Description

A creamy sauce envelopes pasta and tender bites of chicken. Crumbled bacon finishes the dish off and adds extra flavor. This chicken alfredo is all made in one pot cutting down on prep time and dishes to clean.

Ingredients

Scale

2 Tbsp butter
1 lb of chicken tenderloins or 1 lb of boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut into the size of chicken tenderloins (about the size of a chicken strip)
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 cups chicken broth
8 oz fettuccine noodles, uncooked
3/4 cup half and half
1 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 Tbsp cornstarch
1 Tbsp water
4 pieces of bacon crumbled or 1/4 cup real bacon bits

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

Turn your Instant Pot to the saute setting. Adjust to “more.” Give the pot a couple of minutes to warm up. Then add the butter to the bottom of the pot. Melt the butter. You may need to swirl the pot around a bit.
Pat your chicken breasts dry with a paper towel. They need to be dry so they can brown properly. Place the chicken on the bottom of the pot and let it brown for about 2 minutes on each side.. Don’t disturb the chicken while it’s browning. Just let it sit there. Remove the chicken and place it on a plate.
Add the garlic to the bottom of the pot and saute it for one minute (or maybe even less). Be careful not to burn the garlic (I did the first time I made this). There will be lots of brown bits on the bottom of the pot. Add your chicken broth to the pot and deglaze the pot. You do this by using a wooden spoon to scrape up any bits off the bottom of the pot. (View the video above to see this step in action.)
Break your fettuccine in half and lay it flat in the Instant Pot. The broth should cover all of it (or most all of it). Add the chicken back into the pot and place it gently on top of the noodles.
Cover the Instant Pot and secure the lid. Make sure valve is set to sealing. Set the manual button (or pressure cook button) to 3 minutes on high pressure. When the timer beeps let the pot sit undisturbed for 5-10 more minutes. Then gently move the valve to venting.
Once you can, remove the lid. At this point you can remove the chicken and place it on a clean plate or if you don’t care if it breaks into pieces you can just keep it in the pot. It will be very tender. Stir up the pasta to break up any pieces that are sticking together. Turn the pot to the saute setting and adjust to “less.” Add in the half and half. Then slowly stir in the parmesan cheese and stir. Stir in the salt and pepper.
If the sauce needs to be thickened simply stir together 1 Tbsp of cornstarch and 1 Tbsp of water in a small bowl. Stir the mixture into the pot and the sauce will almost thicken immediately.
Serve noodles and chicken on a dish and top with bacon crumbles. Alternately, you can stir all the bacon into the pot and then scoop the pasta onto plates and serve.

Notes

I used my 6 quart Instant Pot Duo 60 7 in 1*

This dish makes only 4 servings. My husband and I and 2 kids ate the entire thing with no leftovers. I haven’t tried doubling this recipe yet. I believe that it would work just fine. The browning of the chicken will just probably have to be done in batches.

It is better if you eat this dish right away. It doesn’t hold well on the Keep Warm function.

You can use bacon that you’ve cooked earlier and crumble it or you can buy real bacon bits and use those. My favorite is the big bag of crumbled bacon from Costco.

I used half and half as the base of my cream sauce. This is lighter than the usually used heavy cream however it’s not as light as say, milk. You could probably use milk as an alternative cutting on calories (and flavor).

I used thawed chicken tenderloins (I get them in a big bag from Costco). These are small-ish pieces of chicken breast. You could also cut boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut into the size of tenderloins. This is about the size of a chicken strip.

Category: Pasta
Method: Instant Pot