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This Chicken spaghetti is creamy, tangy from the Rotel, and properly cheesy—the kind of easy comfort food you’re going to love. The spaghetti cooks in the Chicken broth after the chicken, which gives it extra savory flavor that plain salted water just doesn’t have. Serve it with a green salad and hot garlic bread for a satisfying dinner.
Why You’ll Love It
- One-pot dinner — everything comes together in the same large pot for easy cleanup.
- Creamy and cheesy — cream soups and Velveeta create a gooey, scoopable sauce.
- A little tangy kick — Rotel adds flavor, with regular or hot options.
- Great for leftovers — the flavors settle in nicely overnight.
Ingredient Notes
Boneless, skinless chicken breasts keep this simple. You’re boiling them, cutting them up, and stirring them into the sauce, so there’s no need to get precious about it. Just make sure they’re cooked through before they come out of the pot.
Velveeta is the right cheese here. I know somebody is going to want to use shredded cheddar, and you certainly can make other cheesy pasta dishes with cheddar, but this particular chicken spaghetti needs the smooth melt of Velveeta. Regular is what I usually use, though Mexican Velveeta is lovely if your family enjoys a little extra kick.
For the Rotel, regular works for nearly everyone. Hot Rotel does give it more personality, but it can sneak up on you.
Use the cream of chicken soup and cream of mushroom soup undiluted. Don’t add milk or water to those cans. This is already a creamy dish; it does not need your helpful little additions. I have tried to “lighten” recipes before. That is usually how you wind up eating regret with a fork.
Red or green bell pepper both work. Green has that old-school, slightly sharper flavor I grew up with, and red is a bit sweeter. Either one is fine. Same with the onion—just a medium one, chopped up. It doesn’t have to look perfect. It’s Tuesday dinner, not a magazine cover.
Ingredients
- 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts
- 1/2 teaspoon salt, for the chicken cooking water
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, for the chicken cooking water
- 1 pound spaghetti pasta
- 1 stick butter
- 1 medium onion, chopped—mine is usually somewhere between “chopped” and “I got tired”
- 1 bell pepper, red or green, chopped
- 1 can Rotel tomatoes, regular or hot (10 ounces)
- 1 can cream of chicken soup, undiluted (10.5 ounces)
- 1 can cream of mushroom soup, undiluted (10.5 ounces)
- 1 pound Velveeta cheese, regular or Mexican, cut into chunks if you feel like making life easier
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- Freshly grated Parmesan cheese, for serving if you’ve got it
- Salad and hot garlic bread, for serving
Instructions
Put the chicken breasts in a large pot and cover them with water. Add the 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon black pepper. Bring it to a boil and cook the chicken until it is completely done, about 10 to 12 minutes. This is not the time to wander off and start folding laundry, because then you will remember the chicken approximately when the laundry is halfway folded and the chicken is tougher than your mood. Ask me how I know.
Remove the cooked chicken from the pot and set it aside until it is cool enough to handle. Keep that cooking liquid right where it is—don’t dump it. That broth is going to cook your spaghetti, and it gives the pasta a lot more flavor than plain water.
Bring the broth back to a boil if needed, then cook the spaghetti in it according to the package directions. Stir it now and then, especially at the beginning, so you don’t wind up with one big spaghetti clump. I have done that. It looked like a pasta nest built by an angry bird.
When the spaghetti is tender, drain it and discard the cooking water. Set the spaghetti aside and do not rinse it. I know some people rinse pasta out of habit, but don’t here. You want it warm and ready to grab onto that creamy sauce.
Put the empty pot back on the stove and melt the butter over medium heat. Add the chopped onion and bell pepper. Cook them until they’re soft and fragrant. This usually takes several minutes, depending on how crowded your kitchen is and whether somebody is standing beside you telling a story that absolutely cannot wait. You want softened vegetables, not browned little bits.
Cut the cooked chicken into bite-size pieces. Add the Rotel tomatoes to the softened onion and pepper, then stir in the cream of chicken soup, the cream of mushroom soup, and the chicken. Add them one at a time and stir as you go. It may look a little odd at first—sort of creamy, tomato-y, and not quite committed to becoming dinner—but it comes together.
Gently stir the cooked spaghetti into the chicken mixture. Take your time with this part. Spaghetti has a mind of its own, and if you stir like you’re mad at it, you’ll sling sauce onto the stove. Not that the stove hasn’t seen worse around here.
Add the Velveeta and stir everything together. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Keep the heat low and stir occasionally until the cheese is melted thoroughly. Don’t crank the burner up thinking you’ll speed things along; that is how the bottom scorches, and then you get that faint burnt-cheese smell hanging around the kitchen like an accusation.
If you’re worried about scorching, turn the burner off once you add the Velveeta, cover the pot, and let it sit for a couple of minutes. The residual heat will soften the cheese, then you can stir it smooth. This little trick has saved me more than once, particularly on evenings when the phone rings at exactly the wrong moment. Which is most evenings, really.
Spoon it into bowls and top with freshly grated Parmesan if you like. Serve with a salad and hot garlic bread. I’m serious about the garlic bread—it’s ideal for swiping up the creamy bits left in the bowl, and it makes the whole meal feel more like an occasion even if you’re eating in sweatpants while watching the weather report.
Variations
You can use hot Rotel and Mexican Velveeta for a little more kick. It is good, though.
You can use either red or green bell pepper depending on what you have. I tend to use green for its old-school flavor.
One time I tried using a different melting cheese because I had an open bag in the refrigerator and didn’t feel like going back to the store. It was fine—not terrible, just not this. The sauce got grainy and a little oily, and I spent the whole meal insisting it was perfectly good while nobody took seconds. So, use the Velveeta. Some shortcuts are not shortcuts.
Storage & Reheating
Keep leftover chicken spaghetti in a covered container in the refrigerator. It will hold well for a few days, though it tends to disappear faster than that in my house. The pasta drinks up some of the sauce as it sits, so it will be thicker the next day. That’s normal.
For reheating, warm a portion gently in the microwave, stopping to stir once or twice so the middle doesn’t stay cold while the edges turn into lava. You can also reheat it in a saucepan over low heat. Be patient with it. This is not one of those meals you blast on high and walk away from.
I’ve eaten a bowl of leftover chicken spaghetti standing at the counter at eleven in the morning, telling myself I was “just checking it.” A likely story. The dog was watching me with that look, too, as if she had evidence.
Final Notes
There’s something about this dish that brings back the feeling of a louder house. Shoes piled by the door, a trumpet practicing badly upstairs, and the television murmuring in the other room while dinner finishes.
The house is quieter now, not always, but quieter. I still make chicken spaghetti when I need that old feeling back for an evening. The steam on the windows. The big pot. The smell of butter and onion and tomato and cheese. It does not solve anything, obviously. Dinner rarely does. But it gathers people up for a little while, which is more than I can say for half the things we buy and pay for and worry about.
Make the garlic bread. Put Parmesan on top if you want. And if the sauce splatters on the stove, well… it’ll still be there tomorrow.
Chicken Spaghetti
Ingredients
- 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts
- 1/2 teaspoon salt for the chicken cooking water
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper for the chicken cooking water
- 1 pound spaghetti pasta
- 1 stick butter
- 1 medium onion chopped
- 1 bell pepper red or green, chopped
- 1 10-ounce can Rotel tomatoes regular or hot
- 1 10.5-ounce can cream of chicken soup undiluted
- 1 10.5-ounce can cream of mushroom soup undiluted
- 1 pound Velveeta cheese regular or Mexican, cut into chunks if desired
- salt and pepper to taste
- freshly grated Parmesan cheese for serving, optional
- salad and hot garlic bread for serving
Instructions
- Put the chicken breasts in a large pot, cover them with water, add the 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, then bring to a boil and cook until the chicken is completely done, about 10 to 12 minutes.
- Remove the cooked chicken from the pot and set it aside until it is cool enough to handle, keeping the cooking liquid in the pot to cook the spaghetti.
- Bring the broth back to a boil if needed, then cook the spaghetti in it according to the package directions, stirring now and then, especially at the beginning.
- When the spaghetti is tender, drain it, discard the cooking water, set the spaghetti aside, and do not rinse it.
- Put the empty pot back on the stove, melt the butter over medium heat, add the chopped onion and bell pepper, and cook for several minutes until soft and fragrant but not browned.
- Cut the cooked chicken into bite-size pieces, add the Rotel tomatoes to the softened onion and pepper, then stir in the cream of chicken soup, cream of mushroom soup, and chicken one at a time.
- Gently stir the cooked spaghetti into the chicken mixture, taking your time so the sauce coats the pasta evenly.
- Add the Velveeta, season with salt and pepper to taste, keep the heat low, and stir occasionally until the cheese is melted thoroughly.
- Spoon the chicken spaghetti into bowls, top with freshly grated Parmesan if desired, and serve with salad and hot garlic bread.