Recipe: Balsamic Cream Chicken Pasta

I had dinner at Mona Lisa's in Huntington Beach a couple weeks ago and absolutely loved their Rigatoni Con Petit De Pollo.  It was a rigatoni pasta with a light balsamic cream sauce.  The sauce had the perfect tang to it that I fell in love with.  The boyfriend also raved about the dish so I knew it was something I wanted to recreate.  I searched high and low for a good recipe and came across one from AllRecipes.com.  I used it as a guide and adjusted it to my liking.  The recipe is just for the sauce, but I made it to put over pasta and chicken.  I'm sure it would be good over a variety of things.

Balsamic Cream Sauce:

2 tbsp oil
2 tbsp butter
1/2 onion, minced or chopped
3 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp chicken bouillon granules
1 1/2 cup of heavy cream
1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

1. Heat oil and butter in a saucepan.  Add onions and saute on low/medium heat for 10-15 minutes. You want to caramelize the onions, not saute them. Make sure you're stirring it constantly so you don't burn them
2. Add the balsamic vinegar and let simmer for about 1-2 minutes.  You'll see it slightly thicken up.
3 Add heavy cream and chicken granules.  Bring to a simmer for about 5 minutes until you see it thickening.
4. Add in the parmesan cheese and stir around until it all melts.  Freshly grated parmesan will give you the best results.  The canned and pre-shredded stuff will make your sauce lumpy.
5. Add salt/pepper to your liking

All done! This sauce was an easy 20 minutes.  The only long part is waiting for the onions to caramelize.  This was the perfect serving for 4 people.

Here is my go-to easy chicken marinade:

1 big piece of chicken breast, sliced or however you plan to serve it
1/2 cup of Italian salad dressing
2 cloves of garlic-minced
a dash of Italian herbs
S&P

Combine it all and let marinate for 30 minutes. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes depending how big your pieces of chicken are.

I served this with some roasted broccoli, I prepared it the same way from my Beer Can Chicken post.

It was a very delicious dinner and boyfriend approved.  This is definitely going on my monthly rotation of meals