Roast chicken for weeknight leftovers
Have a busy week ahead? Roast a chicken on Sunday, then turn it into three speedy weeknight meals with our recipe ideas for leftover chicken
Creamy spinach, basil & chicken pasta
- Preparation and cooking time
- Prep:
- Cook:
- Easy
- Serves 4
Skip to ingredients
- 300g long pasta(we used mafaldine)
- 2 tbsp leftover chicken fat(from the roast chicken recipe, below)
- 1 onionfinely chopped
- 1 red chillifinely chopped, or 1 tsp chilli flakes
- 4 leftover roasted garlic clovesmashed
- 2 tbsp tomato purée
- 200ml white wine
- 300g spinach
- 200g-300g leftover chickenshredded (from the roast chicken recipe, below)
- ½ lemonjuiced
- small handful of basilleaves chopped into fine ribbons
- 200g crème fraîche
Nutrition: Per serving
- kcal721
- fat36g
- saturates18g
- carbs63g
- sugars7g
- fibre5g
- protein25g
- salt1g
Method
step 1
Cook the pasta following pack instructions and reserve a mugful of the cooking water. Heat the leftover chicken fat in a large frying pan over a medium-high heat. Stir in the onion and cook for 8-10 mins until softened. Mix in the chilli, garlic and tomato purée, then cook for a further 5 mins until the purée has caramelised. Pour in the wine and simmer for 2-3 mins until almost completely reduced.
step 2
Mix in the spinach and leftover chicken along with a splash of the reserved cooking water. Cook for 3-4 mins until the chicken is heated through, then squeeze in some lemon juice, and add most of the basil, the crème fraîche and cooked pasta. Mix in a splash of cooking liquid to bring it all together, then season to taste, adding more lemon juice if needed. Scatter over the remaining basil to serve.
