Alfredo Chicken Penne
Freeze-dried chicken, penne, and a powdered cream sauce built in one pot.
- calories
- 780
- weight
- 5.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 142
- protein
- 38 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 5 min
- cook
- 14 min
- total time
- 19 min
- water
- 600 ml boiled
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Canister stove
- Liquid fuel
- Alcohol / Esbit
- Backpacking
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Bikepacking
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Penne | 2 oz dry | thin pasta cooks faster, but penne holds sauce |
|---|---|---|
| Freeze-dried chicken | 1 oz | stands in for 5 oz of raw chicken breast |
| Powdered heavy cream or whole milk powder | 3 tbsp | |
| Grated parmesan | 1/4 cup | the shelf-stable green-can kind is fine here |
| Chicken bouillon | 1 tsp | |
| Granulated garlic | 1/2 tsp | |
| Butter powder or olive oil | 1 tbsp | |
| Salt and pepper | to taste | |
| Dried parsley | 1 tsp | optional |
Method
- Drop the freeze-dried chicken into 600 ml of water and bring it to a boil. It rehydrates while the water heats.
- Add the penne and the bouillon. Boil hard for 9 to 11 minutes, stirring often so nothing welds to the bottom.
- Do not drain. Let the water cook down until it barely covers the pasta.
- Kill the heat. Stir in the cream powder, parmesan, garlic, and butter powder. Keep stirring until it turns glossy instead of grainy.
- Lid on, five minutes off the flame. The sauce thickens as it cools. Salt, pepper, parsley.
The original is a slow cooker dish: seared chicken breast, a litre of stock, most of a carton of cooking cream, pasta stirred in at the end. None of that survives a pack. Freeze-dried chicken replaces the breast, powdered cream replaces the carton, and bouillon replaces the stock, so the whole thing carries dry and comes back with water.
The part worth keeping is the timing. Cooking the pasta in the sauce liquid rather than draining it is what makes this one pot instead of two, and starchy water is what lets cream powder and parmesan emulsify at all. Add the dairy off the heat. Boiled parmesan splits and goes stringy, and there is no fixing it once it does.
Packing
Cream powder, parmesan, bouillon, garlic, and butter powder go in one small bag as a sauce mix. Pasta and chicken in a second bag. Two bags, one pot.
Variations
- Swap the chicken for a foil pouch of tuna or a summer sausage, added at the end.
- A spoonful of sun-dried tomato powder or dried mushrooms in the boil gives the sauce something to push against.
- Halve the water and use small shells for a faster boil on a cold night.
https://www.bucatarmaniac.ro/2021/10/paste-alfredo-cu-piept-de-pui-la-multicooker-5in1-digital-5-6l-crock-pot.html