These One Pot Creamy Garlic Noodles are as easy as they are delicious! No creams or large amounts of butter, making this meal a winner all-around!
One Pot Creamy Garlic Noodles
These one pot (well.. technically one “pan”) skinny creamy garlic noodles are a HUGE hit with my family. We have made them at least once a month for the last several months using all sorts of variations. My kids are crazy about them and request them all the time (and I am happy to oblige because they are SO easy)! This recipe doesn’t use heavy cream or large amounts of butter, but it tastes JUST as good as recipes that do. Cooking the noodles in the chicken broth and milk is like magic. No draining and only ONE POT to clean! A total win-win.
Adding Chicken:
To make this a full meal, just add a little chicken. I love adding grilled chicken but you can add baked, shredded, or pan-fried. To keep it a true “one pot” meal, pan frying the chicken is the way to go. First, season the chicken with Italian seasoning and cook it up in the same skillet you want to cook the noodles in (before cooking the noodles). Then, sauté the chicken until it is cooked most of the way through and remove from the pan, place on a plate, and cover. Wipe the pan out (be careful because the pan will be hot) and make the noodles as per the recipe below. Lastly, add the chicken after a few minutes into the noodles simmering and follow the rest of the recipe as directed.
Adding Vegetables:
If you want to add vegetables, add them 10 minutes or so before serving. You can add veggies like broccoli, peas, asparagus… you get the picture. You can make these noodles as a full meal or as an easy side dish — totally up to you!
Love One-Pot meals?
Try these delicious One-Pot recipes!
- One Pot Chicken Teriyaki Bowls: Chicken, vegetables, and rice cooked in a delicious teriyaki sauce.
- One Pot Jambalaya Pasta: All of the flavors and seasonings of Jambalaya combined with pasta.
- One Pot Thai Peanut Pasta: This features shrimp or chicken, noodles, vegetables, seasonings, and peanuts all cooked together in a light, creamy peanut sauce.
- Creamy One Pot Tortellini with Sausage: A flavorful meal that can be made in under 30 minutes. The sauce is amazing!
How to make One Pot Creamy Garlic Noodles
Ingredients
- 4 Tbsp. butter divided
- 4-5 cloves garlic minced
- 28 oz chicken broth (3 3/4 cups)
- 2 1/2 c. milk add more if needed
- 1 lb. linguini
- kosher salt and black pepper to taste
- 1 tsp. basil
- 2/3 c. Parmesan cheese
- 4 c. broccoli optional
- 2 chicken breasts grilled and cut into strips (optional. See notes above on how to make chicken part of the "one-pot" meal if you don't want to grill)
Instructions
- In a large, 5-6 quart skillet, heat 2 Tbsp. butter over medium heat. If you don't have a large skillet, a stock-pot works well, too. Add garlic and cook for about a minute.
- Add chicken broth, milk, remaining 2 Tbsp. butter, pasta noodles, salt and pepper, and basil. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally.
- Once boiling, reduce heat to a simmer stirring occasionally for 16-20 minutes or until noodles have cooked through.
- If you are wanting to add broccoli, add it after about 10 minutes into the simmering process.
- Stir in Parmesan when noodles are finished cooking and add a little milk if necessary if necessary to reach your desired consistency.
Recipe Video
Nutrition
The following recipe is adapted from Yellow Bliss Road – check her out!
Fany says
I made tonight I think I went wrong somewhere I substituted the cans of chicken brothe with chicken built on mixed in water l it has a lot of liquid and its taking longer than the recipe calls for ????????
I test tasted a noodle and it tastes soooo yummy so I’m bummed it’s not coming out right!!! Should I drain the extra juice!? ????
Erica says
It’s hard to know exactly what could have happened here. If the noodles are done and you have too much liquid, you can definitely drain some of it off (especially if it still tastes good). How much liquid are we talking about here?
Brandon Roberts says
What does (c.) respresent? Cups?
Erica says
Yes. c. = cups. Hope this helps!
Leah says
I love this recipe. I use whole wheat pasta and almond milk. Its easy and delicious!!
kimberly says
Do you use powder parm cheese or grated parm cheese?
Emily says
We used the powdered but you can use either for this recipe.
Kathy says
I’ve tried this twice now and followed the recipe exactly. There’s way too much liquid! I think it’s the 2.5C of milk that’s the problem.
Favorite Family Recipes says
You may need to simmer the pasta a little longer to reduce the liquid to the right consistency. The milk helps add creaminess to the sauce so I wouldn’t leave it out!
Sandy says
Can you use fresh pasta? How long would you cook the fresh pasta in the sauce then?
Erica says
I’m not sure if I would use fresh pasta, the times would be all wrong because fresh pasta cook up so much faster than regular pasta. It would be best to cook it separately and make a sauce to put over it. It won’t absorb the sauce as well as just regular boxed pasta.
Sherrie says
This is a “skinny” recipes, what is the nutrient information?
Erica says
It is “skinny” because it doesn’t use butter and creams like most alfredo-type recipes do. I will see if I can’t find some nutrition info for this recipe and get it added. Thanks for the heads up!
Joanna says
I added all calories doing linguine, 16 oz chicken breast sauteed in olive oil, broccoli, and 3 cups 2% milk as well as all other ingredients listed as measured and the total came to be about 3,313 (Fitness Pal) so depending on how many servings this yields you could divide by that and get an estimate of calories per serving. I am calorie counting so I was curious as well. If you guestimate servings by the pasta it would make about 8 servings so 3,313/8 would be about 414 calories, but that is either not very much or too good to be true…lol oh well…I tried…I’ll enter it as best I can in my fitness pal and hope I’m not too far off.
Echo says
Thank you, Joanna! This is very helpful!
Amanda says
Just made this tonight and it was delicious! My normally picky kids loved it as well. My 4 year old kept saying “This is the best super I ever had!” ????
Amanda says
Oops, I meant to say “supper”.
Favorite Family Recipes says
So glad they liked it! My kids love it too 🙂 They will even eat the broccoli!
Emma says
Can I use almond milk in this recipie?
Favorite Family Recipes says
Yes, almond milk will work just fine. Thanks for asking!
casey says
Do you know how many calories per serving in this recipe?
Favorite Family Recipes says
We are currently working on getting the calorie counts on our recipes. Keep checking back for updates! Thanks!
Ann says
Just made this with a few modifications:
– Used rotini instead of linguine
– I used ~ 1.75c of milk plus the listed amount of chicken broth and I still had to take out almost 2c of extra liquid once the rotini was done cooking! I’ll save it to use when I reheat the leftovers.
– Used only 2 tbsp of butter (in the beginning, to saute the garlic)
– Added roasted broccoli and grilled chicken
Great base recipe, it was very delicious and definitely a keeper!
Debbie Sharp says
Delisious! Boyfriend says “this is really good Deb, guess what I’m taking for lunch tomorrow.” This skinny alfredo recipe will be my go to! Thank you
Favorite Family Recipes says
Haha lunch date for the win! So glad he (and you) liked it!
Rachel says
This was delicious! Made it baby led weaning friendly (8M baby & 2 year old toddler) by using bow tie pasta noodles, salt reduced chicken stock, adding cheddar cheese not Parmesan (except to the adults) & not adding salt. We did peas and red pepper along with the broccoli. Added salt and pepper to my husband & mine once serving.
It Made a huge batch and froze mini meals for the kids, along with lunch for my husband the next day.
Yum! Just discovered your website so excited to try something new next week.
Favorite Family Recipes says
We are so excited that you discovered us too! We hope you will keep coming back for more recipes 😀 we have lots of recipes that are toddler and baby-friendly 😉
Tanya says
This was delicious! Even my picky daughter loved this. And my husband had 3 helpings.
Favorite Family Recipes says
So glad you guys liked it! 😀
Haley says
I loved this recipe!! I changed up a few thing; I used plant based protein penne, rice milk, and Gouda cheese instead of Parmesan. I added broccoli and lastly I sprinkled paleo friendly bacon on top of the dish instead of adding chicken. Delicious!!!
Joy says
Hi. So, I really was hoping this would be yummy, but I something went wrong. I made it the same as the video, but the milk or the cheese curdled. 🙁 and the broccoli took forever to cook and the pasta got overcooked. Sad times over here.
Favorite Family Recipes says
Oh no! I don’t know what could have gone wrong. The milk will separate if it gets too hot. It only needs to be at a low simmer. I’m not sure why the broccoli took so long. Were you able to access the recipe and follow the instructions there or could you just access the video?
Kaitlynn says
How many calories is this meal??
Favorite Family Recipes says
We don’t have calorie counts on our site yet but you can plug the recipe into a nutrition calculator online and you should be able to find it easily. Hope this helps!
Kathleen Carter says
Just made this recipe. My husband said, “I wish everything you cooked off Pinterest tasted this good.” Enough said 😊
Favorite Family Recipes says
Wow! What a compliment! Thank you (and your husband)! 😀
Susan says
Does the lid stay on after you add the Broccoli ? Do not want it too watery so thought I would check.
Favorite Family Recipes says
Actually, I don’t use a lid at all for this recipe. I let it simmer uncovered so it doesn’t get watery and the sauce gets nice and thick. Hope this helps!
Dawn @ The Kitchen and a Latte says
This sounds so easy and delicious! I will try it by grilling the chicken first time I make it but then in colder months maybe I will do it all in one pan (when you don’t feel like removing all the snow from the grill haha!) I am sure it is good either way tho 🙂
Erica Walker says
It is so good no matter how you make it! Definitely love it with the grilled chicken this time of year though, so good!
Lisa Davidoff says
This is a “skinny” recipe ??
Favorite Family Recipes says
It depends on what kind of diet you are following. It doesn’t have heavy cream like most creamy pastas have – so that helps!
Emma says
Just cooked this tonight. Love the flavours. Only thing I found was the sauce didn’t thicken much and my pasta cooked way too quick for it to be simmered for 20 minutes. Other than that, this was delicious and my got the tick of approval from my husband. Will definitely be making this again!
Maria says
This was absolutely delicious! I was a little skeptical about all the liquid and no step to drain it but I stuck to the recipe and it was perfect! It wasn’t thick and heavy like other similar recipes. Happy husband. Happy toddler. Happy mom! Gonna try the One Pot Thai Peanut Pasta next! Thanks for sharing your recipes!
Mary says
So , easy ! Loved it !