Skillet Creamy Tuscan Chicken:
Juicy seared chicken breasts bathed in a creamy Tuscan sauce loaded with spinach, sun dried tomatoes, garlic, and of course cream! This is the perfect dinner for using chicken breasts.
This is a simple recipe for chicken breasts that is loaded with flavor. Creamy Tuscan Chicken is fancy enough for company, but simple enough for a midweek meal on a busy night. Serve over penne pasta, or with a delicious garden salad for a complete meal.
Why go out for tuscan chicken from Cheesecake Factory when you can make it at home?
This single skillet creamy tuscan chicken is the ultimate in easy, comforting, and delicious chicken recipes. The creamy garlic tuscan sauce is flavorful and delicious, and the perfect topper for a beautifully seared chicken breast. And because it is all cooked in one skillet, clean up is a breeze. This is a go to at our house, for obvious reasons. But don’t take my word for it, make one of the best chicken recipes out there and see for yourself.
The beautiful thing about this Tuscan chicken is that it is so simple to make. The method is pretty easy:
- Sear your chicken on each side.
- Make your sauce
- Combine the two for a perfect blending of flavors.
How long do chicken pieces take to cook in a pan?
This creamy tuscan chicken recipe has cream…go figure, which means you don’t want to totally cook your chicken in the sauce or the sauce could curdle or get lumpy. So instead you start your chicken and give it a nice sear on each side. And cook it most of the way through.
How long it takes to cook a piece of chicken in a pan depends on a lot of factors, such as how hot your pan is, how thick your chicken breast is, etc. So to help the process along, and insure your chicken is fully cooked you are going to use a meat mallet. You will pound your chicken so it is an even thickness throughout.
Once you have pounded it to an even thickness, you will sear it in a pan.
How do you pan sear chicken?
Pan searing chicken is a fairly simple cooking method. You want the pan to be hot, and you want some fat (oil or butter), and then you will sear it for 5-7 minutes a side, until the internal temperature reaches 165 degrees, and the exterior is nice and golden brown. A few tips:
- Pat chicken dry so you can get a nice sear, instead of steaming the outside.
- Make sure your skillet is hot before you put the chicken in it. And that you have a quality skillet so heat is evenly distributed.
- Use a fat of some kind, butter or oil.
- Cook on one side for 5-7 minutes until the edges start to turn opaque, and then you flip it.
- Use a meat thermometer to get perfectly cooked chicken.
Normally, you want your chicken to reach an internal temperature of 165 degrees, but for this recipe, because we add the sauce later, and cook the chicken a little longer in the sauce, the ideal temperature to cook to before the sauce is about 160 degrees.
Tips for Creamy Tuscan Chicken Sauce
The best tip I can give you for getting a luscious and creamy garlic tuscan chicken sauce is to wait to add the cream until almost everything else is done. You want those tasty flavors to develop, but you don’t want to overcook your cream.
What is in Tuscan Chicken?
For this creamy tuscan chicken recipe, I utilize a few key ingredients that tend to blend together so beautifully that you want to put them on everything, from shrimp, to chicken, to vegetables. They are as follows:
- Sun dried tomatoes
- Garlic
- Spinach
Whether you are making a tuscan chicken pasta, a creamy tuscan garlic chicken, or some other variation of a tuscan chicken recipe, these are going to be your staple go to’s. When combined with rich heavy whipping cream, and turned into a sauce, you get this mellow, but delightful flavor combination with hints of the mediterranean, and everything you want from sun dried tomatoes. Delicious.
What do you serve with Creamy Tuscan Chicken?
This is one of my favorite dishes to make because it is versatile and easy. You can serve it with spaghetti or pasta, over rice, with mashed potatoes, or just a big green salad and crusty bread. A few of my favorite recipes from Eazy Peazy to serve with it include:
- Garlic Bread Twists or Crusty Artisan Bread made in the crock pot!
- Instant Pot Artichokes make an excellent side dish.
- I LOVE serving this with Instant Pot Mac and Cheese!
Enjoy!
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Creamy Tuscan Skillet Chicken
Ingredients
- 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts pounded to even thickness
- 2 Tbs olive oil
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic
- 3 cups fresh spinach leaves chopped
- 1/2 cup sundried tomatoes chopped
- 1/2 cup chicken broth
- 1/2 cup heavy cream or other milk
Instructions
- Place chicken between pieces of plastic wrap, and use a meat mallet to pound chicken until even thickness
- Season with salt and pepper on both sides.
- Put olive oil in a large skillet, and turn on to medium heat.
- Cook for 5-7 minutes on each side over medium heat until browned and cooked through. Transfer to a plate and cover to keep warm.
- To same skillet add spinach, garlic, and sundried tomatoes to skillet and saute over medium heat for 1-2 minutes until garlic is fragrant.
- Add chicken broth and stir another 2-3 minutes until spinach is wilted, scrape any brown bits off the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon.
- Add heavy cream and stir, let simmer another 4-6 minutes, stirring occassionally until liquid is reduced and creamy.
- Add chicken into skillet, and cook until sauce is reduced to desired thickness.
- Taste, and season with salt and fresh cracked pepper to preference.
- Serve
Notes
Nutrition
Our recipe card software calculates these nutrition facts based on averages for the above ingredients, different brands, and quality of produce/meats may have different nutritional information, always calculate your own based on the specific products you use in order to achieve accurate macros for this recipe.
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