One of my favorite pastas in the entire universe is close by in the neighborhood, at Applebees. If you flip to the 2 for $20 menu, the Three Cheese Chicken Cavatappi gleams like a beacon of happiness. Unfortunately, that bowl of delight also comes with 1,170 calories (650 of which from fat), 2,740 milligrams of sodium (that, my friends, is 440 mg more than the recommended 2,300 mg per day), and a whopping 82 grams of carbs. Yikes. Did you cry while reading that? Yeah. Me too.

So, in order to find eternal happiness and living a life of no regret, I have put together a 21 Day Fix-friendly recipe to recreate this deliciousness without any tears.

Total Containers:

• 1 green
• 1 red
• 2 yellow
• 2 blue*
• 1 tsp

Makes: 2 servings

You will need:

• 1/3 cup 1% (low-fat) milk
• 1/3 cup low-sodium chicken broth
• 2 teaspoons whole-wheat flour (or almond,  coconut.. Fix appoved ;) )
• 1/3 cup shredded Parmesan cheese (SHREDDED, not the powdered stuff!)
• 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
• 2 teaspoons organic butter
• 2 4 oz chicken breasts
• 2 cups whole-wheat cavatappi noodles**
• 1/2 cup shredded Italian cheese*
• 4 medium tomatoes
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 3 teaspoons of basil

There's basically three (easy!) components to throw together in this recipe, so I'll split them up by those.

Alfredo Sauce:

1. Add the milk, chicken broth, and butter to a pot, and put on stove until it starts boiling
2. Turn the heat down a bit and add/stir in the flour, Parmesan cheese, and garlic powder
3. Keep warm until ready to serve, stirring occasionally 

Bruschetta:

1. Dice the tomatoes
2. Dice the garlic
3. Add basil to mixture

Pasta:

1. Boil a pot of water for the noodles, add noodles when boiling
2. While the noodles are cooking, cook the chicken (in the oven, on the stove, over the grill.. it all works!)
3. Separate the noodles into two servings
4. Put the bruschetta over the noodles
   • We made our chicken on the stove, so we actually added a bit of the bruschetta to that pan when the chicken was complete - delicious!
5. Layer on the chicken
6. Drizzle Alfredo sauce
7. Sprinkle on that Italian cheese*

So there you have it! A great and easy alternative to an otherwise unhealthy meal :)

-T

*- to reduce a blue container, the sprinkle of Italian cheese at the end is optional - trust me though, still amazing turnout!
**- whole-wheat cavatappi noodles are hard to come by, so these can easily be swapped out for any type of pasta (like penne) - just make sure it's whole-wheat!