Skillet Pesto Chicken is a quick and easy chicken dinner made with boneless chicken breasts, mushrooms, pesto sauce, cream, and Parmesan cheese. Pair it with pasta or serve it with vegetable noodles for an easy low-carb meal.
This Skillet Pesto Chicken is one of those fly by the seat of my pants dinners, where I was using up things that I had in the fridge. I love fridge dump day, it's seriously therapeutic to use up what you have on hand and have it turn out to be a pretty darn tasty meal.
I'm kind of obsessed with homemade pesto. I like to make it fresh in the summer when I have basil coming out of my eyeballs. However, my harvest is over and it's expensive to buy fresh basil and all of the separate ingredients, so then I cheat and buy it.
If you're a purist, you should try my homemade pesto recipe. It's so good and easy! There are a lot of tasty pre-made pestos out there, just check the label ingredients for a minimal amount of ingredients. It should contain olive oil, basil, garlic, nuts, and sometimes cheese but not many other ingredients.
This Skillet Pesto Chicken is a new weeknight favorite. It's great all by itself with a heaping side of green vegetables or serve it on top of whole-grain pasta or brown rice.
Skillet Pesto Chicken
Ingredients
- 1 ½ lbs boneless skinless chicken breast
- ¼ cup gluten-free flour or unbleached all-purpose flour
- ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 4 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- 8 oz sliced mushrooms
- 1 tablespoon butter
- ½ cup good quality pesto sauce jarred or homemade
- ¼ cup chicken broth
- ½ cup heavy cream
- salt and pepper to taste
- freshly grated parmesan cheese for garnish
Instructions
- Chop chicken breasts into bite-size pieces
- Place flour and cayenne pepper in a large ziplock bag and shake to mix
- Add chicken to bag and shake to evenly coat all pieces
- Remove chicken from bag and shake off any excess flour
- Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat
- Add chicken to pan and cook until all pieces are beginning to brown to a light, golden color about 5-7 minutes
- Remove chicken from pan and cover to keep warm
- Add butter and mushrooms to the skillet and cook until mushrooms are nicely golden, about 5-7 minutes
- Add chicken, chicken broth, cream and pesto to pan and stir to combine.
- Cook for a few minutes more until sauce has started to thicken.
- Season with salt and pepper, to taste
- Top with freshly grated parmesan, if desired
- Serve immediately
Nutrition
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Mary Anne
Send us your recipe for pesto sauce.
Amee Livingston
Hi Mary Anne! Click on the highlighted "homemade pesto recipe" text in the post and it will take you directly to my recipe.
Whitni @ A Cookie & A Kiss
A LOVE a good kitchen dump day... Had one today as well! It is always best when you can create something tasty like this!
Amee Livingston
Thanks Whitni! They are the best! 🙂
Jason
Wow!!! I made this for dinner, and it was awesome! Even our picky kids loved it! Paired it with garlic/rosemary oven roasted potatoes, and carrots. But the pesto chicken was definitely the Star! Thank you for posting this recipe.
Amee Livingston
Thank you so much for the awesome feedback Jason! 🙂
K
I found this probably a year ago and it's still a classic with my boyfriend and myself. Thanks so much!
Amee Livingston
Thank you so much for the feedback!! I'm so glad that you guys love the recipe! 🙂
Nancy Teasley
This recipe is delicious! I have made this three times now, and it is excellent as written! This makes tremendous leftovers as the flavors get better with time. I have also tried adding cooked pasta, like cavatappi, directly to the pan to warm through at the end of cooking. I doubled the cream/pesto when adding the pasta.
Amee Livingston
I'm so glad that you enjoyed it, Nancy! Thank you for taking the time to leave a review!
Stephanie
Delicious and so easy to make. The most time consuming part was cutting the chicken and that wasn’t even bad. I did use Trader Joe’s basil pesto. Thanks for posting. I am adding this into the rotation!
Amee Livingston
I'm so glad that you enjoyed it Stephanie! I love TJ's!! Thank you for taking the time to leave a review. 🙂