Stuffed Chicken Breast with Spinach and Ricotta

Quick recipes for working women.. This was my inspiration behind revamping my blog and starting to write again.. I am sure most of us working people, men and women.. would love to enjoy a fancy dinner but are worried about getting over ambitious on a weekday, and end up eating takeout, boring food, or pre prepared meals from the weekend..

To be honest, I am guilty of being one of those as well, I do most of my cooking on Sunday, and make meals ready for the weekdays.. but lately I decided to do all my meal prep on Sundays instead, and finish my cooking on the day of. This makes me feel like I am having fresh food on the weekdays instead of the feeling like I am having leftovers from the weekends. Also, to be fair, I haven't achieved this for all the days of the week. I still make about half of my meals for the week on Sunday, but I am experimenting with the other half. So follow along with me on my journey, and I will help you with my experiences, hurdles and of course share the victories.. So today, I am going to share this quick Stuffed Chicken breast recipe with you all. It was a straight out winner with my husband. Quoting him, "This feels like we've ordered food from an italian restaurant." I am super excited to share this find with you guys..

Hope you guys enjoy my recipes and my bantering.

Cook time: 25 mins Prep time: 25 mins

I did all my prep work on Sunday, and made this dinner on Monday.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of low fat Ricotta cheese
• Handful of spinach leaves
• 4-5 grape tomatoes chopped ( I removed the seeds so my mixture isn't very runny)
• few basil leaves
• 1 garlic clove chopped (I substituted the above two ingredients with some leftover pesto I had)
• 2 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• threw in some dried herbs (Mrs. Dash is my go-to)
• Panko Crumbs ( you could either use seasoned, or I usually mix my plain with red pepper flakes and pepper)
• Olive Oil
• 2 Chicken breasts cleaned and horizontally slit to make a cavity inside 
• Toothpicks to close the stuffed chicken

Directions:

1. Combine ricotta, spinach, tomatoes, pesto, parmesan, salt and pepper. Mix it so that it makes a well combined mixture.
2. I finished this prep work and saved my mixture for the next day in the refrigerator. I'd say you can refrigerate and use this mixture for up to 3 days. Any longer, and I'd suggest you freeze the mixture and thaw it by moving it to the refrigerator the night before. If you are going to continue cooking the same day, then disregard this step. 
3. Now take your chicken breast and pat it dry. Season it with salt and pepper on both sides. Once seasoned, open the slit and fill it with the mixture. I used this mixture just due to the readiness of the ingredients. If you have other vegetables, feel free to use your creativity. I feel bell peppers, chopped mushrooms, grated carrots, mozzarella cheese, mashed potatoes, all of these makes for good stuffing substitutes.
4. Carefully, dip the breasts in Panko crumbs to give it a good coat of crumbs. (Another substitution here, is to dip it in egg and then flour, but I used Panko for this recipe). Once stuffed and coated, you can close of the cavity with tooth picks so that your filling doesn't fall out. 
5. Heat oil in an oven proof skillet and also pre heat your oven to 400 F. Once the pan is hot, placed your chicken breast in the skillet and cook each side for about 3-4 minutes. At this time, you will see that your breadcrumbs are golden brown and crisp. 
6. You can now move your chicken breasts to the oven and cook for another 20 mins or until the chicken is cooked. Let the chicken rest for about 5 mins before digging in. 

Note: If you don't want to add a portion as big as an entire chicken breast, I also tried a different version where I cut the breast in two first and then created cavities on each of the pieces, and filled each one. 

Enjoy!

I hope you like my recipe. Feel free to comment once you've tried the recipe and let me know how it goes. If you have questions, feel free to post them too and I will try my best to answer. I will also get better with my portions and sizing info as I move on, so please bear with me.. Hope to upload more step by step photos so you can get a better feel of each step..