A few months ago, I was watching food network and I saw Chef Anne Burrell stuff chicken in a way I hadn’t tried before. Obviously I got all excited about it and took a whirl at it. Wouldn’t you know, it’s now my favorite way to stuff chicken breasts! In her episode of “Secrets of a Restaurant Chef,” Chef Anne used a delicious-looking goat cheese mixture to stuff her chicken breasts. I, unfortunately, had no goat cheese… Or any of the ingredients she used for that matter, aside from the chicken. So I got creative and made a spinach, mushroom, and ricotta stuffing and stuck to the way she stuffed the chicken. Although I baked my chicken, the original recipe calls for frying the chicken… Which is what I normally do, but I didn’t have the time to bread then fry the breasts. If you’re frying the chicken, follow the recipe below except instead of baking, dredge the chicken in seasoned flour, eggs, then Panko bread crumbs, let it sit for about 20 minutes (to let the breading set), and then fry over med, med-high heat.
I’ll try to explain the technique for stuffing the chicken, but in any case, I made a quick little video showing an accelerated step-by-step for the stuffed chicken recipe, including how to cut the chicken to stuff.

http://instagram.com/p/yu1eNnDmwe/

Stuffed Chicken Breasts
Ingredients
2 thick chicken breasts, room temperature
4 oz chopped spinach
1 clove garlic (minced)
1/3 cup chopped mushrooms
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup ricotta cheese
1/4 cup parmesan cheese (+a little extra for garnish)
Salt, pepper, garlic powder

Directions
Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.
In a hot skillet, cook the mushrooms and garlic in the melted butter and olive oil. Add in the spinach. Once wilted, add in about 1/4 tsp salt. Set aside.
While that mixture cools, prepare the chicken. Using a paring knife, make an incision in the thick end of each chicken breast. Insert the knife all the way into the chicken breast and slide it back and forth to create a pocket. Try not to poke the knife through the top or bottom of the chicken. Take your time! You don’t want to end up cutting yourself! Check out my video (link above) to look at the technique I used.
Once the chicken is cut, combine the spinach and mushroom mixture with the ricotta and parmesan. Place into a piping bag (or a ziploc bag, as I did, since I didn’t have a piping bag handy). Cut the tip off of the bag and pipe the stuffing into the chicken breasts. Once stuffed, season generously with salt, pepper, and garlic powder on both sides. (If frying instead of baking, begin to dredge in flour, eggs, then Panko here, and then fry in olive oil).
Drizzle with olive oil over the breasts and top with some parmesan. Bake at 425 for 20-25 minutes.

Let these pups rest for 5-8 minutes after you take them out of the oven… The stuffing will be like molten lava hot. Saving your tastebuds here.

Eat as is or top with your favorite marinara sauce!