With only 4 ingredients, this chicken parmesan pasta bake might be the easiest recipe on my blog. And that’s saying something because I made some seriously minimal recipes when I first started blogging about food!
I’ll walk you through the recipe below and cover ingredient substitutions as we go. There’s a printable recipe card at the bottom of the post as well. Let’s get it.
Step 1: Mix your choice of pasta and marinara together in a baking dish.
Make sure your baking dish is similar in size. More surface area will likely reduce the cook time and less surface area will increase the cook time. Don’t worry—you can always cover and bake a bit longer if your pasta is undercooked.
And feel free to use another pasta.
Side note: You can add a bit more protein with a blended cottage cheese and pasta sauce. See my high protein chicken lasagna for an example in action.
Step 2: Top with shredded cheese.
Okay, I know I always talk about how freshly shredded cheese is so much better than pre-shredded, and it is. I just wanted this pasta bake to be as simple as possible. I’d still recommend grating some fresh mozzarella and parmesan for best results.
And as far as cheese options go, the version in the finished recipe photos actually used Trader Joe’s quattro formaggio cheese blend (asiago, fontina, provolone, parmesan). It’s hard to go wrong here!
Note: You may want to toss the chicken in the sauce along with this pasta like in this mostaccioli pasta recipe.
Step 3: Add Perdue Farms Lightly Breaded Chicken Breast Chunks.
Since you can’t have chicken parmesan without the chicken, the recipe calls for Perdue Farms Lightly Breaded Chicken Breast Chunks. This is one of my favorite products from Perdue. The chicken gets crispy golden brown on the outside while staying juicy on the inside. And that’s straight from the freezer!
Where to buy: Target is my go-to for frozen Perdue chicken, but you can use the store locator on the product page.
I’ll add that I’m a Perdue Farms ambassador and you can use my affiliate link (perduefarms.com/mason) to get a free box of this diced chicken breast and 15% off your order. Then you can make other recipes like my honey sesame chicken, buttermilk pan fried chicken, or chili garlic chicken fried chicken cauliflower rice.
And lastly, Costco has a very similar product, which you can check out in my healthy sweet and sour chicken or Korean chicken tacos recipes.
Step 4: Top with more marinara and cheese, cover, and bake.
I added some crushed red pepper flakes and dried parsley, but that’s totally optional.
Step 5: Uncover and continue baking for a melty, crispy top.
Parmesan and hard cheeses will give you the extra crispy look in the photo above. While a softer cheese like mozzarella will be more melty and give you that cheese pull effect. There is no right or wrong here.
Final Recipe Notes
I guess it wouldn’t technically be chicken parm if you added a bunch of stuff. Still, I wanted to toss out the idea of adding some extras like mushrooms or cherry tomatoes like in my Italian Sausage and Veggie Pasta Bake. Or if you like extra spice, a little Italian Bomba Pepper Sauce like I used in my Sausage and Mushroom Cauliflower Gnocchi and Chicken Parmesan Sandwiches might tickle your fancy.
These suggestions are purely speculation, but I bet extra goodies would increase the amount of diggity exponentially.
That’s a wrap. If you have any questions about this recipe, drop a comment below or join my Facebook group. There are more than 12k awesome home cooks in the group to help you out!
Chicken Parmesan Pasta Bake
Ingredients
- 8 oz Dry Pasta, I used Banza Cavatappi
- 24 oz jar Marinara
- 16 oz Perdue Simply Smart Lightly Breaded Chicken Breast Chunks
- 1 1/4 C 140g Shredded Italian Cheese Blend
- 1/2 tsp Crushed Red Pepper and Parsley Flakes, optional
Instructions
- Preheat an oven to 450F.
- Mix 3/4 of the marinara with the dry pasta in a 13×8 baking dish.
- Add 3/4 C (84g) cheese on top of the pasta and marinara, followed by the chicken. Pour remaining marinara in the gaps and top with remaining cheese and the optional red pepper and parsley flakes.
- Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Uncover and bake for an additional 10-15 minutes until the cheese on top is melted and the chicken is crispy golden brown.
Wow. What an eye-opener. I prepared this meal some time ago but I did not bake after the first 20minutes. My chicken parmesan pasta was okay but not completely cooked. Now I know why. I am going to try it again. Thanks for this explicit recipe.
I think it was a little dry, needed more liquid for the pasta to soak up. The chicken was great.
ANOTHER HIT! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ the only modification we used was with the Purdue chicken. We used the Purdue nuggets instead of chunks Bc Costco had them on coupon last month and we stalked up. My son devoured this dish. We had zero left overs which made me sad 🥺. We’re going to make it again this week.
I’m obsessed with the banza pasta. Thanks Mason for all your effort and time creating these master pieces!
This was SO GOOD! The only change I made was I used 6oz of pasta (barilla protien noodles not Banza) instead of 8 and that was borderline not enough sauce. I thought it was good but if I would have used any more noodles it would have been way too dry so I think 6oz is perfect without adding more sauce! This will be a new regular meal into rotation!
I made this as part of my weekly new recipe challenge. Overall it tasted good and the family enjoyed it and was super easy to prepare. I would suggest cooking the noodles prior as there wasn’t enough sauce to cover all of the noodles and some ended up more crunchy and burnt than cooked. If you want to continue to make this a dump and go dish, consider adding additional marinara sauce or tomato sauce to the pan prior to adding the chicken and cheese.
I’m just going to echo what the others have said. The pasta didn’t cook in the marinara and much of it was left crunchy, and scorched pasta at the sides of the pan. Definitely will reconsider using half cooked noodles or soaking the noodles prior to combining the dish. Love the simplicity, however!
Good notes from everyone. I’m betting pan size (too much surface area) causes the pasta to not be fully covered by the sauce. I’ll add a note to the recipe. Thanks!
ok, so this was the easiest make ever. I am a dumb idiot and thought i could squeeze more pasta in, but i ended up drying it out a little. in any case, the macros AND cost on this are awesome overall (my dude is 305 and an athlete, so the Banza pasta and serving amount is perfect for him) — the Purdue chicken I was able to find at Target, but now they seem to be sold out every time I go, so I’m on the hunt for a great sub for the chicken chunks.
I love this recipe. I was shocked to see how quick and easy this was! I used a little less cheese to fit my macro needs. This froze & reheated nicely. I added chopped zucchini and thinking of adding mushrooms next time!
Love recipes that don’t have a lot of ingredients or steps! One piece of advice, use the amount of sauce Mason lists. I didn’t “to save carbs” and my pasta didn’t cook all the way. I didn’t realize it until I platted the fish and was too late to put back. Still yummy though!
I’ve made this a couple times and it’s easy and delicious. Just thought I’d share a bonus too for anyone who ran into a problem with dish size like me. I have a 9.25 x 13.25 and 8 x 11 baking dish. First time I used the bigger dish and that worked great for fitting the chicken but since the pasta was so spread out with the sauce some pieces we’re definitely undercooked. Seconds time I used the smaller dish and the chicken was a lot more cramped in there but the pasta cooked perfectly. If you run into this I’d definitely use the smaller dish and just cram the chicken in, works and still tastes amazing!