This is one of THOSE chicken recipes.
Memorize it. Print it. Keep it close. It’s loaded with rich, garlic flavor and the sauce is luxuriously creamy, yet simple to make.
Sourcing the Artichokes for the Sauce
With restaurant quality flavor, you might think this dish is complicated, and yet, you can easily source every ingredient. No problem. Look for jars or cans of artichoke quarters or hearts and you can enjoy this chicken dinner all year round.
If you’ve seen my cookbook, Easy Dutch Oven Cooking, you know I love a good artichoke dip. I wanted something similar, for dinner, so I created a tangy dip-esque sauce that’s less heavy. Unlike artichoke dip, which involves mayonnaise, this sauce just requires milk, sour cream, and cream cheese as the base.
When to Add the Baby Spinach
To balance some of the richness, there’s a generous amount of fresh spinach folded into the sauce right at the end. For this reason, I really prefer baby spinach.
If you want to use mature spinach, be sure to remove any thick stems and consider tearing the leaves in half.
How to Serve a Skillet Supper
This one-pan dinner takes just 30 minutes to make, and can be served as a saucy chicken dinner. That said, there’s plenty of sauce if you feel like sopping it up with something starchy.
Try a side of potatoes, bread, pasta, or rice.
Preparing the Chicken
Which chicken do you buy?
A chicken breast is really too thick for this recipe, so I like to buy 2 chicken breasts and cut them in half lengthwise to make 4 chicken cutlets. This is the perfect portion size at around 4-ounces each.
How do you prepare the chicken?
After cutting each breast in half to make cutlets, you need to level and tenderize with a meat mallet. You just want to pound each side to flatten, but try not to get over-zealous; you don’t want to tear the meat.
If you skip this step, the recipe will still turn out, only the chicken may not cook and caramelize as evenly, and the chicken may be chewier.
Since we want our chicken to taste good, we always season the chicken generously with salt and pepper before pan-searing. This way, we only need to make minor adjustments to the seasoning right at the end.
More Chicken Recipes You Might Like:
- Easy Skillet Chicken Parmesan
- Fiery Hot and Juicy Jerk Chicken
- Roast Whole Chicken Over Radishes
- Chicken Meatballs with Buffalo Sauce
SKILLET CHICKEN IN CREAMY SPINACH-ARTICHOKE SAUCE
Ingredients
- 2 8-ounce boneless, skinless chicken breasts
- Salt
- Pepper
- 1 ½ tablespoons olive oil
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 garlic clove minced
- 1 tablespoon flour
- 3 packed cups baby spinach
- 1 14 ounce can artichoke quarters, drained and chopped
- 1 ¼ cups milk
- 4 ounces cream cheese
- ⅓ cup finely shredded parmesan cheese
- ¼ cup sour cream
- Red pepper flakes optional
Instructions
- Tenderize the chicken. Cut each chicken breast in half, lengthwise to create 4 flat (4-oz) portions. Pound both sides of the chicken until it lays level. Season both sides with salt and pepper.
- Caramelize the chicken. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the olive oil and the chicken and cook until golden brown, about 4 minutes. Turn over and continue cooking until the center registers 165°F, about 3 minutes longer. Transfer the chicken to a plate, and cover to keep warm.
- Make the sauce. Turn the heat to low. Add the butter, garlic, and flour and cook for 30 seconds, stirring constantly. Add the spinach and artichokes and stir, cooking until the spinach wilts, about 1 minute. Add the milk and use your spatula to scrape along the bottom. Add the cream cheese and parmesan and use your spatula to break up the cream cheese a bit. Increase to medium heat to bring to a simmer, about 1 minute, stirring occasionally. Season with salt and pepper and turn the heat off.
- Serve. Serve the chicken breast with a generous ladle of sauce. Garnish with red pepper flakes, if using.
Nutrition
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