Slow Cooker Olive Garden Chicken Pasta
1,842 CommentsUpdated Jan 18, 2026
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Use Olive Garden Italian Dressing to make this Slow Cooker Olive Garden Chicken Pasta! It’s a creamy pasta dish that has so much flavor.
We love easy pasta dishes for the crockpot! Try my Baked Spaghetti, Feta and Tomato Pasta, or Beef Stroganoff recipes too!
I found this recipe in my Facebook group and had to try it out! You can make this Olive Garden Chicken with or without the pasta! Serve over rice or just with green steamed vegetables.
How to make Olive Garden Chicken Pasta in the Crockpot:
- Add chicken breasts to the slow cooker.
- Pour over one 16-ounce jar of Olive Garden Italian Dressing (or any Italian dressing you have on hand.
- Shake over grated parmesan cheese and ground pepper. Add one block of cream cheese.
- Place the lid on the slow cooker and cook on HIGH for 4 hours or low for 5-6.
- Shred the chicken with two forks right in the slow cooker.
- Cook 16 ounces of pasta according to the package directions on the stove-top. I am using penne pasta for this recipe.
- Add the drained pasta to the slow cooker along with the sauce and shredded chicken, stir.
- Sprinkle over more parmesan cheese if desired. I also garnished with a touch of oregano and black pepper.
Can I serve this chicken with something other than pasta?
- Serve over rice.
- Or with steamed vegetables.
Must I use cream cheese?
You can leave it out or add a cup of heavy cream at the end of cooking time is desired. Though the sauce will be thinner.
Does this taste like chicken alfredo?
This Olive Garden Chicken Pasta is thick and creamy like alfredo but has a zesty Italian dressing flavor
What should I serve with olive garden chicken pasta?
Chose one or more of these great dishes to go along with this dish:
- Olive Garden Salad – Recipe by The Cookie Rookie
- Olive Garden Bread Sticks – Recipe by Lil Luna (or buy them premade, I get mine at Safeway)
- Slow Cooker Copycat Gnocchi Soup
- Slow Cooker Copycat Zuppa Toscana
- Slow Cooker Copycat Minestrone – Recipe by Tammilee Tips
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Slow Cooker Olive Garden Chicken Pasta
How to Video
Ingredients
- 1.5 lbs. boneless skinless chicken breast, (1.5-2 pounds works fine)
- 16 oz. Olive Garden Italian dressing, (or any Italian dressing you like) Note- olive garden dressing is high in sodium and can be salty. Choose a lower sodium dressing if desired.
- 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
- 1/4 tsp. black pepper
- 8 oz. cream cheese
Add these items after cooking time is up:
- 16 oz. penne pasta, cooked according to package directions and drain well
- 1/4 cup parmesan cheese
Instructions
- Add the chicken breasts to the slow cooker.
- Pour over the Olive Garden Italian dressing and sprinkle over the parmesan cheese and pepper.
- Place the cream cheese on top.
- Place the lid on the slow cooker. Cook on HIGH for 4 hours or LOW for 5-6 hours.
- When the cooking time is almost done, start cooking the pasta on the stove top as directed on the package.
- Shred the chicken with 2 forks. Drain the pasta and add to the chicken and sauce. Stir. Sprinkle over the remaining parmesan cheese.
- Serve and enjoy!
Nutrition
Nutrition info is auto-generated. This information is an estimate; if you are on a special diet, please use your own calculations.
I cook often and I was worried about this recipe after reading it because my kitchen IQ was trying to tell me this was off. But I thought what the heck, it’s super easy and low prep so it’s worth a try. And no. Absolutely not. It tastes just like you are eating the salad dressing right from the bottle. It’s entirely too tangy and the dressing overpowers the chicken and pasta. It taste lazy as if someone just reached for an easy way to make sure food had flavor instead of doing the work of seasoning it. I take flavor very seriously. In order for this to work even slightly, you will likely need to use way less dressing, like half a bottle and use heavy cream or half and half to make it stretch so you have enough sauce. This will help the cream cheese fold in better as well because the dressing is too thin and it was not blending into the dressing with me using a whisk. I wanted an Italian dressing inspired dish but this is just definitely not it. I will play around with the sauce by itself and see if I can get it to be more palatable first before I add any chicken or pasta and waste my money again cause my family looked at me like I was crazy when they tasted this. Not cool. Do not, I repeat, do not, make this as described.
Did you use creamy Italian or a regular Italian dressing? Mine mixed right up super creamy and all the tang was totally gone out of the dressing by the time it was ready to serve
Terrible recipe. I made this exactly like the instructions said. Yuk!!
Super easy and so yummy!
Can it cook on low for 8 hours?
Can I add the cream cheese the last 3 hours of cooking?
Yes, both will work fine!
This recipe is so overwhelmingly tart. The dressing is just too tangy. I thought this would be a great kid-friendly recipe, but not one of my four kids would eat it. We don’t waste food in our house, but this was simply inedible.
Can I double the chicken in this recipe for more leftovers? Would I double any of the other ingredients like the cream cheese?
You would have to double everything for the recipe to Work. This does make a lot of food though FYI.
I doubled everything because I am feeding my husband and myself and 3-6 people ages 16-23 at any given time! The first time I made it, I doubled it and it was completely gone! I was kind of disappointed because I was hoping for leftovers!
Made this recipe today, I too, used 2/3 bottle of the dressing. It was delicious. I think it would be better served over white rice. I would make it again
I made this recipe today using 2/3 of the bottle of Olive Garden dressing. I can’t imagine using an entire bottle as it was very tangy using 2/3. I wish there was some way to get rid of the overwhelming tanginess.
We have made this recipe about every 2 to 3 months. It’s so easy to make and tasty. We also used the garlic parmasean sauce from Buffalo wild wings as well and loved it .
This is one of my family’s favorite recipes! We have it at least once every 6 weeks or so. I usually increase the amount of chicken to make it go further, and I use the Aldi “restaurant-style Italian dressing” instead since it’s much cheaper. I love serving it with cherry tomatoes, and the leftovers are delicious on toast. Thanks for such a yummy and simple recipe! 🙂