Creamy Chicken & Nettle
Creamy chicken and nettle? As in stinging nettle? Yup, those greens are stinging nettle.
Also Read: How to Harvest Stinging Nettle, Stinging Nettle and Cheese Biscuits, Stinging Nettle & Potato Soup, Spinach Manicotti
But also notice the bacon, chicken and creamy sauce. Oh and of course the red pepper. There’s Parmesan cheese doing it’s wildly delicious duty too, you just can’t see it. They all come together to make this creamy chicken and nettle sauce a delicious topping for your favourite long or short pasta.
Yes, you can use spinach or kale in this recipe, but nettle packs more nutrients into every bite. You’ll get protein (2.7g/100g), Vitamin A, C, D, & K, iron, potassium, manganese, and calcium (29 times more than spinach). True, not all of that calcium can be absorbed by your body – but we’ll take what we can get. And as for flavor, nettle is pretty mild and won’t overpower this dish at all.
If not everyone around your dinner table is excited about eating stinging nettle, don’t worry – the bacon, cheese and creamy goodness will soon have them forget about it.
Creamy Chicken and Nettle
Creamy Chicken and Nettle
Ingredients
- 5 slices bacon diced
- 2 chicken breasts sliced evenly
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 2 cups stinging nettle leaves
- 1/2 red pepper diced
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1/2 cup chicken broth
- 1 Tbsp Italian Seasoning
- 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
- salt & pepper to taste
- 2 Tbsp fresh parsley chopped
Instructions
- In large pan, fry bacon until crisp.
- Remove bacon from pan and set aside.
- Add chicken to bacon drippings in pan. Cook through until no pink remains. Remove from pan.
- Add garlic, cook 1 minute.
- Add nettles and red pepper. Cook until nettles are wilted.
- Add cream, chicken broth and Italian seasoning. Bring to boil.
- Reduce heat to simmer. Mix in Parmesan cheese and stir til sauce reduces and thickens.
- Return bacon and chicken to pan, stir well and heat through, about 3 minutes.
- Taste and add salt and pepper to taste. Garnish with fresh parsley.
- Serve hot with your favorite pasta.
Nutrition Facts (per serving)
More Stinging Nettle Recipes & Techniques
If you’re intrigued, check out my other stinging nettle posts:
- How to Harvest, Freeze & Dry Stinging Nettle – and how to deal with and get rid of the sting
- Stinging Nettle and Cheese Biscuits
- Stinging Nettle and Potato Soup
- Sauteed Stinging Nettle with Garlic
- Stinging Nettle Pesto
Have you cooked with stinging nettle before? Think you’d be willing to try it?
If you do, I’d love to hear what you think and what you make. Tag your photos on Instagram with @getgettys so I can see them and like ’em!
Sign up to get articles by Getty delivered to your inbox. You’ll get recipes, practical tips and great food information like this. Getty is a Professional Home Economist,  speaker and writer putting good food on tables and agendas.  She is the author of Manitoba’s best-selling Prairie Fruit Cookbook, Founder of Fruit Share, a mom and veggie gardener.
Loved the Creamy Chicken and Nettle dish. Very tasty and easy to put together from scratch. Never thought I’d be eating nettle and making friends with the plant I have tried so hard to avoid in the past. This may just keep me from getting my mower to close to it now that I have something to do with it. Thanks for introducing us Getty.
So glad you liked it! Making friends is always a good strategy!