Sun-dried tomato pasta is the ultimate comfort food, and this one-pot version makes it incredibly easy. This recipe takes all the rich, savory flavors of sun-dried tomatoes, tender chicken, and bright spinach, and combines them in a single pot with pasta, creating a creamy, dreamy dish with minimal cleanup. It’s the perfect solution for busy weeknights when you crave something delicious but don’t have a lot of time. What makes this sun-dried tomato pasta so special is the depth of flavor achieved in one pot. The pasta cooks directly in the broth and tomato-infused oil, absorbing all those delicious notes. The result is a perfectly cooked pasta coated in a luscious, creamy sauce that feels truly indulgent. This is more than just a pasta dish; it’s a shortcut to a satisfying and flavorful meal.
Key takeaways
- The 3 1/2 to 4 cup broth range cooks the pasta and becomes the sauce; the released starch, not cream, is what makes it creamy, so stir often to work that starch loose.
- Brown the baby bella mushrooms in a single layer without crowding and salt them only after they color; they are 80 to 90 percent water and will stew if rushed.
- Pull the chicken at an internal 74 C (165 F), and choose thighs over breasts if you tend to overcook, since they stay juicy through the extra simmering time.
- Use the flavored jar oil as your cooking fat and add the 5 ounces of spinach off heat for a 1 to 2 minute wilt, since it collapses to a quarter of its raw volume almost instantly.
Creamy Sun-Dried Tomato Pasta That’s SO Easy!
Ingredients
- 1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts or thighs (thinly sliced into bite-sized pieces)
- fine sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper
- 1 (8-ounce) jar sun-dried tomatoes in oil
- 1 small white onion (diced)
- 8 ounces baby bella mushrooms (sliced)
- 6 cloves garlic (pressed or minced)
- 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
- 3 1/2 to 4 cups vegetable broth
- 8 ounces small pasta shape (such as gnocchetti sardi or orzo)
- 5 ounces fresh baby spinach
Instructions
- Cook the chicken. Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil from the sun-dried tomatoes in a large nonstick sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add the chicken and cook, stirring occasionally, until evenly cooked through. Transfer the chicken to a clean plate and set aside.
- Sauté the veggies. Add 1 more tablespoon of the sun-dried tomato oil to the sauté pan. Add the onion and mushrooms and sauté, stirring occasionally, until the mushrooms are browned. Add the garlic and crushed red pepper flakes and sauté for 2 minutes, stirring frequently.
- Simmer. Add 3 ½ cups of the vegetable broth, pasta, sun-dried tomatoes and stir to combine. Continue cooking, stirring more frequently as the pasta continues to cook and soak up the broth, until the pasta is 1 minute shy of al dente. If the pasta seems to need more broth to finish cooking, you’re welcome to add a ½ cup extra (or more) as needed.
- Finish. Stir in the spinach, basil, heavy cream and cooked chicken until the spinach is wilted and the pasta is al dente.
- Serve. Serve immediately, garnished with lots of fresh Parmesan, and enjoy!
Video
Notes
– Don’t rinse the pasta; the starch helps thicken the sauce.
– Add spinach at the very end so it just wilts.
– For a spicier kick, add more crushed red pepper flakes. Nutrition information is an estimate, calculated automatically. Values vary with brands, substitutions and portion sizes.
Sun-dried tomato pasta lives or dies on one number that most recipes never mention: the 3 1/2 to 4 cup broth window is not sloppy imprecision, it is the working range for a risotto-style one-pot dish where the pasta cooks directly in the liquid it will later thicken. This is not a boil-and-drain recipe. The gnocchetti sardi or orzo releases its own amylose and amylopectin into the broth as it hydrates, and that dissolved starch is what turns plain vegetable stock into a glossy, spoon-coating sauce with zero heavy cream in the ingredient list. Understand the starch, and every other step falls into place.
Quick answer: This is a one-pot, no-drain sun-dried tomato pasta. Bite-sized chicken sears first, then onion, mushrooms, garlic and red pepper flakes build the base in the tomatoes’ own oil. Add 3 1/2 to 4 cups broth plus 8 ounces small pasta, simmer uncovered while stirring so the released starch thickens the liquid into a creamy sauce, then wilt 5 ounces of spinach off heat. Total active time runs roughly 30 minutes in a single pan.
Why the pasta broth becomes a cream-free sauce (and the exact liquid math)
The creaminess in this dish is pure physics, not dairy. As small pasta shapes like orzo or gnocchetti sardi hydrate in hot broth, their surface starch granules swell and gelatinize somewhere in the 55 to 85 C (131 to 185 F) range, dumping soluble starch into the liquid where it acts as a natural thickener and emulsifier. That is the same principle behind saving pasta water for a classic sauce, except here nothing goes down the drain. The all-purpose one-pot ratio sits near 1:2 (roughly 8 ounces liquid per 4 ounces pasta), but this recipe deliberately runs slightly wetter at 3 1/2 to 4 cups because the mushrooms, spinach and chicken each shed water and dilute the concentration. Start at 3 1/2 cups if you like a tight, clingy sauce; move toward 4 cups if your pasta shape is thick or your stove runs hot and evaporates fast. Stir every couple of minutes: agitation strips starch from the pasta surface into the broth, which is exactly what you want.
Searing the chicken to 74 C without turning bite-sized pieces to rubber
Thinly sliced, bite-sized chicken cooks in a fraction of the time a whole breast needs, so the real risk is overshooting, not undercooking. Poultry is safe at an internal 74 C (165 F), and small pieces climb through that mark in 4 to 6 minutes of active searing. Pat the chicken dry, salt it, and give it a genuine sear in the sun-dried tomato oil for color before pulling it out of the pan; it will finish cooking later when it goes back into the simmering broth. Breast meat has almost no intramuscular fat and dries out the instant it passes 74 C, so pull it early and let carryover finish the job. Thighs are the forgiving choice here: their higher fat and connective tissue stay juicy even at 74 to 77 C, and they shrug off the extra minutes of simmering that a one-pot method demands. If you are prone to overcooking, choose thighs.
Getting the baby bella mushrooms to brown instead of stew
Baby bella mushrooms are 80 to 90 percent water, and that single fact explains nearly every mushroom failure. Crowd 8 ounces of sliced mushrooms into a pan and they release all that moisture at once, the pan temperature crashes below the browning threshold, and you get pale, squeaky, boiled fungus instead of deep savory browning. Give them room and heat: spread them in a single layer, resist stirring for the first 2 to 3 minutes, and let the water evaporate before the Maillard browning that builds flavor can begin. The sun-dried tomato oil helps here because it is already infused with tomato, garlic and herb flavor, so the fat you brown in is not neutral. Salt the mushrooms only after they have browned; salting early pulls water out prematurely and guarantees the stewed texture you are trying to avoid.
Using the whole jar: why the oil is the real ingredient
The 8-ounce jar of sun-dried tomatoes in oil is doing double duty, and pouring that oil down the sink wastes the best part. Oil-packed tomatoes are pliable and ready to eat, unlike the dry, leathery kind that need a soak before they will soften in a quick dish, and the surrounding oil has spent weeks absorbing concentrated tomato, garlic and herb flavor. Use a spoonful or two of that jar oil as your cooking fat for the chicken and aromatics; it seasons the entire pan for free. Sun-dried tomatoes carry an intense sweet-tart, umami-dense punch far stronger than fresh tomatoes, so the roughly half a cup of chopped tomatoes from the jar is enough to flavor the whole pot. If you only have dry-packed tomatoes, rehydrate them in warm broth for 10 to 15 minutes first and add a couple tablespoons of olive oil to make up for the missing fat, or the dish reads thin and harsh. For more on when oil-packed matters, the team at Kitchn’s guide to sun-dried tomatoes breaks down the flavor differences well.
Four things that go wrong in the pot and the fix for each
Most one-pot sun-dried tomato pasta problems trace back to liquid, heat or timing. Here are the specific failure-to-fix pairs worth knowing before you start:
- Pasta sticks and scorches on the bottom. Cause: starchy liquid settling on hot metal without movement. Fix: stir every 2 minutes and keep the simmer at a gentle bubble, not a rolling boil; small shapes like orzo are the worst offenders and need the most attention.
- Sauce turns to gluey paste. Cause: too little liquid or overcooked pasta that has dumped all its starch. Fix: loosen with a splash of hot broth off the heat; the sauce should coat a spoon, not cement to it.
- Watery, soupy result. Cause: too much broth, or the spinach and mushrooms released more water than expected. Fix: simmer uncovered a few extra minutes to reduce; the sauce thickens further as it rests off heat.
- Spinach turns army-green and slimy. Cause: overcooking. Fix: add the 5 ounces at the very end and fold through the residual heat for 1 to 2 minutes only. Spinach loses roughly three-quarters of its volume when wilted, so that seemingly huge pile collapses into the right amount fast.
Smart swaps and what each one costs you
This recipe takes substitutions gracefully as long as you respect the liquid balance. A few worth knowing:
- Chicken thighs for breasts: juicier and near-impossible to dry out, at the cost of a slightly richer, less lean profile.
- Orzo for gnocchetti sardi: cooks faster (around 7 to 9 minutes) and releases starch quickly for a risotto-like body, but it sticks more aggressively, so stir more often.
- Skip the meat entirely: drop the chicken, keep everything else, and you have a vegetarian sun-dried tomato pasta; add a rinsed can of white beans for protein and body without changing the liquid.
- Kale for spinach: sturdier and it holds texture, but it needs 4 to 5 minutes of simmering rather than a quick off-heat wilt, so add it earlier.
A finishing handful of grated Parmesan or a spoon of mascarpone stirred in off the heat will push the sauce even silkier without breaking the no-cream approach, since the pasta starch is already there to stabilize the emulsion. If you want to go deeper on why starchy liquid thickens and binds a sauce, Serious Eats explains the pasta-water science in detail, and the same mechanism is working in your pot.
Pro tips
- Use oil from the sun-dried tomato jar for extra flavor.
- Don’t rinse the pasta; the starch helps thicken the sauce.
- Add spinach at the very end so it just wilts.
- For a spicier kick, add more crushed red pepper flakes.
This one-pot sun-dried tomato pasta is a weeknight lifesaver. Enjoy this creamy, flavorful dish anytime you need a quick, satisfying meal!
Frequently asked questions
Can I use dry sun-dried tomatoes instead of the oil-packed jar?
Yes, but rehydrate the dry ones in warm broth for 10 to 15 minutes first so they soften in this quick dish, and add 2 tablespoons of olive oil to replace the flavored jar oil. Without that fat and soak, dry-packed tomatoes read leathery and the sauce tastes thin and overly sharp rather than rounded and rich.
Why is my sauce watery instead of creamy?
Usually too much broth, or the mushrooms and spinach shed more water than the pot could reduce. Simmer uncovered a few extra minutes to concentrate it, and remember the sauce tightens as it rests off the heat. Next time start at 3 1/2 cups broth rather than 4, and stir more often to pull starch from the pasta.
Can I make this vegetarian?
Absolutely. Leave out the chicken, keep the vegetable broth, and the dish still works because the sun-dried tomatoes, mushrooms and starch carry plenty of savory depth. For protein and body, stir in a rinsed can of white beans near the end. Do not add extra liquid; the beans slot in without changing the broth-to-pasta balance.
What pasta shape works best if I cannot find gnocchetti sardi?
Orzo is the easiest swap and gives a lovely risotto-like creaminess, cooking in about 7 to 9 minutes and releasing starch fast. Any small shape works: ditalini, small shells or fregola. Avoid long pasta, which does not cook evenly in a one-pot method, and stir orzo often because it sticks to the pan bottom more than ridged shapes do.
More from Baked Pasta Recipes →
