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These One Pot Creamy Garlic Noodles are as easy as they are delicious! No creams or large amounts of butter, makes this meal a winner all-around!
These one pot creamy garlic noodles are a HUGE hit with my whole family. We make them at least once a month with all sorts of variations. My kids are crazy about it and request it all the time (and I am happy to oblige because it’s SO easy)! These noodles don’t use heavy cream or large amounts of butter, but it tastes JUST as good as recipes that do. Cooking the noodles in the chicken broth and milk is like magic. The recipe starts with UNcooked noodles so no draining, and only ONE POT to clean! A total win-win.
Ingredients in Creamy Garlic Noodles
This yummy pasta dish has a very fettucine alfredo texture and flavor, without all the heavy whipping cream. Here’s what you need:
- Butter – just a few tablespoons, divided.
- Garlic – four or five cloves, minced. For a stronger garlic flavor you can even use a dash of garlic powder or garlic salt in the sauce mixture.
- Chicken broth – about 28 ounces or just under four cups.
- Milk – Start with two and a half cups and add more if needed to thin out the sauce.
- Linguini – Cook pasta until al dente, or with a little bite to it, before adding to the sauce. You can use any cooked pasta you like for this dish: penne pasta, spaghetti noodles fettucine, anything you have on hand.
- Seasonings – all you need is some salt and pepper and a little bit of basil, fresh or dried
- Parmesan cheese – I like using fresh grated parmesan cheese (Parmigiano Reggiano), you can also use the powdered kind if that’s what you have on hand.
- Broccoli (optional)- about four cups. This is totally optional, and you can add other veggies too!
- Chicken breasts (optional) – two chicken breasts, grilled and cut into strips You can also cook the chicken directly in the pot. See below for more instructions.
Best Noodles to Use
For this garlic noodles recipe, we like to use linguini noodles. They are thick enough to absorb the sauce without getting too heavy. You could also use spaghetti noodles, fettuccini noodles, or even egg noodles. Bowtie pasta or rotini would be fun to try as well. Try to avoid anything thinner than regular spaghetti, like thin spaghetti or angel hair pasta. The noodles will cook way too fast and then get clumpy. No matter what noodle you use, keep checking it until it’s cooked through. You can’t really go by package directions because it is being simmered at a lower heat.
Add Chicken for a Full Meal
To make this a full meal, just add a little chicken. I love adding grilled chicken but you can add baked, shredded, or pan-fried. To keep it a true “one pot” meal, pan frying the chicken is the way to go.
- First, season the chicken with Italian seasoning and cook it up in the same skillet you want to cook the noodles in (before cooking the noodles).
- Then, sauté the chicken until it is cooked most of the way through and remove from the pan, place on a plate, and cover. Wipe the pan out (be careful because the pan will be hot) and make the noodles as per the recipe below.
- Lastly, add the chicken after a few minutes into the noodles simmering and follow the rest of the recipe as directed.
Adding Vegetables
If you want to add vegetables, toss them in 10 minutes or so before serving. You can add veggies like broccoli, peas, asparagus, red peppers, sliced zucchini, etc. You can make these noodles as a full meal or as an easy side dish — totally up to you!
More Add-In Possibilities
This versatile dish can be switched up a million different ways, with just the tweak of a couple ingredients. Try adding some of these next time you need an easy side dish or main course:
- Cooked garlic shrimp (I like using the garlic shrimp from this recipe)
- Grilled Rotisserie Chicken
- Smoked sausage
- Cooked bacon
- Fresh herbs such as parsley or basil
- Peas
- Sautéed mushrooms
- Fresh spinach
- Roasted vegetables
- Lemon zest (if you love lemon flavored noodles try our delicious lemon infused noodles recipe!)
- Onions – add sautéed onion or green onion for garnish
Tips For Making Garlic Noodles
- Keep it to a simmer – If you cook these on too high of a heat, the noodles will cook too fast and won’t absorb the liquid as well.
- Add liquid – If you noodles look like they are getting too thick, just keep adding a splash or milk of broth to keep the consistency.
- Add other flavors – Boost the flavor by adding Cajun seasoning, oregano, Italian seasoning, or lemon pepper.
- Reheating leftovers – Store leftovers in an airtight container and keep in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. When reheating leftovers, add a splash of milk a little at a time until you reach your desired creamy consistency.
Frequently Asked Questions
For this recipe the answer is simple: add a splash of milk. You’ll be amazed at how a little milk will loosen a thick sauce and make it super creamy once again.
If you find you need a little more kick or flavor to this dish, add some lemon zest or black pepper. If you want to add a little spiciness, you can add some Cajun seasoning like Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning.
Yes, using milk makes the noodles creamier. Plus because you don’t drain the pasta in this dish, the starch remains, giving the sauce an extra creamy texture.
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One Pot Creamy Garlic Noodles
Video
Ingredients
- 4 Tablespoon butter divided
- 4-5 cloves garlic minced
- 28 ounces chicken broth (3 ¾ cups)
- 2 1/2 cups milk add more if needed
- 1 pound linguini
- kosher salt and black pepper to taste
- 1 teaspoon basil
- 2/3 cup Parmesan cheese
- 4 cups broccoli optional
- 2 chicken breasts grilled and cut into strips (optional. See notes above on how to make chicken part of the “one-pot” meal if you don’t want to grill)
Instructions
- In a large, 5-6 quart skillet, heat 2 Tablespoons of butter over medium heat. If you don't have a large skillet, a stock-pot works well, too. Add garlic and cook for about a minute.
- Add chicken broth, milk, remaining 2 Tablespoons of butter, pasta noodles, salt and pepper, and basil. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally.
- Once boiling, reduce heat to a simmer stirring occasionally for 16-20 minutes or until noodles have cooked through. If you are wanting to add broccoli, add it after about 10 minutes into the simmering process.
- Stir in Parmesan when noodles are finished cooking and add a little milk if necessary if necessary to reach your desired consistency.
Notes
- Keep noodles to a simmer – If you cook these on too high of a heat, the noodles will cook too fast and won’t absorb the liquid as well.
- Add liquid – If you noodles look like they are getting too thick, just keep adding a splash or milk of broth to keep the consistency.
- Add other flavors – Boost the flavor by adding Cajun seasoning, oregano, Italian seasoning, or lemon pepper.
I loved this recipe!! I changed up a few thing; I used plant based protein penne, rice milk, and Gouda cheese instead of Parmesan. I added broccoli and lastly I sprinkled paleo friendly bacon on top of the dish instead of adding chicken. Delicious!!!
This was delicious! Even my picky daughter loved this. And my husband had 3 helpings.
So glad you guys liked it! 😀
This was delicious! Made it baby led weaning friendly (8M baby & 2 year old toddler) by using bow tie pasta noodles, salt reduced chicken stock, adding cheddar cheese not Parmesan (except to the adults) & not adding salt. We did peas and red pepper along with the broccoli. Added salt and pepper to my husband & mine once serving.
It Made a huge batch and froze mini meals for the kids, along with lunch for my husband the next day.
Yum! Just discovered your website so excited to try something new next week.
We are so excited that you discovered us too! We hope you will keep coming back for more recipes 😀 we have lots of recipes that are toddler and baby-friendly 😉
Delisious! Boyfriend says “this is really good Deb, guess what I’m taking for lunch tomorrow.” This skinny alfredo recipe will be my go to! Thank you
Haha lunch date for the win! So glad he (and you) liked it!
Just made this with a few modifications:
– Used rotini instead of linguine
– I used ~ 1.75c of milk plus the listed amount of chicken broth and I still had to take out almost 2c of extra liquid once the rotini was done cooking! I’ll save it to use when I reheat the leftovers.
– Used only 2 tbsp of butter (in the beginning, to saute the garlic)
– Added roasted broccoli and grilled chicken
Great base recipe, it was very delicious and definitely a keeper!
Do you know how many calories per serving in this recipe?
We are currently working on getting the calorie counts on our recipes. Keep checking back for updates! Thanks!
Can I use almond milk in this recipie?
Yes, almond milk will work just fine. Thanks for asking!
Just made this tonight and it was delicious! My normally picky kids loved it as well. My 4 year old kept saying “This is the best super I ever had!” ????
Oops, I meant to say “supper”.
So glad they liked it! My kids love it too 🙂 They will even eat the broccoli!
I added all calories doing linguine, 16 oz chicken breast sauteed in olive oil, broccoli, and 3 cups 2% milk as well as all other ingredients listed as measured and the total came to be about 3,313 (Fitness Pal) so depending on how many servings this yields you could divide by that and get an estimate of calories per serving. I am calorie counting so I was curious as well. If you guestimate servings by the pasta it would make about 8 servings so 3,313/8 would be about 414 calories, but that is either not very much or too good to be true…lol oh well…I tried…I’ll enter it as best I can in my fitness pal and hope I’m not too far off.
Thank you, Joanna! This is very helpful!
This is a “skinny” recipes, what is the nutrient information?
It is “skinny” because it doesn’t use butter and creams like most alfredo-type recipes do. I will see if I can’t find some nutrition info for this recipe and get it added. Thanks for the heads up!
Can you use fresh pasta? How long would you cook the fresh pasta in the sauce then?
I’m not sure if I would use fresh pasta, the times would be all wrong because fresh pasta cook up so much faster than regular pasta. It would be best to cook it separately and make a sauce to put over it. It won’t absorb the sauce as well as just regular boxed pasta.
Do you use powder parm cheese or grated parm cheese?
We used the powdered but you can use either for this recipe.
I’ve tried this twice now and followed the recipe exactly. There’s way too much liquid! I think it’s the 2.5C of milk that’s the problem.
You may need to simmer the pasta a little longer to reduce the liquid to the right consistency. The milk helps add creaminess to the sauce so I wouldn’t leave it out!
I love this recipe. I use whole wheat pasta and almond milk. Its easy and delicious!!
What does (c.) respresent? Cups?
Yes. c. = cups. Hope this helps!
I made tonight I think I went wrong somewhere I substituted the cans of chicken brothe with chicken built on mixed in water l it has a lot of liquid and its taking longer than the recipe calls for ????????
I test tasted a noodle and it tastes soooo yummy so I’m bummed it’s not coming out right!!! Should I drain the extra juice!? ????
It’s hard to know exactly what could have happened here. If the noodles are done and you have too much liquid, you can definitely drain some of it off (especially if it still tastes good). How much liquid are we talking about here?
I’m drooling. If I’m cutting the recipe in half so as to cook for one, do you think something like a standard Dutch oven would work to use?
Yes you can totally use a dutch oven, it would work just fine 🙂
Frozen broccoli or fresh?
I want to make it tonight and am about to go to the store!
Either one.. we used fresh but frozen is fine, too
This looks delicious. Any chance you know the nutrition info for it?
Unfortunately, we are not able to provide nutritional information at this time. You can plug the recipe into a nutritional calculator like livestrong.com and you should be able to get the information that way.
Dried or fresh basil?
I just used dried but fresh would be better 😉
My daughter was at a friends house and had creamy noodles. So I searched creamy noodles and found your recipe. So glad I did because they were a hit and I love the fact that it is a skinny recipe. I will make again and again. Just had a little trouble thickening it, so I added a teaspoon of cornstarch mixed in water.
Any suggestions?
Thank you,
You can add some cream cheese if you would like it to be thicker. 🙂 hope this helps!