Buffalo Chicken Pasta

Once again, necessity is the mother of invention, or supper as the case may be.  One of the joys of home ownership is getting to do yard work.  Since the good wife had mowed the yard I got to do the weed eating.  Of course, I'd still get to do it even if I'd mown the grass.  Doing that along with pulling up a metal fence post and taking some scrap metal to the curb for pick up by the scrapers then helping the neighbor across the street carry some bundled brush to the curb it ended up being fairly late.  We'd done all this work and not thought about supper.

One thing that helped us is that we still have some dry pasta in the cabinet that we hadn't gotten rid of since I started making fresh pasta.  Rigatoni got the nod as it would hold plenty of buffalo sauce and would be a satisfying chew.  Plus, we always have chicken breasts in the freezer.  We get the big bag of individually wrapped chicken breasts at BJ's.

This recipe is super simple yet oh so tasty.

Buffalo Chicken Pasta

Ingredients:

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
8 oz dried pasta of your choice
salt
pepper
olive oil
Buffalo sauce, recipe to follow

Slice the chicken into bite sized pieces.  Season with salt and pepper.  Cook in a large skillet with olive oil.  When the chicken is done add Buffalo sauce and simmer.

Cook pasta according to package directions.  When it is at your desired doneness remove it from the water and add to the skillet with the chicken.  Stir it around to get the chicken and sauce evenly distributed with the pasta.  Add more Buffalo sauce if needed.

Plate it up and add grated or shaved cheese on top if desired.

Topped with grated Mozzarella

The Buffalo sauce is an easy recipe also since a big part of it is already do for you.

Combine 1 cup Frank's Red Hot hot sauce, 1/2 to 1 stick of butter, 2 tsp garlic powder, and 2 tsp cayenne powder in a small pot on medium heat.  Once butter has melted stir to combine and let simmer.  This is not a crazy hot Buffalo sauce but it does have a nice heat and tons of flavor.  Of course you can vary the cayenne to suit your tastes.  Any leftover can be stored in the refrigerator till you need it.