Creamy Tomato Chicken Spaghetti

Ingredients

• 1 lb / 450 g Chicken tenderloins
• 1 tsp Onion powder
• ½ tsp Garlic salt
• ½ tsp Black pepper
• 1 Tbsp Olive oil
• 2 Tbsp Unsalted butter
• 2 Tbsp All-purpose flour
• 1 cup Chicken broth
• 8 oz / 227 g can Tomato sauce
• 1 tsp Italian seasoning
• 12 oz / 340 g Dried spaghetti

Method

1. Season the tenderloins with onion powder, garlic salt, and pepper. Sear them in the oil in a skillet over medium-high until browned and cooked through, about 4 minutes per side. Rest, then cut into bite-size pieces.
2. In the same skillet, melt the butter over medium. Whisk in the flour and cook 1 minute. This is a pale paste to thicken the sauce, not a dark roux. If you need a gluten-free thickener, use rice flour or a cup-for-cup gluten-free blend in that same 2 tablespoons. Gluten-Free Dark Roux is a different technique and is not what this sauce needs.
3. Whisk in the broth a little at a time, then the tomato sauce and Italian seasoning. Simmer until the sauce coats a spoon, 4–5 minutes.
4. Return the chicken to the pan just to warm it through. Boil the pasta and serve the chicken and sauce over the noodles.

Nutrition

Kitchen estimate only, not lab-verified. Garlic salt and broth are the salty levers. Butter makes the sauce richer than a plain tomato skillet.

Guest diet / allergy swaps

Short kitchen notes for guests. A fuller gluten-free or dairy-free ingredient list, when we have one, is in the panels below.

• Low-sodium friendly

  Use ½ teaspoon garlic powder instead of garlic salt, no-salt-added broth, and a no-salt tomato sauce. Taste at the end before you add any salt.

• Gluten-free style

  Use gluten-free pasta, and thicken with rice flour or a cup-for-cup gluten-free blend. Keep the paste pale. The dark-roux recipe is for gumbo, not this sauce.

• No dairy

  Use olive oil instead of butter for the paste. The sauce will be a little less round.

• No chicken

  Simmer Homestyle Seasoned Ground Turkey in the same sauce.