the amount so that I could freeze two more meals worth for easy weeknight dinners. I used rotini pasta instead of penne, and I added one additional tablespoon of olive oil because I thought three tablespoons would not be enough to coat an entire pound of pasta. Once the oil, garlic and red pepper flakes were combined I thought that the pasta tasted bland, once the lemon was incorporated each of the elements were enhanced and it tasted wonderful. Terry felt that there was too much "green stuff" a.k.a. parsley, but I thought it was perfect. Easy Lemon Chicken Pasta will be made constantly throughout the summer and I will experiment with adding a variety of vegetables and reducing a bit of the pasta to enhance its healthiness.

-Heather