The most decadent, amazing and delicious meal to ever come out of your slow cooker! This Slow Cooker Cheesy Buffalo Chicken Pasta continues to get rave reviews! See why for yourself!
Ohhhh, I'm going to be such a bad influence right now. I mean, if you are trying to eat super healthy or stick to light salads for dinner you might want to look away. Except don't! Because we all need a little indulgence now and then, right? And this one is totally (and I mean TOTALLY) worth the splurge. Delicious, rich, cheesy, creamy and just the right amount of spicy.... Slow Cooker Cheesy Buffalo Chicken Pasta. Yes. In the slow cooker. Like every step of this recipe completed in the slow cooker. Have I convinced you yet?
I don't indulge in pasta any too often. And when I do I usually eat a small helping and have lots of veggies or a side salad. Not here. No. I stuffed myself full of this yummy, gooey, cheesy pasta. And then started getting super pumped about the idea of sharing it with all of you!
Can you cook pasta in a slow cooker?
- Yes! Make sure to use regular (not gluten free, etc.) pasta
- Keep an eye on it the first time you make it, it can quickly overcook
- If it's not cooked enough, just add a little more liquid and let it cook a few minutes longer
I'm a huge fan of anything buffalo chicken. I've mentioned once or twice (or a bazillion times) that it's only been in the last year or two that I discovered the wonderful spicy flavor and now I can't seem to stop myself. I hope you don't mind. I think I could eat it every day. I've found a couple of favorite sauces and still have lots of ideas for using them for dinners.
Tips for making this buffalo chicken pasta for your family:
- This recipe will make a bit 'ole pot of pasta. Like enough to serve at least six people. Unless you invite me to dinner. In which case I'll race you for seconds. I'm not feeding six people at my house and in fact I only fed three with this meal.
- My three year old is not a fan of buffalo sauce. Yet. She ate microwaved mac and cheese and I only felt a little guilty. I know what I'm having for lunch!
- If you want to heat some of this up for leftover just add a little splash of water or broth and it will be like the first time you ate it all over again.
Another tip on making pasta in the slow cooker:
Just a little note on how this will all go down. You will cook everything but the pasta. Then in the last 30-60 minutes you will add the noodles.
Try to be around at this point so you can walk by and give it a stir every now and then. Your noodles will cook evenly and you will be glad you gave your arm a little workout.
Every time I've made pasta this way in the crockpot my noodles were perfectly done in exactly 45 minutes.
I also feel it's important to tell you that if you love things buffalo chicken you really need to try my slow cooker buffalo chicken chili!! Okay, now on the the recipe!
Slow Cooker Cheesy Buffalo Chicken Pasta
Ingredients
- 1 ½ pounds boneless skinless chicken
- 3 cups chicken broth
- ½ cup buffalo wing sauce (¼ cup now, ¼ cup later)
- 1 tablespoon ranch dressing mix ( packet kind)
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ¼ teaspoon celery salt
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ⅛ teaspoon pepper
- 8 ounces cream cheese
- 1 cup shredded sharp cheddar
- 1 tablespoon corn starch + 1 tablespoon water
- 16 ounces linguine noodles
- Chopped cilantro for garnish optional
Instructions
- Place chicken, broth, ¼ cup buffalo sauce, and seasonings in crock
- Top with cream cheese and shredded cheese
- Cover and cook on high for 4 hours or low for 8
- When chicken is fully cooked remove to separate bowl and shred with two forks
- Add remaining ¼ cup buffalo sauce to chicken and toss to coat
- Set aside chicken
- Whisk together corn starch and water and add to crock
- Use a whisk and stir until cheese and cream cheese (which were added in step 2 and should now be soft and melted) are all combined and smooth
- Break noodles in half and place in crock
- Top with chicken and cover
- Turn crock on high for 30-60 minutes until noodles are fully cooked, stir 3-4 times during cooking
- If noodles are not done you can add extra broth or water ¼ cup at a time
- Garnish with cilantro if desired and serve immediately
Notes
Nutrition
I am using rotisserie chicken. Will this be fine to make on the stove? Would I need to adjust anything besides when I add the chicken?
I haven't tested this to be sure, but you may need to adjust the liquid amounts.
Fantastic recipe. The first time I made I followed the recipe,except I cut the wing sauce in half for the gentler palates. It was great! But the linguini did stick. Today I used egg noodles....turned out beautifully! I also used leftover shredded chicken and cut my cook time in half.
Thanks so much for sharing! I love hearing how people are able to adapt a recipe and make it their own.
Does this recipe work with frozen chicken?
You will need to use thawed chicken for this recipe.
This sounds tasty and I think the majority of my household would like it. However several of us have to watch sodium count. Any idea what it would be for the average serving?
The sodium count per the nutrition calculator is 1319 per serving. You could adjust ingredients to see if that helps reduce it for you, such as the using a homemade or low sodium ranch, buffalo sauce, broth, etc.
Bomb. Perfect the whole family loved it!!
Thanks Karen!
I live in Buffalo and don’t know what Buffalo sauce is. Here we use Frank’s red hot sauce for wings etc. would this work? Also, we don’t use ranch for anything such as wings. We use blue cheese. Can I sub that?
If it's the wing sauce, yes. Otherwise most grocery stores carry other brands labeled buffalo or wing sauce. The ranch called for in this recipe is a dry seasoning, so blue cheese would not be a good substitute.
I made this tonight and on a whim even though I didn’t have celery salt but I had everything else and it was DELICIOUS. When I started this dish I planned on boiling the penne separately so I reduced the chicken stock as was told to another reviewer (I did 1.5 cup of chicken stock) well guess what ..... changed my mind after removing the chicken and added about 1 cup more of chicken stock and threw in the penne and turnt the heat to high, it took roughly 40minutes to cook the penne and I did not need the water or cornstarch (it was thick) ...
Yummy recipe thank you!
So glad you loved it!
What can you substitute for the Buffalo Sauce?
If you're not wanting something with buffalo sauce, I'd suggest my Slow Cooker BBQ Chicken Pasta or even my Slow Cooker Chicken Alfredo Pasta! I'll bet you'd love one of those instead!
I absolutely love this recipe. The only issue that I have is the pasta. It clumps together when it cooks. If I cook the pasta separately, how much of the chicken broth would I need to remove from the crockpot portion of the recipe?
Hey Reyna! I'm so glad you love it! Pasta in the slow cooker can stick together sometimes. I haven't tested cooking this one separately, but my best guess would be to use 1 to 1 1/2 cups of broth instead of 3.
Great and easy recipe! Used Franks Hot Buffalo Sauce and it was very hot - but we love buffalo so it wasn’t a problem for us. I used penne and let cook for 20 minutes at the end instead and it turned out great.
So glad you loved it!