Beach Street Lemon Chicken Linguine

This is the yummiest, yet healthiest pasta dinner EVER!! I have a lemon tree so I'm always looking for ways to use my lemons this time of year. I've tried other lemon chicken recipes, but they were too sour and the flavors were just off, but this one is perfect. My family LOVED it. It was so good the next day too, we had a little leftover and my daughter packed it in her lunch kind of as a cold pasta salad. She said her friend tried a bite and said "YUM! I need to come over to your house for dinner sometime!!" I got this recipe from Deals to Meals, an awesome grocery saving site! They are in several states now and they list all the best grocery deals of the week for you, and allow you to click on what you want to buy each week from each store and then you can even print out a shopping list, rocks my world since I'm not a coupon clipper.

**NOTE: I made this for my husband's 40th birthday and tweaked the recipe a bit, so I'm including that recipe after the first one. So if you came and ate it at my house, the "tweaked" recipe is the one you tried! :)

Beach Street Lemon Chicken Linguine
adapted from Deals to Meals
Print Recipe

1 lb. Linguine
2 tablespoons Olive Oil
Zest from one Lemon
Juice from one Lemon
1/4 cup Green Onions, chopped (white and green parts)
1/4 cup chopped fresh Parsley
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Marinade:
½ cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup Green Onions, Chopped
1 tablespoon Cajun seasoning
2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
2 tablespoons minced fresh Parsley
2 1 /2 tablespoons Brown Sugar
2 tablespoons Soy Sauce
1 lb. boneless skinless Chicken Breasts, cut into bite sized pieces

Combine the marinade ingredients in a bowl and whisk lightly before pouring into a tupperware bowl. Pat chicken dry and toss in marinade to coat. Refrigerate 3-12 hours.

When ready to cook, preheat skillet over medium heat and pour contents of plastic bag (both marinade and chicken) into the skillet. Saute over medium-high heat until chicken is cooked.

Combine juice of one lemon, lemon zest, olive oil, green onions and fresh parsley together in a small bowl. Set aside.

While the chicken is sauteing, cook linguine in boiling salted water until done; drain and return to warm pot. Pour lemon juice/olive oil/green onion mixture over pasta and mix lightly. When chicken is finished cooking, add chicken and marinade to pot of pasta with lemon sauce mixture. Stir in parmesan cheese, add salt and pepper to taste. (I didn't add any salt or pepper.) Serve warm.

**Tweaked Recipe:
Marinade: After cooking the chicken and marinade and before putting it on the pasta, add 1/3 cup heavy whipping cream and stir for 1-2 minutes. The rest of the marinade is exactly the same.

In the main recipe portion, instead of adding the zest from an entire lemon, just grate 2 teaspoons zest and add that to the cooked linguine. The rest of the ingredients are exactly the same.