Creamy Tuscan Chicken

Summer hit Lexington like a hammer this week. Ninety-one degrees on Wednesday, which on a construction site feels like a hundred and ten because you're working in direct sun with no shade and the concrete radiates heat upward while the sun beats down and you're basically a chicken on a rotisserie, which is appropriate because I'm going to talk about rotisserie chicken today, but I'll get there.

Construction in summer is a young man's game. I am not a young man. I am a forty-eight-year-old man with a bad back and knees that sound like a bag of popcorn when I go up stairs. My crew — guys in their twenties and thirties — handle the heat like it's nothing. I handle it like a man who knows his limits and exceeds them anyway because the house needs to be framed by Friday. We drink a gallon of water each and sweat it out by noon and drink another gallon and sweat that out too. By four o'clock, I'm a salt lick in a hard hat.

When it's this hot, I don't want to stand in front of a stove. Nobody does. This is when the grill and the fire pit earn their keep. But even grilling feels like too much effort in ninety-degree heat, so this week I did something Betty would consider borderline criminal: I bought a rotisserie chicken from Kroger.

Now, I know what you're thinking. A man who's been preaching about scratch cooking and Betty's recipes and the importance of tradition just bought a pre-cooked chicken from the grocery store. I hear you. Betty would hear you. Betty would also remind you that she raised six children on a coal miner's salary and there were nights when dinner was whatever she could get on the table in twenty minutes, and she would not judge a man for buying a five-dollar chicken on a Wednesday in June when it's ninety-one degrees and his back is aching and his wife is tired and his son is hungry NOW, not in an hour.

Here's what I did with that rotisserie chicken: I pulled all the meat off — took about ten minutes. From one five-dollar chicken, I got enough meat for three meals. Meal one: chicken salad sandwiches. Chopped chicken, celery, a little onion, Duke's mayo, salt, pepper, on white bread. Connie and I ate that for dinner Wednesday. Meal two: chicken quesadillas for Clay on Thursday — shredded chicken, shredded cheese, in a tortilla on a dry skillet. He ate four. Meal three: I threw the carcass in a pot with water and onion and celery and made stock, which went into the freezer for future soup. Three meals and a stock from one five-dollar bird. Betty would approve the economics, even if she'd side-eye the source.

Clay's out of school now. Summer stretches ahead of him like a flat road with no speed limit. He's signed up for a football training camp in July and he's supposed to mow lawns for spending money, emphasis on "supposed to." So far, summer has been sleeping until noon, eating everything in the house, and playing video games in the basement. Connie says this is normal. I say this is what happens when a generation doesn't have to go into the mines at seventeen. I'm not complaining — I'm grateful he doesn't have to go into the mines. But I sometimes wish he'd mow the lawn without me having to ask. Three times. Loudly.

With Clay eating everything in the house and summer stretching out ahead of us, I figured I’d give him something worth waking up for—something that felt a little more like a real dinner than quesadillas thrown together at midnight. Creamy Tuscan Chicken is the kind of meal that sounds like effort but comes together in thirty minutes, which means even I can pull it off after a long day of asking someone three times to mow the lawn. It’s rich, it’s filling, and it disappears fast—which, in this house, is the highest compliment a recipe can get.

Prep Time: 5 min | Cook Time: 25 min | Total Time: 30 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 6–8 oz each), pounded to even thickness
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 tbsp olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes in oil, drained and roughly chopped
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup chicken broth (or the good stuff you made from that carcass)
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan
2 cups fresh baby spinach
Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Season the chicken. Pat the chicken breasts dry and season both sides with garlic powder, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper.
Sear the chicken. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add chicken and cook 5–6 minutes per side until golden brown and cooked through to 165°F internal. Transfer to a plate and tent with foil.
Build the sauce. Reduce heat to medium. In the same pan, add the minced garlic and sun-dried tomatoes. Cook 1 minute, stirring, until fragrant.
Add the cream. Pour in the heavy cream and chicken broth. Stir to combine, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Let it simmer 3–4 minutes until it starts to thicken.
Add Parmesan and spinach. Stir in the Parmesan until melted and smooth. Add the spinach and stir until wilted, about 1–2 minutes. Taste the sauce and adjust salt and pepper.
Return the chicken. Nestle the chicken breasts back into the pan and spoon sauce over the top. Simmer 2 minutes to warm through. Serve directly from the pan over pasta, rice, or with crusty bread to catch the sauce.

Nutrition (per serving)

Creamy Tuscan Chicken — The Thirty-Minute Dinner a Hot and Tired Construction Man Makes When the Rotisserie Chicken Is Already Gone