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This Healthy Tuscan Chicken Pasta Recipe has all the flavors of the restaurant version, but without all the calories, sodium, and fat. I love making this recipe in one pot using my Instant Pot.
This is one of my favorite pasta recipes, and it’s great for meal prep because it keeps well in the fridge all week long.
If this chicken recipe sounds good to you, I also recommend trying our Easy Burrito Bowl Recipe, this Simple White Chicken Chili Recipe, or this Chipotle Chicken Copycat Recipe.
Why I Love This Healthier Tuscan Chicken Pasta
I love how easy this recipe is to make in just one pot. The protein boost from the cottage cheese and Greek yogurt is an added bonus!
Enjoy!
– Becca
Ingredients in Tuscan Chicken Pasta
See the recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities.
- Chicken Broth: You can make homemade broth or grab some from the store. If buying, make sure to get low sodium.
- Cottage cheese: Cottage cheese is high in many nutrients, including protein, B vitamins, and minerals. Be sure to use low fat, as nonfat will be too runny to set up properly.
- Greek yogurt: Greek yogurt packs twice as much protein and about half the amount of carbs and sugar as regular yogurt. Plain, low-fat Greek yogurt is best for this recipe.
How to make Instant Pot Tuscan Chicken Pasta
Step 1: Set your Instant Pot to sauté and lightly spray the pot with olive oil spray. Once your pot is hot add the garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, and Italian seasonings. Cook for about 30 seconds until fragrant.
Step 2: Add the cubed chicken to the pot, and cook 2-3 minutes, stirring often. This will prevent your chicken from clumping together while it’s under pressure. Once the chicken is browned on all sides, add the chicken broth.
Step 3: Add the pasta to the pot and stir well, ensuring that all noodles are below the liquid.
Step 4: Close and lock the lid and turn the pressure valve to sealing. Select Pressure Cook (high) and set the time for 3 minutes.
While the chicken is cooking, blend the cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, and parmesan cheese together until smooth, then set aside.
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Step 5: When the cook time is complete, quick release the pressure and remove the lid.
Stir the contents of the pot. Drain any excess liquid from the pot, keeping aside 1/4 cup.
Add the 1/4 cup liquid to the cottage cheese and Greek yogurt mixture and stir well.
Step 6: While the noodles are still hot, stir in spinach and basil.
Once the leaves have wilted, stir in your blended cottage cheese mixture. Then add your cheese.
Serve immediately. Garnish with additional parmesan and fresh basil.
Recipe Tips
- If you don’t have or can’t find sun-dried tomatoes, you can substitute fresh, halved grape tomatoes. For the Instant pot, reduce your cooking liquid by ½ cup when using fresh tomatoes.
- While this recipe tastes best when followed exactly, you can add double the Greek yogurt or cottage cheese if you don’t have one of them on hand.
- Cut your chicken into equal-sized pieces to make sure they are cooked evenly.
- If using gluten free pasta, reduce Instant Pot cook time to 2 minutes.
Tuscan Chicken Pasta FAQs
I like using penne pasta because it soaks up all the creamy goodness in its little holes. I usually go with whole wheat noodles for the extra nutrition. For gluten-free pasta, shorten the cooking time—use about half the time listed on the package, then subtract another 2 minutes.
Traditional creamy Tuscan chicken pasta isn’t the healthiest dish. In this recipe, we focused on healthier ingredients – I swapped the heavy cream for a lighter, high-protein mix of Greek yogurt and cottage cheese. There’s also the added nutrient-packed spinach, whole grain pasta, and lean chicken breast to make this a healthy dinner recipe.
Tuscan sauce usually refers to a rich sauce containing ingredients like parmesan, garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, and spinach. We’ve kept those essential flavors but, instead of the added cream and butter, we’ve lightened up the dish with healthier ingredients like cottage cheese and Greek yogurt.
I like to pair this pasta dish with vegetables like this Air Fry Frozen Broccoli, this Eggplant Air Fryer Recipe, or these Carrot French Fries.
Healthy Eating Plans
21 Day Fix Containers
For the entire recipe: 2 ½ Green Containers, 10 Red Containers, 12 Yellow Containers, and 2 Blue Containers. I give you the count for the entire recipe so its easier to calculate 21 Day Fix containers if you change something.
For each 1 ½ cup serving: 1/3 Green Container, 1 2/3 Red Containers, 2 Yellow Containers, and 1/3 Blue Containers.
2B Mindset
I would eat this as a healthy lunch with extra vegetables.
If you tried this Healthy Tuscan Chicken Pasta Recipe or any other recipe on my site please leave a rating and let me know how it went in the comments!
Healthy Instant Pot Tuscan Chicken Pasta Recipe
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Equipment
- Instant Pot 6 qt
- Sealing Rings
- Vitamix Blender
Ingredients
- 1 cup sun-dried tomatoes sun dried with no oil or grape tomatoes, halved
- 3 tbsp Italian seasoning
- 2 tbsp garlic minced
- 2 lbs chicken breast (about 2 large breasts, diced into 1-inch cubes)
- 3 cups chicken broth 1 cup only for Crockpot method.
- 3 cups whole wheat pasta I used one 12 oz. box
- ¾ cup cottage cheese 2%
- ¾ cup Greek yogurt 2%
- 2 cups spinach baby
- 2 tbsp basil fresh, or 1 tsp dried basil
- ⅔ cup parmesan cheese
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
Instant Pot:
- Set your Instant Pot to Sauté and lightly spray the pot with cooking spray. Once your pot is hot, add the sun-dried tomatoes, Italian seasoning, and garlic. Cook for about 30 seconds until fragrant. 1 cup sun-dried tomatoes 3 tbsp Italian seasoning 2 tbsp garlic
- Add your cubed chicken to the pot and cook 2-3 minutes, stirring often. Once your chicken is browned on all sides, add your chicken broth. 2 lbs chicken breast 3 cups chicken broth
- Add your pasta to the pot and stir well, ensuring that all noodles are below the liquid. 3 cups whole wheat pasta
- Close and lock the lid and turn the pressure valve to sealing. Cook on high pressure for 3 minutes.
- While your chicken is cooking, blend the cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, and grated parmesan together until smooth (in a blender or food processor), then set aside. ¾ cup cottage cheese ¾ cup Greek yogurt ⅔ cup parmesan cheese
- When the cook time is complete, quick release the pressure and remove the lid. Stir. Drain any excess liquid from the pot, keeping aside 1/4 cup. Add the 1/4 cup liquid to the cottage cheese mixture and stir well.
- While your noodles are still hot, stir in spinach and basil. Once the leaves have wilted, stir in your blended cottage cheese mixture. Serve immediately. Garnish with additional parmesan and fresh basil. 2 cups spinach 2 tbsp basil
Crock Pot:
- Lightly spray a large skillet with cooking oil, then add tomatoes, garlic, Italian herbs, and pepper. Sauté over high heat for 30 seconds or so until it becomes fragrant.
- Add your cubed chicken to the pan and brown for 1-2 minutes until the chicken no longer sticks together.
- Transfer chicken and sun dried tomatoes (all of the contents of the pan) to your crockpot and top with chicken broth. Cook on high heat for 2-3 hours, or low heat for 4-5 hours.
- About 20 minutes before you’d like to eat, boil the pasta in a separate pot according to package directions. Once cooked, drain and add to the Crockpot.
- Drain any excess liquid (set aside 1/4 cup) and add spinach and basil. Stir until spinach is wilted.
- Blend cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, and parmesan cheese in a blender until smooth, and add the mixture to the Crockpot.
- Stir the cottage cheese mixture and 1/4 cup pasta water into the contents of the slow cooker.
- Stir one last time and serve immediately with extra parmesan cheese and fresh basil, as desired.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Make This Recipe?
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I’m sorry but why can’t the sun dried tomatoes have oil?
Hi Mimi, it’s just to keep the calories and points down. If you’re not following a specific healthy eating plan, sun dried tomatoes in oil are fine :)
If you are going have an equipment list it would be nice if you listed all of the equipment!!! I cook on the road and picked this based on ingredients and the equipment need. But you did not list that you needed a blender
Tried it, super tasty! Thank you! It could use salt and maybe some red pepper flakes.
Would you eliminate the chicken broth step if making this with fresh pasta? Or would you recommend just reducing the boil time and drain when pasta is cooked?
I’d reduce the boil time and drain after the pasta is cooked (but be sure to drain before adding your cream base).
For the instant pot recipe, is 3 minutes SAUTEE plus 3 minutes instapot on high enough time to make sure the chicken is cooked? i’m a little nervous about that. Otherwise, I’m excited about executing this! THANK YOU :)
If the chicken is cut into 1 inch cubes, it’ll cook in the time stated :)
So tasty and came together quickly. Definitely will go on the repeat list.
Hi! I’ve made this recipe probably a half dozen times with the stovetop method, so yummy! We recently got a Ninja Foodi 14-in-1 appliance that has instapot functions and I would love to try this recipe in it. What should I set the temp to? Maybe this is an option only required by my appliance, but it requires me to set a temp when using the saute and all other functions. What would you recommend?
Hey Ally! How fun! I haven;t had a chance to play with the 14 in one yet. It sounds like this cooking device might be best with the stovetop directions?
I made this in the crockpot and made it pretty much exactly as the recipe stated. However the yogurt/cottage cheese mix tasted waaay to yogurt like so all to taste I added Italian seasoning, garlic, a little salt and mixed in some Parmesan cheese and let it sit in the fridge for an hour before mixing with the pasta and chicken mix. It came out absolutely DELICIOUS! I will be making this again.
I like to cook my pasta on the stove on the side so the leftovers will be better. We use gluten free pasta so I don’t like to have it all mixed up plus I usually eat my portion over veggies. How much broth would I need if not adding in the pasta?
Super good and easy recipe I followed it exactly but did have to add a little extra chicken broth to get noodles covered which was no big deal! Saw some of the negative comments about the flavors and was nervous but I thought it was great could not taste the greek yogurt at all I used the fage total 0% yogurt
Husband and I both loved it reheats well we will totally make it again!
Thanks for the great recipe!