Healthy Chicken Fajita Pasta Bake – Slimming World friendly recipe

This healthy chicken fajita pasta bake recipe was created as I was planning on making Stuart a meatball pasta bake but had forgotten to buy meatballs! So instead I decided to experiment. From that, the healthy Chicken Fajita pasta bake was made!

Disclaimer: Just Average Jen is not connected with any weight loss plan. Please check nutritional values and/or syns yourself.

Tips for making Chicken Fajita Pasta bake

I find that cooking the vegetables makes them a bit mushy. To prevent this I put them in the dish raw before cooking. They still cook well but still have a bit of a bite to them.

If you prefer your vegetables a bit more well done just fry them a little first in Frylight and then mix in as usual.

If you would rather you can use grated cheese throughout instead of Primula. To do this substitute the primula for 80g of 50% less fat grated cheddar and it will be just as tasty.

I prefer to buy fajita spice in bulk to save money, but you could easily make your own fajita spice with what you have already on the spice rack.

Perfect adaptions to this recipe

This recipe can easily be adapted to use different meats or even Quorn with no problem at all.

If you are not keen on any of the specific vegetables in this recipe why not change them to something else you prefer. All I would recommend is to avoid too many mushrooms or to cook them first to prevent the bake from becoming watery.

Making this recipe with Quorn

It is really easy to adapt this recipe to use Quorn, as a vegetarian myself I do it often. It is always worth remembering that Quorn takes less time to cook when substituting it for chicken.

Check out my selection of Quorn recipes, all perfect for all the family whether vegetarian or not, some are vegan too.

Is the healthy chicken fajita pasta bake suitable for weight loss

If you follow Slimming World, Weight Watchers (WW), Noom or any other weight loss plan you can usually count the ingredients within this recipe in your allowances. It is of course important to check yourself any plan you follow and remember all nutritional information and ingredients are found in the recipe card below.

This recipe is Slimming World friendly and can be syn free. Do note it is only syn free if using one healthy extra a choice per person for the cheese in the recipe. The fajita seasoning I use is syn free but check yours to be sure.

The dish itself has at least a third vegetables so fits perfectly with the Slimming World plan. I always suggest adding a handful of salad for good measure.

It really is a personal preference. A handful of leaves is really easy to add so won’t add any time to the cooking. Salad is minimal calories but fills you up a little more too.

Remember if you follow the Slimming World plan to check regularly that the syn values and recommendations have not changed.

The perfect pasta

I have a newfound love for Garofalo pasta. In my experience, it doesn’t break up as much and go as soft as other brands and holds the flavour really well.

When boiling the pasta for a pasta bake how you cook it makes all the difference. The best tip I can give you is to strain it when it is almost done but still a little chewy.

This way in the oven it absorbs a little moisture from the tomatoes and vegetables. The pasta then softens just nicely. The pasta bake is not too sloppy and firms up nicely.

Using frozen chicken

Chicken for this or any other chicken recipes should never be cooked from frozen, there are so many issues with this that risk food poisoning. If you have just realised you only have frozen chicken there I have lots of tips to safely defrost chicken check them out in my defrosting chicken guide.

Other healthy recipes you may enjoy

For more pasta-based recipes for all the family check out my ultimate pasta recipe guide which is full of recipes like this, cherry tomato and butternut squash pasta bake and even includes a fruit pasta!

You can find more recipes with chicken here.

Which meal do you struggle with ideas for healthy meals? I have lists of breakfast ideas and lunch ideas if that helps you.

I also came across this chorizo and blue cheese pasta recipe which sounds good too so why not have a try?

Print

If you found this helpful please share!