Ingredients

Alfredo Pasta

• Pasta of your choice, I used spaghetti pasta for this recipe
• 4 tablespoons of softened or room temperature unsalted butter
• 2 cups of grated Parmesan cheese. Store bought is fine.

Optional toppings

• 1/2kg or 1lbs of chicken thigh fillets, boneless and skinless
• 1 cup of Broccoli florets

Instructions

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil -- yes, you have to put alot of salt in the water; as in, "as salty as the ocean" -- and cook your preferred pasta according to its packaging instructions. For spaghetti pasta, its usually 8 minutes to cook for it to become al dente.
2. Once your pasta is cooked, reserve about 3 cup of that pasta water, which should look cloudy from all that starch, and drain.
   
3. In a large enough bowl or pan, mix together the cooked pasta and the softened butter until every bit of the pasta has been covered.
   
4. Slowly mix in the Parmesan cheese and mix until it has been emulsified with the butter. It should start to get creamy. You can adjust the creaminess of the sauce by slowly adding the pasta water you reserved earlier. 
   
5. Keep mixing until you've reached the desired consistency of the sauce. Mine was a little dry and could have used more of that pasta water. Season to taste with salt (if you seasoned your water well enough, you won't need as much salt ) and freshly ground black pepper to taste.
   
   Chicken and Broccoli toppings:
   
   
6. Season your chicken thigh fillets with salt and pepper on both sides
   
7. Put two tablespoons of cooking oil in a medium pan and bring that to a simmer on medium heat.
   
8. When the pan is hot and the oil starts to simmer, gently put in your chicken thigh fillets and let cook for about 3-4 minutes on each side.
   
9. Once your chicken is cooked, set aside to cool completely before cutting into bite-sized pieces.
   
10. For the broccoli o retain its crunch, once the water for the pasta begins to boil, I reserved about a cup of that hot water (before I put the pasta) and soaked the broccoli florets in a separate bowl.
    
    Mix everything together until both the chicken and broccoli florets has been coated with the alfredo sauce.

Tags:

• chicken
• pasta
• alfredo
• easy
• broccoli