Chicken Carbonara
Author:
Chicken Carbonara over Wilted Spinach and Spaghetti Squash
Ingredients
- You Need per person/serving. FN= Family Number
- 1 chicken breast or 2 thighs (xFN)
- 2 pieces of bacon (xFN)
- 1/2 of a small/medium spaghetti squash (xFN)
- 3 ounces of spinach (xFN)
- 3-4 stalks of asparagus (1 bunch per family)
- 2 tablespoons parmesan (xFN- 1/2 cup per family of 4- optional)
- 2 tablespoons heavy cream (xFN- 1/2 cup per family of 4)
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1/4 of an onion (xFN)
- spices: sea salt, pepper, italian seasoning, garlic powder.
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
- Scrape out the seeds and stringy parts of the spaghetti squash with a spoon and place, face down on a baking sheet or in a large baking dish with 1/4 inch of water.
- Place in oven and cook 30 minutes or until soft when poked with a fork.
- While that is cooking, cut the chicken in half lengthwise to make it thinner and pound with a meat hammer or the bottom of a cast iron pan.
- In a large skillet, place the asparagus and about 1/4 inch of water and cook over high heat until asparagus is bright green and starting to soften. The water should evaporate completely off and when it has, add 1 tablespoon butter (total, not per person) and sprinkle with some sea salt.
- Remove asparagus from the pan and set aside.
- Cook the bacon in the same pan until crispy and remove bacon.
- Cook chicken in the bacon grease in the same pan, and sprinkle each side with sea salt, pepper, garlic powder and italian seasoning.
- When chicken has cooked through, remove and set aside.
- Dice onion and cook in remaining bacon grease until starting to soften.
- Add spinach and extra butter if needed and cook until barely wilted.
- Add cream (if using-totally optional) and about 1/4 teaspoon of the above spices.
- At this point, the spaghetti squash should be soft so remove from oven and scrape out insides with a fork.
- To serve, put spaghetti squash on a plate, top with some wilted spinach, then a piece of chicken, some crumbled bacon and the asparagus (chop into small pieces). Top with parmesan if using.
Review: This was my husband’s favorite new dish thus far! I went a little too heavy on the salt (maybe because I had little hands helping) but less is more with the sea salt! Since, I am just starting to learn how to cook; I am slower at cutting, dicing, etc so my spaghetti squash was cold by the time I finished everything else and needed to be reheated. If you are slower like me, you may want to finish cutting and dicing before putting spaghetti squash in oven. I did not use cream this time simply because I forgot 🙂 Let me know your thoughts if you make this! Spaghetti Squash is an awesome alternative to traditional pasta (lots of carbs and sugar, even whole grain pasta!)
-kristin