Chicken Bacon Pasta

Chicken bacon pasta for two is light because it's made without cream--it uses yogurt instead! This 5-ingredient pasta recipe comes together in less than 30 minutes, too!

If your days are anything like mine, you can barely count to 5 at the end of the day.  Also, at 5:30pm, this monster comes out of my stomach and growls 'give me all the carbs you have.'  Do you have that monster in your house, too? I create chicken dinners for two because it makes my life so much easier.

I created this easy creamy chicken bacon pasta without cream to satisfy that monster. After cooking some bacon in a pan, shred some leftover chicken breast. If you have rotisserie chicken leftover, this is a great place to use it! If not, follow the directions for my avocado chicken salad for cooking a chicken breast on the stove, and then proceed. 

This bacon pasta recipe uses a leftover rotisserie chicken breast, 3 slices of bacon, yogurt, and a heavy dose of all-purpose grill seasoning. It's so hard to believe that something with such few ingredients  can come together into a fantastic dinner for two. You'll keep this recipe on repeat all year long, I promise! If you love skillet meals, Skillet Spanakopita is your next dinner after this. I hope you love it as much as we do around here. 

5 Ingredients for Chicken Bacon Pasta:

• chicken breast: Leftover rotisserie chicken is great here, but if not, cook up a single chicken breast on the stove top in some chicken stock until it registers 165-degrees Fahrenheit. 
• pasta: I like a shortcut pasta here, like penne pasta, ziti, or rigatoni. I made this pasta with regular wheat, and I didn't test the recipe using whole wheat pasta or pasta made from legumes or other grains. You can try these types of pasta, if your family likes them.
• bacon: thick-cut bacon with peppered edges is the best thing to use here. It's the king of bacon, and it's what I use in my bacon butternut squash pasta, too.
• Greek yogurt: Any kind of plain (not flavored) Greek yogurt will work here. I use full-fat because that gives the best flavor to any dish.
• steak seasoning: This seasoning blend typically contains coarse sea salt, black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and sometimes paprika. It's a party in a bottle and it brings so much flavor to this dish. Another option is lemon pepper seasoning.

Step by step:

1. First, put a large pot of water on to boil to cook the pasta. Salt it very generously before adding your pasta.
   
2. Meanwhile, slice your bacon and add it to a large skillet over medium heat. It's important to use a large skillet so we can toss everything together in before serving.
3. While the bacon cooks, shred your chicken breast and have it ready. Measure out the yogurt and steak seasoning. 
4. Remove the bacon from the pan just before it starts to get crispy. In the final dish, we want tender pieces of bacon with a little crispness on the edges, not crunchy throughout.
5. Once the pasta is cooked, add it to the pan along with all other ingredients: The shredded chicken, the bacon, yogurt, and steak seasoning, and serve immediately.

If you need ideas to use up the rest of the greek yogurt, you've got to make my Greek Yogurt cheesecake jars for two, or my Greek yogurt truffles!

If you're looking for a Whole30 dinner that has these same flavors, try my Bacon Chicken with Guacamole--both are creamy, contain chicken and feature bacon.