This is a (very) tried-and-tested family favourite! It’s a complete hearty meal in a bowl – your veg, protein and carbs in handy bite-size morsels. Roasted Vegetable Penne with Chicken & Basil Sauce features ugly/beautiful Mediterranean veg, roasted until a touch charred. It has juicy tender chicken and pops of fresh cherry tomatoes. This is all bound together with a fragrant fresh basil sauce.
Comfort Food
Bring the steaming pot of pasta to the family dinner table and dish out bowls of yum. You'll be amazed how many vegetables you start off with and how much they collapse down to little sweet caramelised nuggets.
If you love this combo of vegetables as much as I do, I have more recipes that use them! Check out my Ratatouille Tian if you’re looking for a lighter side dish. My Vegetable Lasagne might interest you if you want a ‘fancier’ pasta main dish, perfect for entertaining.
🥘 Ingredients
- veg for roasting - eggplant (aubergine), red capsicum (pepper), zucchini (courgette) & pumpkin
- chicken chops - bone-in, skin-on thighs
- basil leaves - fresh leaves from a BIG bunch
- pine nuts - adds a nutty flavour to the sauce
- penne - or any 'chunky' pasta shape
- cherry tomatoes - stirred through uncooked
- olive oil, salt and pepper
I deliberately haven’t given weights for the vegetables in the recipe card. It isn’t important. I’d hate to think of you weighing individual vegetables in the supermarket 😂. And if there's one you don't like? Add a bit more of one of the other ones. My youngest would prefer I left out the pumpkin; I let him pick that out of his own portion 🙄.
The tomato here is only ‘cooked’ ever so briefly at the end when we stir them through the hot pasta. The cherry tomatoes add a pop of bright colour and freshness to the dish.
Is this recipe low FODMAP?
*Yes. With a few caveats:
- Be sure to use Japanese (or Kent) pumpkin (rather than butternut). This is readily available in most supermarkets as an alternative.
- Limit the prepped weight of red capsicum to 160g in total
- Make the basil sauce as stated in the recipe, rather than using ready-made pesto. Commercially available pesto usually has FODMAP-containing ingredients like garlic.
- Use gluten-free pasta. Using gluten-free pasta makes the whole dish gluten-free too (there are no other gluten-containing ingredients).
This dish could happily be made Vegan
The vegetables are the hero of this dish. I would be very happy to serve this without the chicken for vegan guests. It wouldn’t feel like there was something missing. Yes, there is some parmesan sprinkled on one of the portions in the photo below. That's only a serving suggestion. This is one pasta dish we don’t typically add cheese to.
Can I use other parts of a chicken? Boneless, skinless, breast?
I suppose so *makes a grumpy face*. But why would you want to? Dark meat is juicier and tastier than breast (white) meat, in my humble opinion anyway. Cooking meat on the bone with the skin on, and then removing both the bone and skin might seem a bit unnecessary. I believe these are small extra steps to take to get juicy, tasty meat. I chop up the skin and include this and scrape in all the delicious sticky schmaltz (chicken fat) too. Delicious! 😋
Can I use pre-bought pesto instead of making basil sauce?
Of course! You’ll need about 75ml (5 Tablespoons), or to your taste. Traditional basil pesto usually has pine nuts and parmesan cheese. Many commercially-available pesto has (cheaper) cashews instead of pine nuts. the ingredients will be slightly different to the ones in the basil sauce in this recipe. Please bear this in mind if you’ve got any dietary requirements.
🔪 Instructions
Give the veg space to roast
You’ll get the best results using a large baking tray (or two) with shallow sides, rather than a roasting tin. This is because you want the vegetables to roast, rather than stew in their own juices. As they cook, they give up a lot of water first, then brown as the water evaporates off. This is when the magic happens and the vegetables get sticky and caramelised. You don’t want to miss out on that!
Don’t be afraid to colour the veg really well
We want to roast the veg almost to the point of charring. This is where the flavour and texture comes from. It will need a bit of tending to towards the end of the cooking time to make sure it doesn't burn. Flip the veg and rotate the baking sheet if necessary to ensure the right degree of caramelisation without burning.
Use your hands to shred the meat
I like to use my hands (rather than a knife) to get meat off bones. It’s easier to feel, rather than see the difference between meat and non-meat parts, such as fat and cartilage. It’s not pleasant to come across these bits that get missed and end up in the finished dish. You'll want to make sure it’s cooled down a bit first. Bite-size shredded chicken looks nicer than neatly chopped for this rustic dish anyway.
Don’t cook the pasta all the way
We boil the pasta on its own first, then combine with all the other ingredients. We want to heat everything together for a couple of minutes and don’t want the pasta to overcook. If we hold back from cooking the pasta fully by only a minute or so, it will be just right by the time we dish up and eat.
Don’t throw away the pasta water!
As is the case with many great pasta dishes - we reserve some of the water that the pasta is cooked in to add to the finished dish. This starchy pasta water is perfect for bringing the flavours together and magically creating a small amount of vegetable 'sauce' when combined with the roasted veg. The basil sauce is also loosened yet enriched and thickened without the need for cream or cheese. Scoop out some water just before draining the pasta for maximal starch (thickening) content.
📖 Recipe
Ingredients
- 3 chicken chops thighs with bone in, skin on, about 600g
- small eggplant/aubergine
- small red capsicum/red pepper *limit to 160g
- small zucchini/courgette
- small wedge Kent/Japanese pumpkin about 400g, unprepped
- 3 Tablespoons olive oil
- ½ teaspoon salt
- freshly ground black pepper
- large handful basil leaves about 25g
- 4 Tablespoons olive oil
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 Tablespoons pine nuts
- 320 g penne *gluten-free
- 200 g cherry tomatoes *limit to 180g
* FODMAP notes
Instructions
- Preheat Oven – to 180°C
- Bake Chicken - dry the chicken thighs well with paper towel. Rub with some olive oil and season liberally with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Place on a baking tray and roast for about 40 minutes, until the chicken skin is browned and crisp. When you make a cut through the thickest part of the flesh of one of the thighs, the juice should run clear, not pink. Set aside to cool enough so that you can handle them to shred.3 chicken chops
- Bake Eggplant, Capsicum, Zucchini & Pumpkin - cut the vegetables (unpeeled, apart from the pumpkin) into similarly- sized small cubes. Transfer to a large bowl and toss through the olive oil, salt and freshly ground black pepper. Transfer to a large baking sheet with sides (unlined). You want the veg to lie in a single layer. Use two baking sheets if you need to. Roast for around 30 minutes, stirring and rotating the pan halfway through. The veg will collapse down and get a bit charred.small eggplant/auberginesmall red capsicum/red peppersmall zucchini/courgettesmall wedge Kent/Japanese pumpkin3 Tablespoons olive oil½ teaspoon saltfreshly ground black pepper
- Basil Sauce - blend basil, olive oil, pine nuts and salt together using a stick blender or small food processor. Transfer to a small bowl and set aside.½ teaspoon saltlarge handful basil leaves4 Tablespoons olive oil2 Tablespoons pine nuts
- Boil Pasta – use a big saucepan that will take all the combined ingredients. Cook penne in plenty of well-salted boiling water until very nearly cooked. This will take around 10 minutes, but follow the instructions on the packaging. Test a couple of minutes shy of the suggested cook time.320 g penne
- Cherry Tomatoes - cut the tomatoes in halves or quarters, depending on size. Aim for a size that roughly matches the other veg. Set aside.200 g cherry tomatoes
- Shred Chicken - using your hands, remove the bones and chop/tear the meat into bite-size pieces. Up to you if you want to include the crispy skin (I do!). Set aside. Also up to you if you want to scrape all the sticky chicken fat from the sheet and include this (I do!).
- Reserve Pasta Water – just before you drain the pasta, scoop off about a cup of the starchy water and set aside.
- Combine - drain the pasta and return to the pan. Tip in all the other ingredients - roasted veg, shredded chicken, tomatoes and basil sauce. A little at a time, add as much of the reserved pasta water as you need to get the consistency you want. Combine everything gently but thoroughly before serving.
Notes
Is this recipe low FODMAP?
*Yes. With a few caveats:- Be sure to use Japanese/Kent pumpkin (rather than butternut). This is readily available in most supermarkets as an alternative.
- Limit the prepped weight of red capsicum to 160g.
- Make the basil sauce as stated in the recipe, rather than using shop-bought. Commercially available pesto usually has fodmap-containing ingredients like garlic.
- Use gluten-free pasta. Using gluten-free pasta makes the whole dish gluten-free here (there no other gluten-containing ingredients).
- Limit the cherry tomatoes to 180g
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