As I’ve mentioned before, when Josh is away for work, I tend to get lazy and end up eating leftovers or slices of pizza from our failed pizza quest that we have stashed in our freezer. I don’t like to eat by myself so when I’m alone, I don’t really think too much about what I’m eating. One night, however, after a particularly long stretch of business trips for him, I couldn’t stand eating any more freezer burned pizza so I rooted around our fridge and pantry to see what ingredients we had on hand. I finally settled on making pasta with pink vodka sauce and chicken. It’s quick and easy to make, tasty, and one of my favorite comfort foods.
As with most of my cooking, I don’t really follow any particular recipe to the letter. To start, I prepped my ingredients by mincing a few cloves of garlic, washing off a stalk of fresh basil leaves from my surprisingly still thriving basil plant, and cubing up two boneless chicken breasts into bite size pieces. That’s basically all the grunt work that you need to do for this dish. Also, make sure you put a pot of water on to boil right away, so that you can put the pasta in just before the sauce is finished and your boiling water will be waiting for you, instead of the other way around.
All the sauce ingredients prepped and ready to go
To cook the chicken, I heated up olive oil in a large and deep sautee pan with about a third of the minced garlic and tossed in the pieces of chicken. Make sure to season the chicken liberally with salt and pepper. When the pieces are almost cooked through, I pulled them off and moved them into a bowl. It’s ok if they’re still slightly underdone, as they’ll be added into the sauce later and cooked through some more.
Cook the chicken first, then set aside in a bowl
Using the same pan, heat up some more olive oil on medium heat and throw in the rest of the garlic. Add a pinch or two of red pepper flakes, depending on whether you want the dish to be spicy (or you can leave that out altogether). After the garlic is just starting to brown, add a 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes and cook until simmering. Season the tomato sauce to taste with salt/pepper/thyme. When the sauce starts to bubble a little, pull the pan off the flame and carefully add in one cup of vodka. Place the pan back on the stove and mix the vodka around in the sauce, letting it bubble away. I threw the chicken back into the sauce at this point, and started cooking the pasta in the boiling water as well.
Simmering the tomato sauce with vodka
Cook the sauce long enough so that the flavor of the vodka stays but the bite of the alcohol is dissipated. At this point, cut the basil into small strips and add it into the sauce, then pour in one cup of heavy cream. Stir the sauce until the cream is combined, and the sauce takes on a nice pink hue. I let that reduce a bit so the sauce is rich and creamy, but not super thick. Take the time to taste the sauce and season it one more time.
Add the heavy cream and reduce until the sauce is rich and slightly thicker
Drain the pasta and toss it directly into the sauce (this is why I use a large and deep sautee pan for the sauce). I used rotini this time, but my preference is farfalle. Basically any shape of pasta that has a few grooves is fine (so not spaghetti or linguini), as they help the sauce cling better. I tossed everything together to incorporate the sauce and disperse the chicken pieces evenly throughout.
Add in the cooked pasta and toss everything together
Finally, I scooped out a portion into a bowl and topped it with a sprinkling of grated parmesan cheese. Yum!
Pasta with pink vodka sauce and chicken, topped with grated parmesan cheese
Like I’ve said, I don’t really measure things out when I cook so none of the ingredients have exact measurements. If you like garlic, add more garlic. If you don’t like the flavor of vodka, use less. If you like the sauce to be thicker and richer, use more heavy cream. It’s a pretty basic “recipe” and can be altered at any point to suit your own taste. As for me, I had a big pot of rich and comforting pasta to last me the week, and it was much better than eating freezer burned pizza.