Chicken and Stuffing with Gravy
If you’re craving the flavors of Thanksgiving, but not quite ready for the big meal, this Chicken and Stuffing with Gravy is the perfect dinner for you! Deliciously seasoned chicken breasts are filled with stuffing and cranberries, and then smothered in rich, flavorful gravy. It’s the perfect comfort food recipe for dinner at home or for a fun Friendsgiving event. You could even double the recipe easily to serve a crowd. I served these stuffed chicken breasts with my Stovetop Green Beans with Almonds, and found the combination to be super tasty and filling! Each piece of this Chicken and Stuffing with Gravy is just 389 calories, or 6 WW Points on Weight Watchers. To view and track this recipe in the WW app, click here!
What should I serve this with?
This Chicken and Stuffing with Gravy would pair well with a variety of tasty side dishes! It’s pictured here with my Stovetop Green Beans with Almonds, but I also think it would pair nicely with other veggie sides like my Easy Slow Cooker Carrots, Maple Bacon Butternut Squash and Apple Bake, Bacon Broccoli Side Skillet, or Green Bean Casserole. I also think it would be terrific with my Stovetop Cinnamon Apples, Roasted Fingerling Potatoes, or Classic Mashed Potatoes.
What Stuffing Should I Use?
You can use your preferred brand of dry seasoned stuffing mix in this recipe! If you use a boxed variety, like Stove Top Chicken Stuffing, you’ll want to make sure to thoroughly mix it before measuring out 3 ounces (half the box), because the seasoning may fall to the bottom. If you use a bagged type like Pepperidge Farm Herb Seasoned Classic Stuffing, in my experience it’s usually all combined so you can likely just measure out the 3 ounces and the seasoning will be there.
Searing the Chicken
This step can be a little messy, but totally worth it to get a nice golden sear on your chicken. It’s a little tricky to transfer the stuffed chicken to the pan and flip it over, but don’t worry about it! The stuffing should mostly stay inside the chicken, and if a few cranberries or stuffing pieces fall out, you can easily just stuff them back in once the chicken is moved to the baking sheet before putting them in the oven.
Chicken Cutlets
I often buy a big pack of boneless, skinless chicken breasts at the store and then use kitchen shears to trim them down to make 4-6 oz cutlets to use in recipes. For this Chicken and Stuffing with Gravy, my cutlets were about 6 ounces each. Everything I cut off of the breasts to make the cutlets gets cut into chunks to make chicken bites, such as my Nashville Hot Chicken Bites, BBQ Rubbed Chicken Bites, Lemon Pepper Chicken Bites, or Blackened Chicken Bites. It’s easy to weigh out 1 lb or 1.5 lb of chicken chunks and some 6 oz cutlets and freeze them for later in quart size freezer bags. That way, I always have some cutlets and some chicken bites on hand! Buying the bulk packs of chicken breasts is cost-effective, and cutting them into cutlets and bites ensured I have what I need on hand when I go to make a recipe. I find that kitchen shears make this task go quicker and easier than using a knife, so I highly recommend using shears like these (affiliate link).
More Tasty Lightened Up Chicken Recipes
Looking for more tasty, lightened up chicken recipes like this Chicken and Stuffing with Gravy? Check out my Mushroom and Mozzarella Stuffed Chicken, Cheesy Bacon Ranch Stuffed Chicken, Cheesy Garden Vegetable Baked Chicken, Mexican Street Corn Chicken, Cheesy Broccoli Stuffed Chicken, Crispy Onion Dip Chicken, Crispy Chicken Parmesan, Apple and Brie Stuffed Chicken, Cream Cheese and Herb Stuffed Chicken, Tuscan Olive Chicken, Pimento Cheese Stuffed Chicken, Cream Cheese Stuffed Everything Chicken, and many more in the Chicken section of my recipe index!
Chicken and Stuffing with Gravy
Ingredients
- 2 cups reduced sodium chicken broth, divided
- 3 oz seasoned stuffing mix, (see notes above)
- 1 oz sweetened dried cranberries
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- ¼ teaspoon dried thyme
- ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
- 4 (6 oz each) boneless skinless chicken breasts, 24 oz total (if you buy large breasts, trim them to 6 ounces each)
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 tablespoons light butter, (I use Land O’Lakes light butter with canola oil in the tub)
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- ¼ teaspoon Better Than Bouillon Chicken Base
- ¼ teaspoon Gravy Master seasoning and browning sauce, (or Kitchen Bouquet)
Instructions
- Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set it aside.
- Place ¾ cup of the chicken broth in a small saucepan and bring it to a boil. Once boiling, add the stuffing mix and dried cranberries and stir together until combined. Cover the pot and remove from heat. Allow the stuffing to sit covered for five minutes and then uncover and fluff with a fork.
- Place the chicken breasts on a cutting board. Using a sharp knife, slice the breasts from the side (creating a top and bottom) almost all the way through. In a small dish, combine the ½ teaspoon salt, ¼ teaspoon pepper, ¼ teaspoon thyme, and ¼ teaspoon garlic powder and stir together. Keeping the chicken breasts folded shut, sprinkle the seasoning over the tops of the breasts and flip over to sprinkle over the bottoms. Flip the breasts back over and open them up.
- With each breast open at the slit, divide the stuffing between each open chicken breast, about 1/3 cup each. Spread the stuffing evenly across one side the open chicken. Close the breasts, folding the top half back over the stuffing and press it down.
- In a large skillet, add the olive oil and bring over medium-high heat (if your skillet or sauté pan doesn’t fit all four breasts, just cook two breasts at a time with 1 ½ teaspoons of oil each round). Add the stuffed chicken breasts to the pan and cook for about 1 minute until the bottoms are golden. Flip the breasts and cook for another minute on the other side. Transfer the breasts to the prepared baking sheet and stuff any errant stuffing back in if needed. Place in the pre-heated oven. Bake for 18-22 minutes until chicken is fully cooked through.
- While the chicken is baking, rinse out the small saucepan you used to make the stuffing and place it back on the stove, Add the two tablespoons of light butter and melt over medium-low heat. Add the flour and whisk to combine into a paste. Whisk the remaining 1 & ¼ cups broth in a little bit at a time, stirring to combine as you go so that the flour mixture dissolves smoothly into the broth. Add the Better Than Bouillon and Gravy Master and whisk into the gravy. Raise the heat to bring it to a boil, stirring regularly, and then reduce the heat to low to simmer. Simmer uncovered for a few minutes until the gravy thickens.
- When the chicken is done baking, serve each stuffed chicken breast with about ¼ cup of gravy to pour over the top.
Notes
389 calories, 26 g carbs, 7 g sugars, 12 g fat, 3 g saturated fat, 43 g protein, 1 g fiber, 739 mg sodium (from myfitnesspal.com) Weight Watchers Points Plus:
10 per (1 stuffed chicken breast with gravy) serving (PP calculated using a Weight Watchers PointsPlus calculator and the nutrition info below)
