Creamy Chicken and Bacon Pasta
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read the Privacy Policy & Cookie Policy.
Tonight’s dinner? Perfectly cooked bacon and garlic, smothered in a creamy, buttery Parmesan sauce, poured right on chicken, and piled high on fettuccine for a filling, delicious, family-friendly meal.
This recipe has several steps, but do not get overwhelmed. Just like chicken alfredo bake, it’s a super easy recipe, but because making this chicken recipe requires cooking chicken, pasta, and sauce, you will have to pull out a few pans to get started.
The best way to really see the recipe and see if it’s something you want to eat is to check out the video included. I captured some cell phone video recipe footage because it always helps to see real-life food in action.
And this recipe is simple – make pasta, fry up your flavorful chicken, create a cream sauce, and combine it all! I have done my best to break down all the steps below to make them easy to follow, but please ask any questions you may have.
Bacon Chicken Ingredient List
Scroll to the bottom for a printable version of this post, including all measurements and instructions, so you can follow along in your kitchen without being on your phone.
Here is what ingredients you need to gather to get started:
- butter
- heavy whipping cream
- fettuccine
- uncooked bacon
- chicken breasts
- flour
- shaved or shredded Parmesan
- minced garlic
- sea salt
- garlic powder
- black peppercorn
- chicken broth
Related Chicken Breast Recipes for Dinner: Asparagus Stuffed Chicken, Garlic Parmesan Chicken, Chicken and Rice Bake, Ritz Cracker Chicken, Alice Springs Chicken Copycat, Ritz Cracker Chicken Casserole
(hint: Make sure your dishwasher is empty!)
How to make Creamy Parmesan Bacon Chicken
Make the Fettuccini Pasta
Start with half a pack of fettuccine pasta and make as directed, until al dente, drain and set aside.
In case you are wondering about alternatives to fettuccini, there are worlds of delicious pasta styles, types and textures out there. You can always substitute pasta types but they all soak up sauce differently and as this is a heavy cream sauce with bacon and Parmesan, its helpful to have a thicker pasta like fettuccine.
If you alter it for something like angel hair, the sauce is too heavy and the pasta will wilt. Stick with thicker pastas like egg noodles or even pappardelle (my favorite but its not readily available here) would be fine if you didn’t have fettuccine on hand.
Make the Crispy Bacon
You can be generous with your bacon if you want, I use half a pack of bacon personally.
- Cut uncooked bacon up until small pieces (smaller than one inch) and place in a medium-high heat cast iron pan.
- Get your bacon good and crispy and then carefully remove the bacon and set aside. (this takes about 8-10 minutes).
- *while bacon is cooking, move onto step two prepping chicken*
- Leave bacon grease in pan and add an additional tablespoon of vegetable oil.
- Add 1 tablespoon minced garlic to oil and combine.
- Allow vegetable oil to get up to pan heat and garlic to cook, about a minute or two, before adding your prepped chicken.
- If wanted, oven bake bacon or air fry bacon and substitute bacon grease with regular vegetable oil with the garlic.
Make the Crispy Garlic Chicken
While bacon is cooking, get started with the chicken, pull out plastic wrap and put on counter. Put breasts on plastic wrap and cover top with another sheet of wrap.
- Pound chicken breasts down, keeping them all even (helps with ending cooking around the same time) to about half an inch thick.
- Sprinkle salt (I prefer large grain sea salt), ground peppercorn, and garlic powder to both sides of chicken.
- Repeat with all four chicken breasts.
- Add approximately 1 cup of flour to a plate and dredge chicken in flour on both sides.
- Throw any unused flour away.
- Place chicken breasts in skillet for 6 minutes on each side. Do not try to flip chicken too quickly as it will stick to the pan.
- At 6 minutes your chicken should easily flip to the other side to finish cooking and have a nice brown coloring.
NOTE ABOUT COOKING CHICKEN BREASTS
- Times may vary depending on how thick your breasts are, so adjust if needed. Chicken needs to be cooked all the way through before consuming. Please note that you finish warming your chicken in the pan near the end (right in the sauce) so its ok if its nearly finished at this point.
- My family is a family of four, so we always make four chicken breasts, but feel free to just make two if you like. I wouldn’t really alter the sauce content even if you make two as having the extra sauce is delicious. If you are making extra chicken, you may need two pans, depending on how large your skillets are and that is fine too. Just fry up the second set of breasts in a separate skillet before moving on.
Make the Creamy Parmesan Sauce
Once chicken is done being cooked, set aside. No need to drain any excess oil or bits in the pan.
- Add chicken broth, butter, cooked bacon pieces and whipping cream back to the pan until it boils, stirring constantly. Sauce should begin to thicken in a few minutes.
- Add half a cup of fresh shaved Parmesan cheese to sauce.
- Lower temperature on pan and add chicken breasts into sauce for 3- 5 minutes.
- Add fettuccine pasta to pan and use tongs to mix everything up.
- Sprinkle with extra shaved Parmesan if desired.
- Serve!
This is a heavy chicken recipe with all the pasta and cream sauce, so I recommend skipping the potato side dishes and instead serving with some roasted veggies. Try smashed Brussels Sprouts, simple oven roasted cauliflower florets, 20 minute crinkle cut carrots or garlic asparagus.
Variations
- Substitute Pancetta in place of Bacon
- Grated Parmesan is fine in place of Shredded Parmesan
If you made my recipe and altered it or have feedback, please let me know. I love hearing how you made this recipe your own and some of my best future alterations have come from reader suggestions.
Bacon Chicken with Parmesan Cream Sauce
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons butter
- half a pack of bacon – diced
- 4 large chicken breasts – pounded flat
- 1 cup flour
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic
- cracked peppercorn
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream
- vegetable oil
- 1/2 cup chicken broth
- 1/2 cup shaved Parmesan
- garlic powder
- fettuccine
- sea salt
Instructions
- Make the Pasta
- Start with half a pack of fettuccine pasta and make as directed, until al dente, drain and set aside.
- Make the Crispy Bacon
- Cut uncooked bacon up until small pieces (smaller than one inch) and place in a medium-high heat hot pan.
- Get your bacon good and crispy and then carefully remove the bacon and set aside. (this takes about 8-10 minutes).
- While bacon is cooking, move onto step two prepping chicken for the pan*
- Leave bacon grease in pan and add an additional tablespoon of vegetable oil IF NEEDED. There should be enough oil in the pan to cook both sides of the chicken and there isn’t always enough with just bacon grease – you have to make that judgement call. I like to add extra to be sure.
- Add 1 tablespoon minced garlic to oil and combine.
- Allow vegetable oil in pan to heat and garlic to cook together, about a minute or two, before adding your prepped seasoned and floured chicken.
- Make the Crispy Garlic Chicken
- While bacon is cooking, get started with the chicken, pull out plastic wrap and put on counter.
- Put breasts on plastic wrap and cover top with another sheet of wrap.
- Pound chicken breasts down, keeping them all even (helps with ending cooking around the same time) to about half an inch thick. *image in article if you need to see*
- Sprinkle salt (I prefer large grain sea salt), generous with ground peppercorn, and dust garlic powder to both sides of chicken. Use as much or as little as you want, but I recommend being through for best quality seasoning.
- Repeat process with all four chicken breasts.
- Add approximately 1 cup of flour to a plate and dredge chicken in flour on both sides.
- Throw any unused flour away.
- Place chicken breasts in hot skillet for 6 minutes on each side.
- Do not try to flip chicken too quickly as it will stick to the pan.
- At 6 minutes your chicken should easily flip to the other side to finish cooking and have a nice brown coloring.
- If pan is spitting oil at you, just turn heat down- this always goes with cooking. No need to burn yourself (or your chicken)!
- Make the Creamy Parmesan Sauce
- Once chicken is done being cooked, set breasts aside on a plate. No need to drain any excess oil or bits in the pan before making sauce.
- Add chicken broth, butter, cooked bacon pieces and whipping cream back to the pan until it boils, stirring constantly.
- Parmesan Cream Sauce should begin to thicken in a few minutes.
- Add half a cup of fresh shaved Parmesan cheese to sauce and stir.
- Lower temperature on pan and add chicken breasts directly into sauce for 3- 5 minutes.
- Add fettuccine pasta to pan and use tongs to mix everything up.
- Sprinkle with extra shaved Parmesan if desired.
Video
Notes
NOTE ABOUT COOKING:
- Times may vary depending on how thick your breasts are, so adjust if needed. Chicken needs to be cooked all the way through before consuming. Please note that you finish warming your chicken in the pan near the end (right in the sauce) so its ok if its nearly finished at this point.
- My family is a family of four, so we always make four chicken breasts, but feel free to just make two if you like. I wouldn’t really alter the sauce content even if you make two as having the extra sauce is delicious. If you are making extra chicken, you may need two pans, depending on how large your skillets are and that is fine too. Just fry up the second set of breasts in a separate skillet before moving on.
Nutrition
Nutritional Disclaimer: The nutritional data provided here is auto-calculated and intended for your convenience only. As it’s generated via automation, its accuracy may be compromised. For precise nutritional insight, please compute the values utilizing the actual ingredients in your recipe through your chosen nutrition calculator or application.
Did You Make This Recipe?
Make sure to follow Salty Side Dish on Pinterest and rate the recipe here and make sure to leave a comment below!
This is a great recipe! My family is gluten free so I’ve learned how to substitute things along the way. Anyone wanting to make this gluten free, just substitute the flour for cornstarch and the pasta for a gluten free version. Also, if you need to thicken your sauce, add cornstarch a tablespoon at a time mixed with some cold water until you reach your desired thickness. I also used a whole onion and a handful of sundried tomatoes. I added the onion after removing the chicken and cooked until tender then continued with the recipe and added the tomatoes before adding the chicken. Thank you very much for the recipe! I will definitely be making this again!!