Martha Stewart’s chicken pasta is a one-pan dinner of golden chicken cutlets, browned mushrooms, shallots, and curly egg noodles in a creamy Dijon sauce. It feeds four in 45 minutes with one skillet to wash.
The recipe appears on marthastewart.com as Creamy Chicken and Mushrooms with Egg Noodles, so a search for chicken pasta will not surface it. It is the same dish under its full name, and every measurement and timing below follows her published original.
The egg noodles must simmer right in the skillet with the Dijon broth, never in a separate pot of water. As they cook they release starch that thickens the sauce, so boiling them on the side leaves you with watery broth and bland noodles.
Martha Stewart Chicken Pasta
Course: DinnerCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: Easy4
servings15
minutes30
minutes460
kcal45
minutesCreamy chicken and egg noodles built in layers: sear the cutlets, brown the vegetables in the drippings, then simmer the sauce over that base. Weeknight cooking that eats like it took hours.
Ingredients
4 small boneless, skinless chicken breast halves (about 1¼ lb / 565g total), pounded ½ inch (1.3cm) thick
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
3 tablespoons (45ml) extra-virgin olive oil
10 oz (280g) button mushrooms, trimmed and thinly sliced (4 cups)
2 shallots, thinly sliced (1 cup)
4 teaspoons (20ml) Dijon mustard
2½ cups (600ml) low-sodium chicken broth
4½ oz (130g) medium or broad curly egg noodles (about 2½ cups)
3 oz (85g) cream cheese (⅔ cup), room temperature
Fresh parsley leaves, for serving (optional)
Directions
- Sear the chicken. Season the cutlets with salt and pepper. Heat a large straight-sided skillet over medium-high and swirl in 2 tablespoons (30ml) oil. Cook until golden brown, 2 to 3 minutes per side, then move to a plate.
- Brown the mushrooms. Add the mushrooms to the skillet, season, and cook, stirring, until they start to brown, about 7 minutes.
- Soften the shallots. Add the shallots and the remaining 1 tablespoon (15ml) oil. Cook until translucent, 1 to 2 minutes.
- Simmer the noodles. Stir in the mustard, broth, and noodles. Bring to a boil, then cover, reduce the heat to medium, and simmer 3 minutes.
- Melt in the cream cheese. Uncover and stir in the cream cheese. Cook, stirring, until the noodles are tender and the sauce coats a spoon, about 3 minutes.
- Finish the chicken. Return the chicken to the skillet and cook through, about 1 minute more. Serve sprinkled with parsley.
Notes
- Notes (from Martha’s original):
The best pan: a straight-sided skillet contains the ingredients better than a sloped one, so you can stir without splashing. No large straight-sided skillet? Use a Dutch oven.
Cleaning the mushrooms: wipe each one with a damp paper towel, especially the stem base and gills where grit hides. Do not soak them, since mushrooms are porous and extra moisture stops them from browning in step 2. Very dirty ones can take a quick rinse under cool water, then a pat dry and 5 to 10 minutes of air drying before slicing.
FAQs
Can I swap regular pasta for the egg noodles?
Martha’s test kitchen says no, and it’s not fussiness. Regular dried pasta drinks up more liquid, so the skillet runs dry and the sauce turns to paste before the pasta gets tender.
Egg noodles cook fast and turn silky in exactly the 2½ cups of broth the recipe gives them, no more, no less. If regular pasta is what you want, her baked pasta is built for it, cheese pull and all.
Why pound the chicken breasts to half an inch?
Thin, even cutlets are what make the 2 to 3 minutes per side work. A breast left thick browns outside while the center stays raw, then dries out during the final reheat.
Pound them one at a time between sheets of parchment, working from the thick end outward. Uniform thickness matters more than exact numbers, so aim for cutlets that match each other.
Why does the chicken leave the pan and return?
Thin cutlets finish in about 6 minutes, but the mushrooms, shallots, and noodles need another 15. Leaving the chicken in that whole time would turn it stringy and dry.
The sear also leaves browned bits stuck to the skillet, and the mushrooms lift that flavor as they cook. One final minute back in the sauce warms the chicken through without overcooking it. That fond is free flavor you’d wash down the drain in a two-pan version.
What can replace the cream cheese in the sauce?
Her page names two direct swaps: an equal amount of mascarpone or crème fraîche. Mascarpone makes the sauce a touch sweeter and richer, while crème fraîche adds a sharper tang.
Whichever you use, have it at room temperature so it melts in smoothly during the 3-minute finish. Cold cheese straight from the fridge lumps up and needs extra stirring time the noodles don’t have.
How do leftovers of this chicken pasta hold up?
Fairly well for a cream sauce, though the noodles keep drinking. Sealed in the fridge it lasts 3 days, and the sauce will have thickened around the noodles by day one.
Reheat gently in a skillet with a splash of broth, and skip the freezer, since thawed cream cheese sauce goes grainy. For a chicken dinner with zero reheating questions, her Asian chicken salad is served cold on purpose.
