This chicken roulade spinach recipe will guide you through every step of making chicken roulade with spinach and garlic. Make this recipe with fresh or frozen spinach! It takes under 20 minutes to make and shows you how to butterfly, flatten, fill, roll, and cook your chicken roulade yourself.
Make this impressive but easy chicken roulade recipe for a date night. We promise this chicken roulade spinach dish will transport you from your homes to a lovely fine dining restaurant.
In this post, we’ll cover some of these topics:
Let’s have a look at what roulade means before we make this chicken roulade spinach dish.
What Does Roulade Mean?
Roulade is a type of cooking technique that involves a thin layer of meat or pastry that is filled and rolled. This technique is said to have originated in France and Italy but variations of this dish can be found throughout the European continent.
What is chicken roulade? Chicken roulade is a piece of chicken that has been pounded thinly, stuffed with a filling, rolled into a log and cooked. It’s typically served with a side and a sauce.
This recipe of chicken roulade is made with chicken breast and paired with spinach and garlic. We love this technique because it’s so versatile and everything in this chicken roulade spinach dish can be made ahead of time.
Chicken roulade is very popular but did you know that there are plenty of other types of roulade? Even dessert roulades!
Types Of Roulade
Putting the thought of chicken dessert aside, ‘roulade’ is less of a dish and more of a technique of filling thin layers of meat or pastry and rolling it. Here are 2 types of roulades:
- Savory
- Sweet
Savory
Savory roulades are very common but chicken roulade isn’t the only kind out there. There are fish, turkey, and meat roulades too. Germans have a traditional dish called Rinderroulade made from thin strips of beef that’s filled with bacon, onions, and pickles.
Roulades can be baked, steamed or braised. French chicken roulades are also known as poulet farci and utilize the same techniques to make roulade but various cooking methods like sous vide. Which is what we’re going to do today.
Sweet
Sweet roulades may sound funny but they’re not as uncommon as you think. For example, a yule log cake or swiss roll is technically a type of sweet roulade. It’s a thin layer of cake that is filled and rolled into a log.
We’ve been talking a lot about flattening, filling and rolling. But now it’s time to learn exactly how to do that in the next section: roulade technique.
How To Prepare Chicken Breast For Roulade
This chicken roulade spinach dish starts with a chicken breast that is transformed into a fine dining experience with 4 steps:
- Butterflying
- Flattening
- Rolling
- Tightening
Let’s start of with the first step of chicken roulade recipes: butterflying the chicken
Butterflying
Butterflying meat is a technique that means making a horizontal cut half way through the meat. The butterflied meat is not cut all the way through and is opened like a book. To make this process cleaner, line the cutting board with cling film/saran wrap.
Place your hand on top of the chicken and make long slicing cuts through the middle of the breast. Gently pull the chicken breast open as you cut.
This is what it should look like:
The next step is flattening the chicken out into a thin layer.
Flattening
This step is crucial for two reasons. A thin uniform layer will cook more evenly and it will make it easier to fill and roll the chicken roulade spinach dish.
Add another piece of cling film/saran wrap on top of the butterflied chicken before you start flattening it. You can use anything heavy to flatten the chicken, like a pan, meat tenderizer/hammer, or a rolling pin.
Aim to get it under half an inch or 1cm thickness.
Get rid of the top layer of cling film/saran wrap and spread on a thin layer of the spinach and garlic filling.
When that’s done, we can start rolling up this chicken roulade.
Rolling
Remember that bottom layer of cling film/saran wrap we started with? Use that to start rolling the filled chicken breast into a log. Don’t worry about making it tight or getting the perfect log.
The final step will work like magic and shape your roulade perfectly.
Tightening
Twist the ends of the cling film/saran wrap. Hold on to each side and roll the chicken log towards you. Use a sliding motion against the surface. The chicken log will begin to compress and tighten to form a sausage shape.
Repeat this step 3-4 times until you’re happy with the shape. Tie the ends into a knot and voila. The perfect chicken roulade! Lets get cooking now that you’ve got the technique down. This recipe uses sous vide cooking. Which is essentially vacuum sealing the chicken roulade in a ziplock bag and cooking it in a waterbath.
The roulade is later browned in a pan with some oil or butter.
How To Make Chicken Roulade Spinach Recipe
A general rule of thumb is that warm chicken roulade fillings need to be made first so that the filling has time to cool before adding it into the chicken.
To make this easy roulade recipe filling, add spinach in a pan on medium heat. Saute fresh spinach for 3-4 minutes until it’s dry. This recipe can also be made with frozen spinach. Cook frozen spinach for 5-7 minutes.
Add the garlic to the spinach and saute them together for another minute or 2. Adding the garlic at a later stage will prevent it from burning. Set this mix aside and prepare your chicken.
Prepare your chicken using the roulade technique explained above. Butterfly and flatten your chicken. Then add the filling onto the chicken. Roll this into a log and secure the ends of the chicken roulade.
Tighten the log by twisting both ends of the chicken roulade and rolling it towards you. Secure the ends into a knot. Bring a large pot of water to a gentle simmer. It’s time to vacuum seal this chicken roulade spinach log and sous vide it.
Meanwhile, place the chicken roulade into a ziplock bag and seal it up. Leave a small gap at one end and slip a straw through. Suck out as much air as possible.
Place the chicken into the water and cook for 10-11 minutes.
Take the chicken roulade spinach log out and set it aside to cool. Remove it from the bag once it’s cool enough.
Heat a pan on medium high heat and add some butter or olive oil. Sear each side for about 30 seconds to a minute until each side is golden brown.
Here’s an alternate method if you want to cook this recipe of chicken roulade in the oven:
Make This Chicken Roulade In The Oven
This recipe also works as a baked chicken roulade dish. If you’re wondering how long does chicken take to bake, it actually has to do with the weight of your chicken.
Chicken breasts that weigh about 4 oz or 113 grams need 20-30 minutes in an oven at 350f or 176c. Looking for a sauce for your chicken roulade spinach dish? Click here for a chicken roulade sauce recipe to go perfectly with this chicken roulade spinach dish!
This post also has a ton of chicken roulade filling ideas and is a mediterranean style sundried tomato olive tapenade filled chicken roulade dish. The next section is perfect if you’ve got a lot of chicken roulade stuffing ideas but not sure what to serve with your chicken roulade.
What To Serve With Chicken Roulade
Now that you’ve made this recipe for chicken roulade with spinach, here are some side dishes you can serve with your chicken roulade:
- Low FODMAP Carrot Sage Puree
- Loaded baked potatoes
- Potato gratin
- Roasted pumpkin with whipped feta and garlic beans
- Pumpkin puree
- Sautéed mushrooms with thyme, garlic, and cream.
- Roasted veggies like cauliflower, zucchini, or potatoes
- Air Fryer garlic broccoli
That’s the end of this chicken roulade spinach dish recipe guide, folks. Who knew making chicken spinach roulade was this easy? Now you can have fine dining chicken roulade in the comfort of your own homes. And score come bonus points by impressing your loved ones with this deceptively simple and delicious chicken roulade spinach dish.
Want more chicken roulade recipes? Check out our Mediterranean Chicken Roulade With Sauce
Chicken Roulade With Garlic Spinach
Fancy restaurant style chicken roulade with spinach at home is possible with this easy recipe guide. Learn how to butterfly, flatter, roll, and cook juicy chicken roulade with just a few ingredients!
Ingredients
- 2 Chicken breasts (1 breast serves two people) ours were about 200g each
- Spinach Filling:
- 225g fresh or frozen spinach (about 1 cup of cooked spinach)
- 1 clove garlic or 1 tbsp garlic infused oil
- Salt to taste
- CHICKEN ROULADE SAUCE RECIPE HERE
Instructions
SPINACH FILLING:
In a pan, add a little bit of olive oil and cook the spinach for 3-4 minutes on medium high heat.
Add the garlic and saute for another minute. The spinach mix should not be too wet. Adding the garlic after the spinach is 70-80% cooked prevents the garlic from burning.
Set it aside to cool and prepare the chicken.
PREPARE THE CHICKEN:
You can ask your butcher to butterfly and flatten the chicken breast for you to save time.
Line the cutting board with a layer of cling film/saran wrap. Place the chicken breast on it.
Slice the chicken breast down the center (see blog for picture guide and instructions).
Place another piece of cling film/saran wrap over the butterflied chicken breast.
Grab a rolling pin/meat cleaver/ or heavy pan and flatten the chicken breast. Try to get it as flat/uniformed as possible. It should be under half an inch (1cm) thick.
Remove the first layer of cling film/saran wrap and place the filling on top of the chicken breast.
Use the bottom layer of cling film/saran wrap to start rolling the chicken breast into a log.
Twists both sides closed and start rolling/sliding the chicken log towards you.
The chicken log should tighten and start to form a perfect sausage shape.
Secure the ends into a knot.
Repeat this step for the other chicken breast.
Place this chicken lock in a ziplock bag and remove as much air as you can from the bag.
COOKING THE CHICKEN ROULADE: Sous vide method at home
*see notes to bake chicken roulade in the oven.
Bring a large pot of water to a simmer (Not a rolling boil).
Place the ziplock bag with the chicken roulade into the simmering water for 10-11 minutes.
After 10 minutes, remove the roulade from the water and let it cool slightly.
Remove the chicken roulade from the ziplock bag and cut off one end of the cling film/saran wrap knots and slip the chicken roulade out onto a cutting board.
Heat a pan with some olive oil on medium high heat. Add the chicken roulade to the pan when it's smoking hot. Sear each side for 30 seconds or until browned.
Let the chicken roulade rest on the board while you prepare the sauce.
Notes
- Ask your butcher to butterfly and flatten the chicken breast to save time.
- Frozen spinach takes 5-7 minutes to cook. Fresh spinach cooks and dries out in 3-5 minutes.
- To make this recipe in the oven, chill the chicken roulade in the fridge for 30 minutes to an hour before baking. Bake chicken breasts that weigh about 4 oz or 113grams 20-30 minutes in an oven at 350f or 176c.
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