Chicken Florentine Recipe

If your looking for an easy chicken recipe that will impress, then this chicken florentine recipe is the answer. Because we are using a white wine to deglaze the pan it will add so much flavor and will balance the heavy cream that is in the cream sauce.

The fresh spinach will add some color to the creamy sauce that covers the browned chicken breasts. And don’t forget the freshly grated parmesan cheese that makes the dish shine.

How to Make Chicken Florentine Video

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Chicken Florentine Meaning

Today, Chicken Florentine served on a bed of spinach with Mornay sauce poured over top, but more often the chicken is pan-fried and served directly in the sauce

How to make chicken florentine 6 Steps

Follow these simple steps to get an incredible-tasting chicken florentine for your next dinner meal.

I like to get all of my ingredients ready to go so it is really simple to cook the dish. You don’t want to be trying to gather things when you need to concentrate on cooking the dish.

This is a very simple dinner recipe that everyone will enjoy.

1. Prepare the chicken

Flatten or slice the chicken into manageable pieces that are about ½ in thickness. I prefer to slice them with a chef knife then beat them with a mallet. I have a great way on how to cut up a whole chicken.

Lightly salt them with kosher salt.

2. Prepare the vegetables and cheese

Shallots

Mince the shallots as fine as you can. The shallots are going into the pan sauce so that is why you want to get them really fine. I have a great post on how to cut shallots if you are interested.

Shallots will introduce a mild onion flavor that will really pop in the creamy cheese sauce.

Garlic

Make sure your garlic has not gone bad. Mince the garlic as well, same as the shallots, you want the garlic as fine as possible seeing that it will be in the Parmesan pan sauce. Learn how to cut garlic.

Spinach

The spinach you’re going to leave whole but you want to wash it first if it wasn’t bought washed. If you have some really big stems then you want to remove them, nothing worse than chomping on a thick stem in a refined dish like this.

Always make sure that your spinach has not gone bad.

Chop about half a cup of spinach really fine, you will add it to the pan sauce later.

I prefer to use baby spinach for this recipe. A lot of people also like to add mushrooms that will also go very well in the rich sauce.

Parmigiano-Reggiano

The Parmesan cheese brings so much flavor to this dish. I can not stress enough that you want to buy cheese that you will grate yourself.

There is only one kind of parmesan to use and that’s Parmigiano-Reggiano.

3. Saute the chicken

We are now going to cook the chicken. The idea here is to brown it and not to cook it completely through.

Add olive oil to pan

In a large frying pan, you want to get the pan hot on medium heat and then add your oil.

The reason I use extra virgin olive oil is that I can get the pan nice and hot so that the chicken Florentine does not absorb a bunch of oil and is not brown.

Dredge the chicken breast

Dredge the chicken breast in the flour. The goal is to get a nice even coat on the chicken.

This is going to help give it a nice brown color.

Brown the chicken

As soon as you get a nice brown color on one side of the chicken go ahead and flip it over. You don’t want to overcook the chicken but you want to get it nice and brown.

As soon as it is brown on both sides your want to pull the chicken from the pan, but keep the pan to make the delicious pan sauce.

4. Chicken florentine pan sauce

This creamy sauce is what really makes this dish shine. It helps balance the bitterness of the spinach. If you love cheese then it will not disappoint.

Saute the shallots and garlic

Add butter

Add butter to the pan working it all the way around. Make sure not to burn the butter, if the pan is to hot turn it down or even take the pan off the heat for just a minute.

Add shallots and garlic

Add the shallots and garlic into the melting butter. Keep it all moving in the pan to make sure that it does not burn.

Deglaze the pan

Add the white wine

Add the white wine and let it do its thing for a minute. You can move it around a bit to make sure that it gets incorporated.

Homemade chicken stock

Add the chicken stock. I use homemade chicken stock and this also helps with the incredible flavor of the chicken Florentine dish.

Make the cream sauce

heavy cream

Add the heavy cream. Make sure that the pan is not to hot as you will burn the cream. Keep stirring to prevent it from sticking.

parmesan cheese

Add that incredible cheese that is going to add some umami do the dish. Keep it moving to prevent sticking.

chopped spinach

Now that chopped spinach we set aside was to add some color to the sauce. It will really make the final product pop.

salt and pepper

Add salt and pepper and taste. It is really important to watch the amount of salt you add seeing that the cheese will give it a lot of salt flavor.

After you make the sauce simmer it for a bit and keep it moving around the pan. Add the chicken back to the pan and let it simmer until the chicken is cooked to 160 degrees and the sauce is thickened.

5. Saute the spinach

Heat butter

Add 2 tbsp of butter to a new pan. Make sure that the pan is not too hot so that you burn the butter.

Saute spinach

Add all the spinach to the pan and let it wilt. Try to incorporate all the butter into the spinach. As soon as it is all pretty much wilted pull off the heat.

6. Plate the chicken florentine

Add the freshly cooked spinach to a plate. You want to create a bed for the chicken breast.

Add the chicken breast over the spinach and top it with some of the delicious cheese pan sauce that you made. Add some fresh garlic toast and you have yourself a dish!

Ingredients

Equipment

Recipe Tips

• Change the flavor of the chicken with using chicken thighs instead of chicken breast.
• Do not forget to brown the chicken, this is what going to bring some incredible flavor to the chicken.
• Using organic products will be a healthier solution to this dish.
• I really like using baby spinach, the stems are shorter and they dont intefer with that perfect bite!

What to Serve with Chicken Florentine

• when you have a pasta dish like this your really need some type of bread. My texas toast garlic bread will really impress!
• I would also consider having a garden salad. This can be a refreshing side that will balance out the rich flavor of the chicken florentine.

How to store leftover chicken florentine

After it has cooled I would add it to an airtight sealed container. Put it in the fridge and try to finish it within a few days.