Chicken Enchilada Pasta

One year. One full year since I started writing about my weeks, my kitchen, my family, my food. Fifty-two weeks of standing at this stove and telling you about it, and I have not run out of things to say, which will surprise nobody who has ever met me because Carmen Delgado-Ortiz has never in her life run out of things to say. I have run out of beans. I have run out of garlic. I have once, shamefully, run out of sofrito. But words? Never. Not once. Not ever.

What has changed in a year? Sofia is in her last semester of high school, graduating in June. Miguel Jr. is engaged to Jenny. Rosa has Carlos, who eats my beans and asked for the recipe. David is in Brooklyn becoming a better chef every day, and his mofongo is still not better than mine but it is getting closer and I am starting to worry, which is the kind of worry that is also pride. Eduardo is Eduardo — steady, boring, beautiful, mine.

And Mami. Mami is still in Bayamon at seventy-nine, still calling every Sunday, still telling me more garlic, still being the anchor and the compass and the reason I cook. Everything I do in this kitchen started in her kitchen. Every recipe, every technique, every instinct that tells me when the sofrito is ready and when the rice needs water and when the beans are done — all of it came from her hands, which came from Abuela Consuelo hands, which came from someone before that whose name I do not know but whose cooking I carry in my blood.

I made pernil tonight. Not because it is a special occasion. Because pernil IS the occasion. Because after fifty-two weeks of writing about food, the best thing I can do is make the food that started it all — the Christmas pernil, the birthday pernil, the engagement pernil, the Tuesday night pernil that exists for no reason except that I felt like making pernil and that is reason enough. Twenty-four hour marinade. Six hours in the oven. Crispy skin. Falling-apart meat. Garlic in every molecule. Perfect. Perfect the way it has always been perfect, the way Mami taught me, the way Abuela Consuelo taught her.

A year of weeks. A year of meals. A year of standing in my kitchen and telling you the truth, which is this: food is love, cooking is survival, and the table is the center of everything. Everything I am — mother, wife, daughter, grandmother someday, hospital manager, Puerto Rican woman in Hartford — everything I am starts at this table and returns to this table. Fifty-two weeks. One year. The food was good, mi amor. The food was always good. And it will keep being good. Wepa.

The pernil was the celebration — twenty-four hours of patience and six hours of faith, and it was everything it always is — but a year of cooking for this family has taught me that the table does not only belong to the feast days. It belongs to the Tuesdays, too, the ordinary hungry nights when Eduardo is home by seven and someone needs feeding without ceremony. This Chicken Enchilada Pasta is what I make when I want that same bold, layered warmth — the garlic, the chili, the cheese pulling away from a hot pan — on a night that does not require a twenty-four hour marinade, just a family that shows up hungry and a cook who loves them. After a year of writing about this kitchen, that feels like exactly the right recipe to leave you with.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 35 minutes | Total Time: 50 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

1 1/2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch pieces
12 oz penne or rotini pasta
2 cups red enchilada sauce (store-bought or homemade)
1 cup chicken broth
1 can (15 oz) black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can (14.5 oz) diced fire-roasted tomatoes, undrained
1 medium yellow onion, diced
1 green bell pepper, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
4 oz cream cheese, softened and cubed
1 1/2 cups shredded Mexican-blend cheese, divided
2 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
Salt and black pepper, to taste
Fresh cilantro and sour cream, for serving

Instructions

Cook the pasta. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook pasta 2 minutes less than package directions (it will finish cooking in the sauce). Drain and set aside.
Season and sear the chicken. Season chicken pieces generously with salt, pepper, chili powder, cumin, and smoked paprika. Heat olive oil in a large deep skillet or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add chicken in a single layer and cook 4–5 minutes, stirring once, until golden on the outside. Transfer to a plate — it does not need to be fully cooked through yet.
Build the base. In the same skillet, reduce heat to medium. Add onion and bell pepper and cook 4–5 minutes until softened. Add garlic and cook 1 minute more, stirring constantly, until fragrant.
Add the sauce and simmer. Pour in the enchilada sauce, chicken broth, and fire-roasted tomatoes with their juices. Stir to combine and bring to a gentle simmer.
Return chicken and add beans. Nestle the seared chicken back into the skillet along with the black beans. Stir, cover partially, and simmer over medium-low heat for 10 minutes until the chicken is cooked through.
Melt in the cream cheese. Add the cubed cream cheese to the skillet and stir continuously until fully melted and incorporated into the sauce, about 2–3 minutes. The sauce should turn thick and creamy.
Finish with pasta and cheese. Add the drained pasta and 1 cup of the shredded cheese. Stir everything together over low heat until the pasta is coated and the cheese is melted, 2–3 minutes. Taste and adjust salt and pepper.
Serve. Ladle into bowls and top with the remaining 1/2 cup shredded cheese, fresh cilantro, and a dollop of sour cream. Serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Chicken Enchilada Pasta — The Weeknight Comfort That Keeps the Table Full