Chicken Cutlets Stuffed With Spinach, Mushrooms, and Feta

Before we get to our regularly scheduled recipe, I’d like to provide a Public Service Announcement.

Always download all of your digital pictures often so that, in the event something goes totally screwball and gets corrupted, your loss will be minimal.

I’ve just lost the last year and a half’s worth of pictures (other than the food pics I so regularly removed).  Off a 5 GB CF card.  I tried several data recovery programs but the card is totally FUBARed.  So yeah, that sucks.  Lesson learned.

And now back to dinner.

I’ve been itching to stuff chicken with something lately.  Since I found some lovely reduced fat feta, I decided that spinach and mushrooms would do the trick.  We’ve got roasted veggies leftover from Sunday’s cookout, so that’s an easy side, and these cutlets came out wonderfully, despite the assorted oozing of the filling.  It’s cheese.  It melts.  What do you expect?  Anyway, this is a GREAT and relatively easy dinner for nights when you just want to hit something.  Feel the catharsis?

Ingredients:

  • 2 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts
  • 1/2 cup frozen spinach (thawed and drained)
  • 1/2 cup diced baby bella mushrooms
  • 1/2 cup reduced fat feta cheese

Extra stuff you’ll need:

  • butcher’s twine or toothpicks (I prefer the twine)
  • cast iron skillet or meat mallet

Directions

  1. Take each chicken breast and starting on the fattest side, use a very sharp knife to slowly cut down the center.  The idea is that you’re opening the chicken like a book.  Be sure NOT to cut all the way through!  You one one biiiiiiiig piece of chicken.
  2. Place each opened chicken breast between two sheets of wax paper.  Grab your meat mallet or iron skillet and whack away at the chicken to flatten it out.  You’ll want to move anything nearby that’s breakable as this process shakes the counter.  Now come on, really wale on it.  This is where you take out all those frustrations with your boss/mother/husband/children/road hogs etc.  Doesn’t that feel good?  And you’re going to have some lovely, tender chicken as a result.
  3. Sprinkle both sides of the cutlets with kosher salt and fresh ground pepper.
  4. In a bowl mix together the spinach, mushrooms, and feta.
  5. For each cutlet lay out 2 to 3 long pieces of butcher’s twine.  We’ve got a lot of stuffing, so you’re going to have to tie it to keep it together.  I tried both lengthwise and crossways.  It’s up to you.
  6. Lay one cutlet flat over the twine and fill with half the cheese/veggie mixture.
  7. Carefully fold up/over the edges and tie with twine to hold together.  Poke any extra filling back through any holes.  You want to get this tight around the filling.  There may be method to this, but I winged it.
  8. Bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes or until the outside of the chicken starts to go a little golden.  It takes longer to cook than you’d think.  I started checking it at 30 minutes and had to keep adding time.
  9. Cut the twine before serving.  Be careful removing it so that your chicken doesn’t fall apart/open.

This is a lovely and filling entree that fits on both Sonoma and South Beach.  Enjoy at 336 calories and 7 grams of fat per serving.

Printable version.

Chicken Cutlets Stuffed With Spinach, Mushrooms, and Feta on Foodista

7 thoughts on “Chicken Cutlets Stuffed With Spinach, Mushrooms, and Feta

  1. How can we take you seriously when you are telling us to “whack away”?

    Excellent post. I think I will give this a try tomorrow. I have a lot of packs of frozen chicken just waiting to be made into NOM!

  2. My son just finished his AS degree, digital photography…. I remember him kinda scolding me not too long ago, “Ma copy your card to your computer and reformat with the camera before you loose it all and ruin the card!”

    Your chicken looks marvelous! I am going to try this, we eats lots of chicken. Thanks for sharing

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.