One Pot Cajun Pasta with Chicken & Sausage
This One Pot Cajun Pasta with Chicken and Sausage is spicy, creamy, and… it’s a one pot recipe (cue cheering)! Yes, this recipe for Cajun pasta is a one pot recipe, meaning less dishes – YAY! This recipe features Cajun chicken breast and smoked garlic sausage that has been fried up, further amplifying those Cajun spices and providing a spicy and delicious fond to work with. Onions and bell peppers are thrown in and lightly fried, picking up the flavor from the pan, and then in goes the milk, chicken broth, and pasta. All this is cooked up together to create a dish that is creamy, oozing with spicy flavor, and best yet, simple!
How to Make One Pot Cajun Pasta
Aren’t one pot recipes the best? Anything that means less dishes at the end of the night is a winner in my books! How do one pot recipes, such as this Cajun pasta one, work? Well, the obvious answer is that it just involves one dish for everything, but pasta one pot recipes are special because utilize the starch in the pasta to create a thick sauce! Basically, the pasta cooks in the liquid, absorbing the cooking liquid and also releasing it’s starch into the sauce, making it thick and creamy! Furthermore, the pasta is extra flavorful because it has absorbed a flavorful liquid! Score!
Important Notes on Making One Pot Pasta
It is important to use a few crucial ingredients and steps when making this One Pot Cajun Pasta recipe, or many other one pot recipes for that matter. First, when using milk in a one pot recipe, it needs to be stabilized. Without some form of stabilization, the milk with curdle in the presence of the heat. The best way to stabilize milk is with a starch – this is where flour comes in! Flour acts as an emulsifier for the milk, preventing it from separating. Next, we need the proper liquid to pasta ratio. Too much liquid and the one pot recipe will be soupy, and too little will result in undercooked and dry pasta. I have found the right ratio to be 3 cups of small pasta to 4 cups of liquid, or alternatively (and more precise), 12oz (340g) of pasta to 4 cups (32oz or 1000mL) of liquid. Lastly, it is crucial when making a one pot pasta recipe that you have to stir every few minutes! Pasta is starchy, and starch is sticky. These noodles LOVE to stick to the bottom of the pan, meaning that if you don’t stir you’ll end up with a pretty disastrous mess. To prevent this, simply remove the lid every few minutes and give the one pot Cajun pasta a good stirring, ensuring nothing is clinging to the bottom of the pan.
What is Fond?
In this one pot cajun pasta recipe, and many of my other recipes, I talk about fond. Fond essentially is the fancy term for all those little browned bits that form on the bottom of your pan when you cook something in it. Fond can be created from meat or vegetables, it doesn’t matter. What makes fond so special, and truly a cooks greatest ingredient, is that it has concentrated flavor. I read on a description on Food52’s website that perfectly sums it up – “In the universe of cooking, fond is the dark matter. Undetectable in a finished dish, these concentrated brown bits may seem small, but the impact they have on flavor is huge”.
What is happening on a molecular level is something known as the Maillard reaction. This is a chemical reaction that occurs when food is exposed to high levels of heat. Otherwise know as ‘browning’, the Maillard reaction breaks down and denatures the protein molecules in food, causing them to release chemicals that would otherwise be locked in them. This unlocking of chemicals allows them to freely combine with other chemicals to create multiple new flavor compounds. What all this mumbo jumbo means is that this fond on the bottom of the pan is, and I’m not exaggerating, bursting with flavor and potential! As such, it can make one heck of a flavorful sauce! The trouble with fond, however, is that it needs to be released from the pan somehow. The great thing? This can easily be done in many ways!
How to Deglaze
The process of releasing the fond from the pan is called deglazing. Deglazing can happen with any liquid, most famously wine, but water or broth works as well, and can also be done with vegetables that release moisture, such as onions or mushrooms! In this cajun pasta recipe, onions are initially used to deglaze from the protein browning, and then chicken stock is used later to deglaze further.
Finishing with Butter and Lemon Juice
You will notice that at the end of this recipe for One Pot Cajun Pasta, I have instructed you to finish the recipe off with 2 tbsp of cold butter and some freshly squeezed lemon juice. These last 2 steps are essential to a proper balance and flavor in this one pot Cajun pasta recipe.
This One Pot Cajun Pasta recipe is full of hot spices. While spice is awesome, it also needs to be properly balanced to create a round and appealing dish. In developing this recipe, I found that it was missing something at the end – I could taste the heat and feel the heat, but it was almost as if the actual flavors were flat. I knew I had enough salt in the Cajun pasta, so it needed something else to make those Cajun flavors sing. Enter: Lemon Juice! The lemon juice, as it is acidic, works to brighten up those spicy flavors! Acidity, and most effectively lemons, are just as crucial to enhance flavor as salt is! As well, I knew something else was needed to smooth out and harmonize the flavors. I used butter as it balances the spice by smoothing out the heat, while keeping the flavors alive and at their full potential.
Substitutions and Variations
• Garlic turkey sausage can be used in place of the pork garlic sausage.
◦ Any short variety of pasta will work. However you may want to weigh out the pasta to ensure the ratio of pasta to liquid is correct. The 3 cups of pasta in the recipe weighs about 12oz or 340g.
• This can actually be made vegetarian very easily, it may be just a touch less flavorful. Instead of seasoning the chicken and sausage with the spices, apply the spices to the vegetables instead, and fry those. As well, vegetarian sausage can be used too!
Get the Recipe: One Pot Cajun Pasta with Chicken & Sausage
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp Cajun Seasoning
- 1 ½ tsp Garlic Powder
- 1 tsp Onion Powder
- 1/4 tsp Cayenne Pepper
- 2 tsp Salt
- 1/2 tsp Freshly Ground Black Pepper
- 1/2 lb Smoked Garlic Sausage,, sliced
- 1/2 lb Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast,, cubed
- 1 Green Pepper,, diced medium
- 1 Yellow or Red Pepper,, diced medium
- 1 Sweet or Yellow Onion,, diced small
- 3 tbsp Neutral Oil,, divided
- 2 tbsp Flour
- 2 cups Chicken Broth
- 2 cups Whole Milk
- 3 cups (12oz or 340g) Penne
- 1/4 cup Heavy Cream
- 2 tbsp Cold Unsalted Butter
- 1 tsp Freshly Squeezed Lemon Juice
- Salt & Pepper,, to taste
Instructions
- Add Cajun seasoning, garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne, salt, and black pepper to a small dish and whisk to combine. Separate half of the spice mixture into a separate bowl, and set aside.
- In a large frying pan or braiser (a lid is required), heat 1 tbsp of oil over medium heat. Add garlic sausage and fry both sides until golden brown, about 2 minutes per side. Remove sausage from pan and place onto a paper-towel lined plate.
- Add another 1 tbsp of oil to the pan, then add chicken. Season with half of the seasoning mixture. Fry the chicken pieces until cooked through, about 5 minutes, and then place onto plate with sausage.
- Turn pan to medium-low heat, and add last 1 tbsp of oil to pan. Add peppers and onion, and sprinkle with some salt. Use the onion to deglaze the pan, scraping at any brown bits (fonon the pan. Fry vegetables until about halfway cooked, about 5-6 minutes.
- Add remaining spices and 2 tbsp of flour to the vegetables. Mix to combine, and cook for 1 minute. Add chicken broth, whole milk, and penne to pan, mix to combine. Cover the pan and simmer for about 22 minutes, ensuring that you stir every few minutes to ensure no sticking.
- When the pasta is cooked through, add the heavy cream, and mix to combine. Then add the 2 tbsp of cold butter, and mix it in by continuously stirring until the butter is well emulsified. Finish with the lemon juice and add back in the chicken and sausage, then mix everything well to combine. Season with salt and pepper if needed.
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