15 Minute Italian Chicken Skillet with Kale is a quick & easy, healthy weeknight dinner recipe that the whole family will love! It is made even easier by using pantry staples and the options of whole grain pasta, quinoa or brown rice.

Howdy folks 😉 How’s fall treating you so far? I was starting to think that we weren’t to get much fall this year and I was sad about that because it is probably my favorite season, but this weekend we finally go a dose of that picture-perfect fall weather!! I was super excited to have the windows open at the house and pull out my favorite big and cozy sweatshirt!! BTW…that big and cozy sweatshirt isn’t so big any more thanks to my growing baby bump, but at least I am getting to the point where you can actually tell that I am pregnant and not just getting fat! LOL 🙂 On that  note, I am 22 weeks today and had a doctor’s appointment this morning and can share a good report!! Baby girl and I are doing progressing well and everything is looking good 🙂

Lori, Z man and a great family friend were in town to celebrate Mom’s birthday this past weekend and so to enjoy the perfect fall weather we decided to take the kiddos to a local farm that has a fall festival of sorts called “Fall Fun on the Farm” each weekend during the fall. Amy and the twins were able to come with us and it was the boys first official outing, except for doctor’s appointments! It was so much fun and we enjoyed gorgeous sunshine, crisp fall temps and all of the classic fall activities like a pumpkin patch, hayrides, field mazes, farm animals, play areas and of course the country market and their homemade slow-churned ice cream 🙂

Earlier in the week, on a whim, I came up with this 15 Minute Italian Chicken Skillet with Kale recipe for one of our dinners and it was an instant hit! It actually came out of pure laziness on my part…I have been struggling a bit with some pregnancy exhaustion, which we think is due to low iron, and I have had zero motivation!! I had to come up with something for dinner and I was just trying to come up with something out of what we had on hand! We had some fresh tomatoes that Dad had brought home from one of his customers needed to be used up, some leftover pasta and a bag of chopped kale in the freezer. I decided to throw all of that together with some lean, boneless skinless chicken breasts, onion, garlic, herbs and cheese and call it a day! I had seen this recipe for Italian Baked Chicken and Pastina from Giada De Laurentiis on foodnetwork.com thought it sounded yummy and use that as a loose inspiration for my 15 Minute Italian Chicken Skillet with Kale.

I couldn’t believe how well it turned out!! Everyone gobbled it up, commented on how this has to be on my “must make again” list, the boys went back for seconds and there were arguments over the lunch leftovers!! I almost didn’t even get a portion to take for photographs!! I was floored…in a good way 🙂 I hated to admit just how simple it really was, but knew that I had to get it up on the blog for y’all 🙂 I am telling you that you have to keep this recipe in your back pocket or on weeknight rotation, especially for those crazy nights where you don’t think you have the time to put a healthy meal on the table for your family!

My suggestions for keeping this recipe at a 15-minute meal is to cook whole grain pasta in large batches and freeze into portions for ease and help with quick meals on those crazy weeknights!! Any shape short pasta that you have will work or you could even use brown rice or quinoa as a substitute or for variation. I used fresh tomatoes because we had some on hand that needed to be used, but you could totally use canned tomatoes. I also used chopped frozen kale for my greens but you could use fresh, if you like or another variety of green, like spinach or chard.

Here is the recipe for 15 Minute Italian Chicken Skillet with Kale:

4.3 from 4 reviews

15 Minute Italian Chicken Skillet with Kale

 

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Prep time

5 mins

Cook time

10 mins

Total time

15 mins

 

Author: Becky's Best Bites

Serves: 6

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
• 1.5 - 2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken breast, chopped into bite size pieces.
• 1 large, yellow onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
• 1 (14.5 oz.) can diced tomatoes or 6 medium chopped fresh tomatoes
• 1 bag (approximately 9 oz.) frozen chopped kale
• 1 tbsp. fresh basil, chopped
• 1 tbsp. fresh oregano, chopped
• 1 tsp. crushed red pepper flake, more or less to taste
• sea salt, fresh ground pepper, to taste
• 6 servings (approximately 6 cups) cooked whole grain pasta (any small pasta), brown rice or quinoa
• 4 oz. shredded mozzarella cheese
• ½ cup grated parmesan cheese + more for serving, if desired.

Instructions

1. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.
2. Once hot, add chicken and cook approximately 3 minutes to brown on all sides.
3. Add onions and garlic and continue to cook for about 5 minutes more or until the onions have softened and begin to become translucent.
4. Add tomatoes, kale, basil, garlic, salt, pepper and crushed red pepper flakes (if using) to the skillet and stir to combine and heat through.
5. Stir in cooked pasta, brown rice or quinoa (depending on which one you are using).
6. Add mozzarella cheese and stir to combine. Cook for about 2 more minutes to melt cheese.
7. Top with parmesan cheese and serve!

Notes

If using leftover frozen pasta, let defrost completely before using.

3.5.3217