This Deliciously Creamy Pasta Sauce Starts With A Canned Soup

Pasta night is an easy, comforting fave of home cooks (who hopefully know that the old-school hack of flinging spaghetti at the wall doesn't work), but cooking up noodles and smothering them with the same old jarred sauce can get old. When you are craving the soul-warming savor of pasta but want a novel take on the quotidian bowl, we recommend that you turn to one of the many canned soups that make delicious pasta sauces ... and cream of chicken in particular. Indeed, that pantry staple used for casseroles of all stripes is begging to be repurposed into perhaps the most versatile, effortless, velvety bed for noodles that you never thought possible.

There are a lot of recipes for pasta sauces utilizing cream of chicken out there, with plenty of room for culinary creativity, but the most fundamental preparation calls for one can of condensed soup thinned with chicken broth, milk, or cream. If you are planning on stopping with just soup and liquid, add just a splash; if you are adding anything else that might thicken the sauce, mix the soup with the thinning agent at about a 1:1 ratio. More advanced social media variations on this soup hack call for adding cheese and/or sour cream to make a chicken-y, cheesy condiment that could taste like a hug on a plate, and that's an example of where a thinner soup makes for a better sauce. You can add back some volume with a cornstarch and water slurry afterwards to achieve the perfect consistency before adding your pasta of choice.

One of the best uses for store-bought rotisserie chicken is as a recipe shortcut, and that's why we love it in this pasta dish. It makes total sense that a sauce based on cream of chicken soup would shine with additional chicken. If you're the type of prepared home cook who always keeps some seasoned, shredded poached chicken in the fridge, this is your moment to shine. For the rest of us, rotisserie birds or canned chicken are the play. If you have gone with a creamy, cheesy sauce as we mentioned above, some extra protein can ensure that your pasta is the total package: hefty, savory, gooey, and completely delightful. You don't need to stop there, however!

Pasta sauce made with cream of chicken soup is basically a blank slate for building flavor. With a packet of taco seasoning and half a can of diced green chilies, it's Tex-Mex chicken pasta. With sundried tomatoes drained of oil and a melted puck of Boursin cheese (or its supermarket equivalent), you have a creamier spin on that viral TikTok pasta that captivated the world. Add some fresh herbs for brightness, as well as a side salad, and you'll likely never be able to tell that your pasta's main component came from a tin can. There are many ways you can spin a dinner built on a cream of chicken pasta sauce, and most aren't time-consuming or expensive. In short, it's everything you want in a weeknight dinner that still preserves the vaunted homemade savor.