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Southwest Chicken Alfredo is an easy, creamy and delicious pasta recipe with spicy chicken, vegetables, homemade alfredo sauce and cavatappi pasta. It’s the perfect quick dinner idea for busy weeknights since it’s done in just 30 minutes!
If you love alfredo recipes as much as I do, you might also like my Baked Pesto Alfredo Chicken or this Easy Creamy Broccoli Chicken Alfredo Recipe.
So dreamy, so creamy, sooooo delicious! I ♥ my Mexitalian fusions!
Oh, heeeeey, friends! Happy Sunday! Welcome to my allthethings pasta/chicken sanctuary. Err. Blog.
I had an email the other day from a reader asking me to STOP butchering “their” Italian cuisine, referring to my Mediterranean White Chicken Enchiladas.
Normally, I wouldn’t bring this up because then you and I would have something/someone to gossip about every.single.day, however, this one is an exception.
An exception because, a) since when is Italy the only thing that is Mediterranean?
Geography 101: The countries with coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea include; Albania, Algeria, Bosnia, Croatia, Cyprus, Egypt, France, Greece, Israel, Italy, Lebanon, Libya, Malta, Morocco, Monaco, Montenegro, Northern Cyprus, Palestinian territories, Slovenia, Spain, Syria, Turkey, and Tunisia.
AND, b) Imagine what would have been if Picasso went along with the norm and continued to just draw stick-people.
Mmm’kay? Cool.
This Creamy Alfredo Is Pure Comfort Food
Thus, today we’re talking about pasta and cumin and chili powder and bell peppers and other yummy stuffs. Food for the heart and soul.
This whole thing was like a delicious fusion of all the things this family of 4 loves. From the cavatappi pasta to the southwestern flavors, this recipe represents!
I also found out that this is very good for the truly hungry-hungry. Like, the hangry hungry. <— Me, every day. It gave my hungry self a feel-good hug at the end of a long, exhausting day full of me taking care of two little girls and their stomach bugs. Grrrrr! GO AWAY WINTER!
But, for reals. I just love this Southwest Chicken Alfredo combo. It’s colorful, it’s loaded with flavor, it’s creamy, it’s full of texture and there’s avocado on top. I mean. What more do you need?!
Have a Happy Sunday!!
ENJOY!
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Southwest Chicken Alfredo
Ingredients
FOR THE PASTA AND CHICKEN
- 1 package, (1 pound) Cavatappi Pasta
- 1 pound (about 3 to 4 pieces) boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cubed
- 2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper, , or to taste
- 1/2 teaspoon chili powder, , or to taste
- 2 tablespoons olive oil, , divided
- 2 tablespoons butter, , divided
- 1 green bell pepper, , diced
- 1 red bell pepper, , diced
- 1 small yellow onion, , diced
- 3 cloves garlic, , minced
- salt and fresh ground pepper, , to taste
FOR THE ALFREDO SAUCE
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 cups half-and-half
- 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
- 1 avocado, , diced, for garnish
- chopped fresh parsley, , for garnish
Instructions
- Cook pasta according to package directions.
In the meantime, prepare the chicken.
- In a ziploc bag, combine ground cumin, cayenne pepper and chili powder.
- Add the cubed chicken pieces to the ziploc bag; close it and shake it around until all chicken pieces are coated.
- Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil and 1 tablespoon butter in a heavy skillet over medium-high heat.
- Add chicken pieces to the skillet and cook for 4 to 5 minutes, stirring frequently, until chicken is browned and thoroughly cooked.
- Remove chicken from skillet and set aside.
- In the same skillet heat 1 tablespoon olive oil and 1 tablespoon butter; add diced peppers, onions and garlic.
- Season with salt and pepper and cook over medium-high heat for 2 to 3 minutes, or until vegetables are tender, stirring frequently.
- Remove vegetables from the skillet and set aside.
PREPARE THE ALFREDO SAUCE
- Add butter to the skillet and melt over medium heat.
- Whisk in the flour; continue to whisk until mixture is smooth.
- Slowly whisk in the half-and-half into the sauce until completely incorporated.
- Stir the Parmesan cheese into the sauce, whisking continually.
- Bring the sauce to a simmer; cook, stirring regularly, until the sauce has thickened, about 4 to 5 minutes.
- Add chicken and vegetables to the sauce; stir and continue to cook for 1 to 2 minutes, until mixture is bubbly and hot.
- Add drained pasta to the chicken mixture and toss to combine.
- Remove from heat.
- Top with diced avocado and fresh parsley.
- Serve.
Nutrition
Nutritional info is an estimate and provided as courtesy. Values may vary according to the ingredients and tools used. Please use your preferred nutritional calculator for more detailed info.
More Alfredo Recipes You Might Like:
This looks delicious, but I think you must have omitted the pasta when you tabulated the nutritional information. There’s no way that a serving only has 11 grams of carbohydrate! A pound of pasta divided into 6 servings would yield 2.66 ounces per serving which equals over 56 grams of carbohydrate just from the pasta! That would also add over 200 calories. If only pasta calories didn’t count. 🙂
Thank you so much for catching that!! Truly. The nutritional facts calculator had calculated the pasta as “instant yeast”… no idea why. Reason I didn’t see it is because this recipe is from 3.5 years ago, before nutritional facts calculators were available for online recipe boxes. Again, thank you. I updated the info. 🙂
My grandson’s girlfriend has been asking for spicy chicken alfredo. I went searching and typed in spicy chicken alfredo and your recipe came up. Guess what we’re having for dinner tonight??!! She’s really excited!
Hope you enjoy it! That’s one of my favorite meals!
This recipe looks delicious! Can we substitute the half-and-half with evaporated milk or regular milk?
Hi Stephanie!! I haven’t tried it with evaporated milk, so I’m not exactly sure. I don’t want to say go ahead and then have it not turn out for you. But you can definitely use regular milk. It won’t be as creamy, but it will work. I hope that helps. Let me know if you tried it!
OK thanks. I will!
Yum love chicken and pasta. Thanks for sharing.
Simon
Um, no, please don’t stop. I love it when you mingle one cuisine with another. It makes it that much more fun, not to mention flavorful. Love this dish. Pinned.
My family would go nuts for this delicious meal!
That creamy goodness! I think I just found dinner!
Gahhh, comments like that annoy me so much! People take food way too serious sometimes.
This looks delicious though! I fully support you “butchering” whatever cuisine you want!
This looks amazing! Winter does need to go away! Too much cold, too much snow! Avocados help.
Lol about the Italian cuisine thing. It’s much more fun to mix cuisines isn’t it! This looks great 🙂 I’m usually not attracted to dishes with cheese sauce (I do love cheese!) but I’m going to give this a try 🙂