One Pan Chicken and Broccoli Pasta Bake

A mouthful in the very best way, this one pan chicken and broccoli pasta bake is loaded with flavour, creamy, cosy and extremely easy to make. All cooked in one pan means a lot less washing up, less pans to be watching and an all round easier dinner time.

Cheesy on top with chunks of tender, flavourful chicken thigh throughout, this broccoli chicken pasta bake is geared towards simplicity without skimping on flavour. It’s loaded with broccoli and sun dried tomatoes so, while it’s comfort food, you know there’s good stuff in there.

And the creamy sauce, oh my. This is no solid slab of a pasta bake, no way. This pasta bake has a creamy sauce that’s oh so good. You’ll love this one pan chicken pesto pasta bake too.

Ingredients

There is so much to love about this broccoli chicken and pasta bake and the everyday simple ingredients is just one of those things. Dried pasta, chicken thighs, cheese, stock, onion, garlic – all so easy to get. Using frozen broccoli is a bonus too, loads of veg but no need to prep it first as it’s all done for you.

Jump to the recipe for full ingredients and instructions.

• Chicken thighs: I love to use skinless boneless chicken thighs in this as they have great flavour. You can use chicken breast too though it does tend to be a bit drier than thigh. You can also use already cooked chicken like a rotisserie chicken.
• Onion and garlic: These two are such a great pair for a big hit of flavour.
• Stock: I use a low sodium chicken stock or chicken broth here. You can use vegetable stock if you prefer.
• Thyme: Fresh thyme adds so much wonderful flavour to this. It adds an earthy, cosy kind of flavour.
• Dried pasta: I love rigatoncini pasta in this which is a thinner style of rigatoni a little like penne pasta. Penne pasta would be fine and I’ve made this with casarecce previously too which was great. Just choose chunkier pasta shapes like those or spiral pasta or fusilli pasta.
• Cream: You’re after thickened cream or heavy cream. Cooking cream is good too.
• Sun dried tomatoes: These dried tomatoes pack a flavour punch. They’re sweet but rich in umami too and work a treat in this chicken broccoli pasta bake. If you don’t like sun-dried tomatoes, you can leave them out or add roughly chopped roasted peppers in their place.
• Broccoli: And just to make it even easier, you just want a pack of frozen broccoli florets. It’s already blanched so cooks perfectly in this pasta bake in the time provided.
• Cheese: I use two types of cheese in this – cheddar cheese for richness and mozzarella cheese for gooey stringiness. If you choose just to use cheddar, I would cut the total amount down to about 1 ½ cups or you may find the flavour is too overwhelming for the rest of the dish (since mozzarella is quite a bland cheese). You can swap the cheddar for ¾ cup of shredded parmesan cheese too.

How to make chicken and broccoli pasta bake

You’re going to love the simplicity of this chicken broccoli and pasta bake. After browning the chicken and softening the onions, it’s all up to the oven to do the rest. No cooking pasta first, just bang it all in the pan with some stock and it will cook perfectly right there. You’ll take it out part way through to add broccoli, cream, tomatoes and cheese, then back in the oven to finish. While it may not be weeknight kind of quick, it certainly makes for an easy weekend dinner.

What pan should I use? You’ll need to use something like a braising pan. It needs to be deep enough to hold all that filling without overflowing. You could use a Dutch oven. If you don’t have anything suitable, cook the chicken and onion mixture in a regular pan, then transfer it to a large casserole dish and bake in that.

Jump to the recipe for full ingredients and instructions.

Variations

• Don’t like sun dried tomatoes? Leave them out or replace them with something like chopped roasted peppers or even pitted olives. Obviously, both will result in a different flavour.
• Rotisserie chicken: Want to skip browning the chicken. Use about 2 ½-3 cups of shredded rotisserie chicken and add it after the onions have softened.
• Vegetarian option: Swap the chicken for frozen cauliflower and swap the chicken stock for vegetable stock for a vego option.
• Vegan: As above but swap the cream for a plant-based cooking cream as well. You’ll also need to use a vegan cheese.
• Make it lighter: Try swapping the cream for whole milk and flour. Just mix 1 ½ tablespoons of plain flour (all-purpose flour) into a little milk to form a slurry, then top it up to the one cup. It won’t give the same richness of flavour or silky texture to the sauce but it’s not too bad at all and still tastes great.

Storage

If you’re lucky enough to have leftovers, store your chicken and broccoli pasta bake in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days. It reheats quite well but benefits from just a little drizzle of fresh cream before reheating. I normally just reheat in the microwave until hot but you could do it in the oven or in a pan too.