Chicken Marsala Pasta is a baked twist on the classic meal, made with portobello mushrooms, penne pasta, and marsala wine cream sauce.
This chicken marsala recipe turns the classic dish into a cozy casserole. It has all the delicious flavors but is made easy – I know your family will love this chicken marsala casserole.
One of my husband’s favorite pasta dishes is Chicken Marsala. He loves the sauce and mushrooms. Did I mention the mushrooms? I have wanted to make this into a pasta bake for some time because it is simple to do, easy on time, and beautiful to serve.
This is a seriously fantastic comfort food dinner – pasta, marsala cream sauce, and the combination of mushrooms, bacon, and cheese is always a winner.
Sandra’s Tips
Ingredients
- Pasta
- Olive oil
- Boneless skinless chicken breasts
- Bacon
- Sliced baby bello mushrooms
- Butter
- Minced garlic
- Flour
- Marsala wine
- Chicken broth
- Half and half
- Grated Parmesan cheese
- Shredded mozzarella
- Chopped fresh parsley
Substitutes
Pasta: Any shape you like will work in this recipe. The pasta is boiled and mixed into the sauce before baking, so choose your favorite! I’ve made it with rigatoni, fettuccine, and penne.
Chicken: You can skip the chicken cooking step and add diced rotisserie chicken when you add the pasta. It’s a great shortcut to save time.
Bacon: Instead of bacon, try diced pancetta instead.
Herbs: Feel free to add fresh thyme for an extra flavor boost. I like to garnish with chopped parsley, but sliced basil would be fantastic, too.
How do you make this Rustic Chicken Marsala Bake?
Heat oven to 350°F. Spray the casserole or baking dish with cooking spray and set aside. Cook pasta as directed and drain it, setting it aside.
Heat olive oil in a large skillet. Season diced chicken breast with salt and pepper and sauté in oil until cooked through. Remove from pan and set aside in a large bowl.
In the same bowl, fry bacon or pancetta until crispy and remove into the same bowl as the chicken. Add mushrooms to the pan and cook with the garlic until golden brown and tender. Set aside with the chicken and bacon.
In the same pan, melt butter over medium heat. Stir in flour. Gradually stir in Marsala wine and boil for 2-3 minutes to cook out the alcohol.
Slowly stir in chicken broth. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly; remove from heat. Stir in half-and-half, grated cheese, chicken, pancetta, and mushrooms.
Add pasta to chicken mixture; toss gently to mix well. Spoon into baking dish. Sprinkle with freshly grated cheese.
Bake uncovered for about 20 minutes or until hot in the center and the top is slightly golden. You may also broil the top, with the oven on low for 3-5 minutes.
Remove from oven and sprinkle with fresh parsley and serve.
What to serve with pasta
Pin to Pinterest.
Rustic Chicken Marsala Bake
Ingredients
- 1/2 pound pasta of your choice, cooked to package directions. I used rigatoni.
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 lb chicken breast diced
- 4 ounces bacon or pancetta
- 16 ounces baby bella mushrooms thinly sliced
- 6 tablespoons butter
- 1 garlic clove minced
- 3 tablespoons flour
- 1 cup marsala wine
- 1 cup chicken broth
- 1/2 cup half-and-half
- 1/4 cup grated Parmesan
- 1 cup mozzarella
- 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese for topping
- 1/4 cup fresh parsley roughly chopped
Instructions
- Heat oven to 350°F. Spray casserole or baking dish with cooking spray and set aside. Cook pasta as directed and drain, set aside.
- Heat olive oil in a large skillet. Season diced chicken breast with salt and pepper and saute in oil until cooked through. Remove from pan and set aside in a large bowl. In the same bowl, fry bacon or pancetta until crispy and remove into the same bowl as the chicken. Add mushrooms to the pan and cook with the garlic until golden brown and tender. Set aside with the chicken and bacon.
- In the same pan melt butter over medium heat. Stir in flour. Gradually stir in Marsala wine and boil for 2-3 minutes to cook out the alcohol. Slowly stir in chicken broth. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly; remove from heat. Stir in half-and-half, grated cheese, chicken, pancetta, and mushrooms.
- Add pasta to chicken mixture; toss gently to mix well. Spoon into baking dish. Sprinkle with freshly grated parmesan and mozzarella. Bake uncovered about 20 minutes or until hot in the center and top is slightly golden. You may also broil the top, with the oven on low for 3-5 minutes.
- Remove from oven and sprinkle with fresh parsley and serve. Enjoy!
Nice recipe. Very appetizing post. Thanks for sharing this tasty recipe
After reading your recipe I tried it at home. Its made perfectly and the taste is delicious. Thanks
This is absolutely declious. I love chicken marsala, so I knew I had to try this. What I didn’t know is that I wouldn’t have a chance to eat very much of it because my husband and kids absolutely destroyed it!
Oh my goodness! How good this dish looks! Would be perfect for our Sunday dinner!
This was so delicious! Chicken marsala is my favorite and baking it with pasta made it even better.
This looks incredibly delicious! The perfect weeknight meal!
This looks like the perfect meal! Its full of amazing flavors!
Tomorrow’s my mom’s birthday and I would want to try this! I hope everyone would love this because it looks really good.
Such a fabulous dish! Everyone in our house would definitely love this!
Am i missing something. I see this recipe serves 10, with one chicken breast? i know one can adjust the servings, but this seems ridiculous. one chicken breast and l/2 lb pasta? i can’t wait to make this, it looks delish!
Hi, we put the servings in 1 cup measurements just to make it simpler to calculate. The finished dish measured out to about 10 cups so that is what the servings are based on. You can, of course, add another chicken breast if you’d like! I hope you enjoy it 🙂
It looks scrumptious! Your photos make me want to take a bite right off the page. lol Do you think I would be able to make this in a slow cooker, so I could keep it warm for a potluck? Or would it be best to bake it first, and then transfer to the slow cooker? Thanks!
Amazing! Chicken Marsala is a favorite at our house! This recipe was on point! I did add a full 8oz. package of mushrooms, 4 ozs. didn’t seem like enough. We will be making this again!
Is there really only 1 chicken breast?
Maybe call it Rustic Mushroom Marsala?
Sounds delicious but I think I’ll add more chicken.
Sorry, it should be 1 pound of chicken breast! You can certainly add more if you’d like.
Sounds delicious. Thank you for your reply.
This turned out to be a 5 star dish. I made this in advance for dinner the next day. Used rotisserie chicken and made 1.5x the amount of Marsala Sauce. Used wheat penne pasta. I was afraid the pasta would soak it up overnight. It didn’t and there was a perfect amount of sauce. I thought 16oz of mushrooms was a misprint but it wasn’t. Sauce had great flavor. We love mushrooms and chicken so there was plenty of both. Put extra cheese on before baking at 350 for roughly 40 min. Finished under the broiler for 3-4 min.
This looks delicious and I’d love to make it but I’m confused by the servings. 1/2 pound of pasta and one chicken breast for 10 people?
1/2 cup serving size, not 10 people. 🙂