Speaking With My Stomach: Blackened Chicken Alfredo with Pepitas and Butter Leaf Pesto
Photos by Chris Jaehnig.
Wishing You a Happy Fall
Happy Fall, team. To celebrate this season, I wanted to make a gorgeous and hearty meal with you. Because the leaves have changed color, the air is getting cold and pumpkins are everywhere, today’s dish is going to feature pepitas, a very specific kind of pumpkin seeds. Before we get into details, take a seat, pour a hot drink, and get under a blanket while I build up this recipe for you.
Today’s dish is perfect for a cozy movie night with a few friends or a significant other. We’ll be feeding two to four people, depending on belly size.
What are We Making Today?
Today we’re going to be making a really nice Fall-feel dish that has the color and vibrancy to look like it belongs in Spring. We’re making a blackened chicken alfredo with pepitas and butter leaf pesto. This dish is on the quicker end of prep and execution because we don’t have to simmer or let anything thicken for a half hour or longer.
For this flavorful alfredo, we have two separate recipes; one for the pesto, and one for everything else. So let's get started with the pesto, which is the showstopper of this dish, and will set it apart from other alfredos.
Pepitas and Butter Leaf Pesto
1 clove garlic finely chopped
½ teaspoon salt (kosher, iodized, sea salt is all fine)
¼ teaspoon crushed black peppercorn
⅓ cup roasted pepitas
1 cup packed butter leaf
½ cup avocado oil
¼ cup parmesan is optional
The method for the pesto is really straightforward. All these ingredients can go into a blender, emulsifier, or food processor, whatever you have on hand. What we’re looking for is a bright green color and an almost applesauce consistency. It should be a little grainy from the butter leaf pulp and from the pulverized pepitas, but it should still be runny and like a sauce from the avocado oil.
Now that our pesto is done, we can set that aside and head over to the chicken and alfredo portion. Easy so far, right?
Black and Tan Chicken
I must admit, for this upcoming chicken dish, the rub we're using is not an original creation. I use Fire and Smoke’s Black and Tan Steak Rub for a lot of my chicken, burgers, steaks, and pork chops. It’s a good size bottle, it’s affordable, and it’s so versatile.
What we want to do for our blackened chicken is to start out with two chicken breasts. We’re going to butterfly slice them so they’re nice and thin but still one whole piece each.
Next we’re going to wash up because we want to touch absolutely nothing with raw chicken on our hands. Once we’re scrubbed, we can liberally coat the breasts with our Black and Tan rub and cook them on either an oiled pan or a nonstick pan and cover with lid or tin foil to keep moisture in. Occasionally check to make sure they don’t get over cooked, and try to cook evenly on both sides for best texture and appearance.
While the chicken is going we’re going to set up our pasta and our alfredo. Please make sure your chicken temps at 165 degrees before taking off heat.
Pasta and Alfredo Sauce
For today’s pasta I’m not going to be really fancy with my form. I don’t need to use rigatoni or cavatappi. There’s nothing wrong with plain old shell noodle. I actually like shells because they're small and the shells hold sauce inside of them.
We can boil four cups of water with a pinch of salt and drop in two cups of shell noodles. Boil until soft and then strain. Pasta is simple as that. The alfredo is a lot more fun.
Building an Alfredo from Scratch
Alfredos are absolutely on of my favorite sauces to make. They go well with so many pasta or chicken dishes, so putting the two together for me just makes sense.
There are a lot of alfredo variations and things you can do to make them special, but for today we’re going to do a simple parmesan alfredo because we want the chicken and the pesto to be the shining stars.
We need:
1 cup heavy whipping cream
2 tbs parmesan
½ tbs garlic powder
½ tsp white pepper
1 tsp parsley flakes
½ tsp basil
¼ tsp thyme
This is going to be very earthy and herbal, which will go really well with the theme of our pesto which is going to be buttery and salty, and bold from the pepitas and butter leaf. It’ll also go well with the heady and robust but not hot Black and Tan rub on the chicken.
You can get all your seasonings into a tiny little bowl if it makes you feel organized, or you can madly measure them and toss them into the heavy cream once it starts bubbling on medium heat. The heavy cream needs to bubble throughout the saucepan.
We have a decision to make here. You can either cut up and toss your chicken into the alfredo now to get that chicken extra tender and flavorful but lose a bit of presentation, or we can put the chicken on closer to serving time. Either way, just don’t let that chicken get cold!
After it bubbles and your spices are in, toss those drained shells into the saucepan and continue to cook until it starts to bubble up again.
Presentation and Profile
Now that our noodles and alfredo have been mixed and culminated, we can divide it up among however many you’re feeding. Again, this should be good for two to four people. Don’t forget the chicken and pesto either.
Take those lovely black and tan chicken breasts or thighs and thinly slice them or cube them, depending on your presentation preference, and place them over the alfredo pasta evenly if you didn’t put it in the alfredo sauce when it was cooking. After everything is dished up, I like to apply the pesto in a nice tight swirl from the top of the bowl to the bottom, to finish in the center.
If you like a little extra flavor, crunch, and mouth feel, sprinkle on extra pepitas as a garnish to the finished dish. Serving with a nice buttery breadstick or cheese-stuffed breadstick goes a surprisingly long way to round out the dish.
What we should be expecting is a rich, luxurious creamy mouthfeel with fall-apart-in-your-mouth chicken and a surprise crunch from pepitas. The flavor profile is going to have a good amount going on as well. We can taste salty, cheesy, a little bit of sweet from the heavy cream, a really nice rustic herb rush from our alfredo seasoning, and a nice robust, warm earth taste with a bit of butter from the pepitas and butter leaf pesto, and the Black and Tan rub.
Nothing really opposes or clashes, or tries to be daring with this one. It’s about a lot of mingling with like-minded flavors for a friendly and warm dish that I hope you like making and can enjoy yourself this autumn.
A Word for Our Standout Ingredients
Two ingredients that I had never worked with before this dish were pepitas and butter leaf. Whenever I work with something new, I like to do a bit of digging and find out what I’m dealing with, so take a look at pepitas and butter leaf with me.
According to Taste of Home, pepitas is a kind of pumpkin seed, but not all pumpkin seeds are pepitas. Pepitas are seeds harvested from hull-less pumpkins, meaning those pumpkin’s seeds don’t have that hard, cracky shell we’re used to on the stereotypical pumpkin seed. Pepitas are considered a “naked” seed because it’s just the seed and no protective coat, which makes them great for today’s recipe. If you’ve never worked with pepitas either, think pumpkin seed flavor but shelled sunflower seed feel.
The last thing we need to look at today is butter leaf. The Spruce Eats website tells us that butter leaf is part of the green lettuce family, and is also known as “Bibb lettuce.” Butter lettuce is a very fine, fragile textured leaf with a brilliant light green texture to it. It’s often sold as the whole head with roots still attached. The roots are kept intact in case you’re not using it the same day, and need to put it in water. It will wilt and die on you much faster than romaine or iceberg lettuce.
Farewell for Now
I want to express my gratitude for taking the time to visit and partake in a shared meal and conversation with me. May the soup bring you great enjoyment, and may autumn bring you bountiful harvests.
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Farewell, and until we meet again, remember to leave a gratuity.
