Tuscan Hasselback Chicken
It’s pretty easy to fall into the trap of thinking that just because boneless skinless chicken breasts are easy and quick to prepare, they’re also kind of boring, but that doesn’t have to be the case! This Tuscan Hasselback Chicken is anything but boring. What it definitely is is a crowd-pleasing dinner that’s both delicious and easy to prepare. Chicken stuffed with sun-dried tomatoes, spinach, and Fontina? Yum and yes please!
If you haven’t ‘hasselbacked’ anything before, all it really means is that you’re cutting slits into whatever it is you’re preparing and then stuffing those openings with delicious goodies. In the case of chicken, this imparts a lot of flavor but still results in moist and juicy chicken in the end. When you make your cuts, make sure you don’t go all the way through – you want the chicken to hold together at the bottom.
Once your chicken is ready to go, you’ll sauté some spinach and sun-dried tomatoes until it’s wilted and once the mixture is cooled a bit, you’ll stir it into some cream cheese. It’s that creamy mixture you’ll stuff down into all of the openings you’ve created in the chicken, but along with some sliced Fontina cheese.
After just about twenty-five minutes in the oven, the chicken ends up cooked through but still moist and juicy and the combination of sun-dried tomatoes and spinach has a bright zing of flavor to go along with the ooey-gooey Fontina. It’s a dinner you can feel good about, but it also happens to be one that’s delicious and that comes together lickety-split!
Tuscan Hasselback Chicken
Allergens: Milk
Diet: Gluten-Free
Ingredients
- 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
- 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 5 cups fresh baby spinach
- 1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes in oil, drained and roughly chopped
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- 4 oz cream cheese
- 8 slices fontina cheese
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Preparation
- Preheat oven to 375°F and lightly grease a 9x13-inch baking dish with nonstick spray.
- In a large skillet over medium-high heat, heat olive oil. Add garlic and cook 30 seconds. Stir in spinach and sun-dried tomatoes and cook until wilted, about 2 minutes, stirring frequently.
- Remove from heat and set aside to cool a bit.
- Add cream cheese to a medium bowl. Add Italian seasoning and cooled spinach mixture. Stir until well combined.
- Cut 5 to 6 slits in each chicken breast, cutting about 3/4 of the way down but not cutting all the way through. Season with salt and pepper.
- Place chicken in baking dish and fill each pocket with the spinach/cream cheese mixture. Break up fontina cheese slices and stuff each pocket with cheese.
- Bake until chicken is cooked through, about 25 minutes, depending on thickness.
- Remove from oven and let stand 5 minutes before serving. Enjoy!
Recipe adapted from Diethood.