Pasta With Chicken And Sun-Dried Tomatoes

This fresh tomato Chicken Pasta with sundried tomatoes is truly Mediterranean! With the sweetness of the fresh tomatoes, peppers, and sun-dried tomatoes, the savory bits of chicken, and little salty bursts from the capers.

Everything comes together into a sweet, saucy pasta that is full of flavor but not too heavy.

Table Of Contents

• Using Fresh Tomatoes
• Adding Chicken
• The Best Pasta To Use
• Make Ahead
• Serve With
• Recipe

Using Fresh Tomatoes

There is something so good about making a pasta sauce with fresh tomatoes when they are ripe, juicy, and full of summer flavour.

For this recipe, the tomatoes are skinned, diced, and cooked directly in the pan. Until all their liquid has evaporated and they begin to caramelize in the olive oil. This step is what gives the sauce its real depth of flavor. The tomatoes become concentrated, naturally sweet, and almost jammy. Creating a deliciously rich sauce without the need for anything heavy.

Type Of Tomatoes To Use

When making a fresh tomato pasta sauce, the tomatoes make all the difference. Ripe summer tomatoes are the best choice when they are sweet, fragrant, and naturally full of flavor.

If you are unsure which tomatoes to choose, Roma tomatoes are a safe option. They are naturally sweet and work particularly well for sauces because they have a good balance of flesh and juice. They are also a safe option year-round, when other tomato varieties have lost most of their flavor.

Adding Chicken

For the chicken, I like using chicken thigh fillets. They stay more tender and juicy when quickly sautéed, and they have more flavor than breast meat. If you prefer, though, you can always go ahead and use chicken fillets instead.

Cut the chicken into small pieces and give it a quick marinade with paprika and oregano. Then briefly cook it in olive oil until golden. Keep it covered to stay warm until you are ready to toss it into the sauce along with the sun-dried tomatoes, pepper, capers, and parsley.

And if you prefer, you can leave the chicken out. The fresh and sundried tomato sauce is delicious on its own, making this an easy vegetarian Mediterranean pasta.

The Best Pasta To Use

For this kind of tomato-and-chicken pasta, I prefer spaghetti or linguine. Their long strands pick up plenty of the tomato sauce, making every forkful juicy and flavourful.

Make sure to toss the pasta through the sauce while it is still hot. A splash of the pasta cooking water helps loosen the sauce and allows it to coat the pasta beautifully.

Make Ahead

You can make a batch of this fresh tomato sauce a day or more ahead. Then cook only the chicken, add the tomato sauce, and heat for a minute.

Then stir in the peppers, capers, sun-dried tomatoes, parsley, and cooked pasta for a speedier version. This saves you the time of sautéing onion and garlic, skinning, chopping tomatoes, and cooking them into a sauce.

You can also have the peppers, sundried tomatoes, parsley, and capers chopped in a bowl and keep them in the fridge ready to be tossed into the sauce.

Serve With

Serve this chicken pasta with sundried tomatoes with a sharp Greek cheese such as Kefalotyri or Kefalograviera. Pecorino Romano and Parmesan cheese are the second-best alternatives.

If you want a delicious side for this Mediterranean pasta, try one of these: Maroulosalata (Greek Lettuce Salad), Fried Feta Cheese Saganaki, Melitzanosalata (Greek Eggplant Dip).

Recipe