One Pot Greek Chicken Pasta in Creamy Feta Wine Sauce

The bakery at Christmas is my favorite place on earth. It is better than any beach, any restaurant, any real estate closing — the bakery in December, when every surface is dusted with sugar and the ovens run from 4 AM to noon and Mama stands at the counter looking like a small, fierce general commanding an army of pastry. I was there Saturday at 5 AM, rolling kourabiedes, listening to Mama hum Greek carols under her breath, watching dawn turn the bakery windows gold. These are the hours I will remember when I am old. These are the hours that make everything else — the selling, the driving, the phone calls — worth doing.

I helped make diples this week — the fried pastry ribbons dipped in honey and cinnamon that are the showpiece of Greek holiday baking. Diples require a partner: one person rolls and fries while the other drizzles honey and sprinkles cinnamon. Mama and I did this together, moving in the practiced coordination of two women who have been making diples together for twenty-five years. She fries. I drizzle. The honey falls in golden threads. The cinnamon dusts like snow. The diples pile up on the platter like edible architecture.

The real estate market has quieted for the holidays. I have two closings scheduled for mid-December and then I will take a breath until January. The breath is earned. This year I finished in the top ten. Again. The momentum is real. The career I built from nothing is now something — something solid, something mine.

Alexander is in the relaxed limbo of a senior who has committed to college and knows his grades matter but also knows that the hardest part is behind him. He spends evenings reading, watching movies, and occasionally appearing in the kitchen to eat whatever I am making. He is eighteen in four months and adulthood is visible on the horizon, approaching with the steady inevitability of a bechamel coming to thickness.

I made Christopsomo — Christ's bread — on Sunday, the Greek Christmas bread with the cross on top. The dough is rich with eggs and butter, scented with mahlepi and mastic, studded with walnuts. I baked two loaves and the house filled with the smell of Christmas, not the American Christmas of pine trees and cinnamon sticks but the Greek Christmas of bread and honey and the ancient spices of the Eastern Mediterranean. I brought one loaf to Mama. She tasted it. She said the mahlepi was right. From Voula, this is a revelation. I have been getting the mahlepi wrong for twenty years. This year, it was right. Progress. Twenty years of progress. One spice at a time.

After days of rolling diples and shaping Christopsomo — after the honey and the cinnamon and Mama’s hard-won approval of my mahlepi — I needed something savory to anchor all that sweetness. This one-pot Greek chicken pasta with its creamy feta and white wine sauce is what I make on the evenings between baking sessions, when the kitchen still smells like bread and the counter is finally clear enough to cook dinner. It is simple, it is Greek, and it feeds a quiet household of two where one of us is always wandering in looking for something to eat.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 25 minutes | Total Time: 40 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
12 ounces penne pasta
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup dry white wine
2 cups chicken broth
1 cup heavy cream
6 ounces crumbled feta cheese, divided
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
1/3 cup Kalamata olives, halved
2 cups fresh baby spinach
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Fresh basil or parsley, for garnish
Juice of 1/2 lemon

Instructions

Season and sear the chicken. Pat the chicken pieces dry and season with salt, pepper, and oregano. Heat olive oil in a large deep skillet or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Cook the chicken until golden on all sides, about 5 to 6 minutes. Remove and set aside.
Build the sauce base. In the same skillet, add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds until fragrant. Pour in the white wine and scrape up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Let the wine reduce by half, about 2 minutes.
Cook the pasta in the sauce. Add the chicken broth and heavy cream and bring to a boil. Stir in the penne, reduce heat to medium, and cover. Cook for 12 to 14 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the pasta is al dente and the liquid has thickened into a creamy sauce.
Add the feta and vegetables. Stir in 3/4 of the crumbled feta, the cherry tomatoes, Kalamata olives, and spinach. Cook uncovered for 2 to 3 minutes until the spinach wilts and the feta melts into the sauce.
Return the chicken and finish. Add the seared chicken back to the skillet along with the red pepper flakes and lemon juice. Toss everything together and cook for 1 to 2 minutes until the chicken is heated through. Taste and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper.
Serve. Top with the remaining crumbled feta and fresh herbs. Serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

One Pot Greek Chicken Pasta in Creamy Feta Wine Sauce — A Holiday Kitchen, a Mama’s Approval, and the Flavors That Bring Us Home