Healthy Tuscan Chicken Pasta Recipe

This healthy Tuscan chicken pasta recipe is a delicious and nutritious take on a classic favorite. With a few simple substitutions, it's easy to create a dish that's satisfying at a fraction of the calories.

✅ Why This Recipe Works

Easy to make – No hours of prep needed. This dish will easily come together in under 30 minutes.

Flavorful and well-balanced – By utilizing expert recipe techniques to create the Tuscan chicken, you can make a restaurant-quality Tuscan chicken pasta with fresh ingredients from the comfort of your home

Low in calories and macro-optimized – This healthy pasta recipe was specially developed by yours truly to be low-calorie and macro-friendly, so you can satisfy your Tuscan chicken cravings while still staying in shape. Pair it with the spicy chipotle chicken pasta for a delicious pasta dinner.

🍎 Calories and Nutrition – How to Make It Healthy 

Tuscan chicken pasta can usually be on the heavier side given the large amount of carbs and fats in the dish. Heavy cream, sun-dried tomatoes, and pasta can add up to a lot of excess calories from fat and carbs.

While none of these ingredients are necessarily bad, they are quite calorie–dense and can easily create a pasta dish containing upwards of 1,000 calories if not portioned correctly.

In this recipe, I adjusted this Tuscan chicken pasta to be 416 calories with 34 grams of protein, 18 grams of fat, and 50 grams of carbs.

Here’s what I did to make it healthier:

• Used chicken as my protein base – To optimize for protein content, I opted for a lean protein source.
• Portioned 1 serving of pasta – This only adds 190 calories
• Substituted Heavy cream for low-fat milk and cornstarch – To cut down on fats from the heavy cream, I substituted it with low-fat milk with a small amount of cornstarch to thicken the sauce and prevent the milk from curdling
• Swapped out sun-dried tomatoes for roasted cherry tomatoes – While sun-dried tomatoes are undeniably delicious, they are often stored in a jar of oil and are consequently, very high in fats. For a similar flavor profile, I substituted them with roasted cherry tomatoes. 
• Omitted usage of butter and oil – Instead, I opted for olive oil cooking spray, saving a couple of hundred calories from fats

For a detailed breakdown of each ingredient, their portioning, and how they make up the nutrition profile of this healthy Tuscan chicken pasta recipe, you may refer to the table below:

📋 Ingredient Notes

To make a healthy Tuscan chicken pasta, you will need these key healthy ingredients.

Chicken – I used boneless skinless chicken thighs for lean protein with optimal juiciness. You can also use chicken breast if you prefer. 

Spice Mix – To season the chicken. I used a mix of paprika, oregano, salt, and pepper.

Cherry Tomatoes – These will provide a delicious umami flavor to the dish similar to that of sun-dried tomatoes.

Pasta – In this recipe, I used malfadine, but any longer shape would work. I recommend using a longer pasta so that it can twirl the sauce more easily. I prefer bronze-cut pasta as they tend to hold the pasta sauce better.

Low Fat Milk – I used 1% milk in this recipe. You can also opt to use 2%, skim milk, or normal milk. 

See my recipe card below for a complete list of the ingredients with measurements.

📖 Substitutions and Variations

Milk substitutions – Unsweetened almond milk, low-fat milk, half and half, plain greek yogurt. Coconut milk if you don't want dairy

Use dry sun-dried tomatoes – These dried sun-dried tomatoes are a great healthy alternative to the ones stored in oil.

Tuscan chicken without pasta – Omit the pasta and enjoy the dish as an entree with some healthy vegetable sides.

Make dairy-free – Replace the dairy milk with plant-based milk (unsweetened variations of almond milk or soy milk would work), and use a plant-based cheese or omit the cheese altogether

🔪 Step by Step Instructions 

Roast the tomatoes – Slice the cherry tomatoes into halves, spray with cooking spray, and season with salt and pepper. Roast the tomatoes either by air frying (10 minutes) or adding to the oven for 400 degrees (20 minutes). 

Marinade the chicken – Add the salt, pepper, paprika, and oregano into a mixing bowl and mix. Cut the chicken into small bite-sized pieces, trimming off the excess fat. Mix the chicken pieces thoroughly with the spice mix so that each piece is coated with the mixture.

Cook the pasta – Prepare the pasta according to the package directions. Be sure to boil in salted water and save some of the pasta water.

Prepare the vegetables – Mince the onions and garlic and watch the spinach thoroughly.

Cook the chicken – Heat a skillet over medium-high heat. Spray with cooking spray and add the chicken pieces in a single layer, cooking for about 3-4 minutes on each side, or until fully cooked.

Sauté the aromatics – Add the onions, garlic, tomato paste, and Calabrian chili if using into the pan and sauté for about 1-2 minutes, or until golden. 

Add the spinach and milk – Lower the heat down to medium-low and add in the milk and cornstarch along with the spinach. Mix everything thoroughly, adding pasta water as needed to achieve the desired sauce consistency. 

Mix in the pasta – Mix in the pasta along with 2 teaspoon of parmesan cheese and continue to use pasta water to achieve the desired sauce consistency. 

Garnish and serve – Plate the pasta, garnishing with parmesan cheese and red pepper flakes if desired. 

💭 Recipe FAQs

💡 Expert Tips

Roast the tomatoes – To roast tomatoes, you have a couple of options. I sprayed mine with cooking spray and air-fried mine at 400F for 10 minutes. You can also roast it in the oven at the same temperature for 20-25 minutes.

Prevent milk from curdling – To prevent milk from curdling, turn down the heat to low and add a small amount of starch to prevent it from reacting with the acid from the tomatoes. Learn more about how to prevent milk from curdling. 

Tips for cooking pasta – Be sure not to forget to heavily salt the water to season the pasta before cooking and to save some pasta water for perfecting the sauce consistency.

🍽 Related Recipes