Chicken Tortellini Alfredo (2024)

Why you’ll love it

Jazz up your dinner rotation with this quick chicken Alfredo tortellini! It’s another tasty pasta recipe to add to your “How do I use up leftover chicken?” arsenal and if you’re wondering what to make with refrigerated tortellini. It’s low effort with minimal ingredients as well.

Alfredo sauce is simply a mix of butter, cream, and parmesan cheese. That means it’s really simple to make in your kitchen. I always like to liven it up a bit, so here I add in a bit of garlic and some lemon juice for brightness and all-out depth of flavor!

What you’ll need

• Cheese tortellini – we’re using the refrigerated kind
• Butter and flour – to make a quick roux
• Chicken broth – the savory base of the sauce
• Garlic powder and lemon juice – tasty additions to prevent this dish from being too rich or one-dimensional
• Heavy cream – to add body and irresistible creaminess
• Parmesan – always freshly grate your own
• Chicken – if you don’t have leftover chicken, buy a rotisserie chicken. They’re so useful for making quick meals.

Helpful Tip

Especially for creamy pasta sauces, it’s so important to grate your own parmesan cheese from a block. It melts into the sauce seamlessly, unlike the pre-grated stuff in a bag or can.

How to make chicken tortellini Alfredo

This is an overview with step-by-step photos. Full ingredients & instructions are in the recipe card below.

Cook the tortellini. Meanwhile, in a skillet, heat up the butter, and whisk in the flour and cook for about a minute. Whisk in the chicken broth and lemon juice to dissolve the flour. Pour in the cream, then add the garlic powder.

Keep whisking until the sauce is smooth, then reduce until the desired thickness is reached. Stir in the parmesan. Add in the chicken and drained pasta, and toss to heat through. Taste, season with salt & pepper, and enjoy.

Substitutions and variations

• I don’t recommend subbing the cream for something else, e.g. milk or half-and-half, unless you’re confident in your abilities to thicken up the sauce/make adjustments as needed. Also, it won’t taste as good if you don’t use heavy cream.
• I chose garlic powder instead of a garlic clove (or two) since it dissolves nicely and I didn’t want the garlic taste to be too overpowering. With that said, feel free to use fresh garlic if you want to!
• At the end, you could throw in some frozen peas or corn or a handful of fresh spinach.