Spinach Melt Chicken

This is another Pinterest recipe that turned out pretty awesome!

Ingredients:

4-5 thin sliced chicken breasts
1/3 cup of flour
season salt, salt, pepper
3 tbs. olive oil
1 container of mushrooms
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 clove of garlic, minced
1/2 cup wine
1 package of raw baby spinach
splash of lemon juice (optional)
4 oz. cream cheese
2 tbs. butter
mozzarella (fresh or block)
freshly grated parmesan
3 tbs. fresh parsley (optional)

Directions:

Heat oil in fry pan at medium to medium high heat. Season chicken with season salt and pepper and dredge in flour.  Fry just until golden on both sides. You don't want it completely cooked through at this point because it will finish cooking in the oven.  Place in casserole dish.  Make sure dish is large enough to hold chicken without overlapping.  Wash and slice mushrooms, chop onion, and mince garlic.  Add mushroom and onion to pan, sauté at medium heat at least 5 minutes or more until browned.  Add garlic and sauté one minute more.  Add salt at the end. Deglaze pan with wine. Cook until wine is absorbed. Set mushrooms aside in bowl. Wash spinach and remove stems if necessary. Add spinach to pan and cook until fully wilted. Reduce heat to low, add cream cheese and stir around until fully melted. Add butter and stir until melted. Add salt and pepper and lemon juice. I always add lemon to spinach it just gives it a little pop of flavor. Make sure your spinach is well seasoned.  At this point, if it is too thick you can add a dash of cream or whole milk, but not too much. You want the spinach to be moist enough to not dry out in the oven but thick enough to stay in a glob on top of the chicken breast.  Remove from heat and fold in about 1/4 cup of grated parmesan. Fold mushrooms into spinach and mix well.  Add a heaping spoonful of creamed spinach mixture atop of each chicken breast dividing evenly among them.  Spread out spinach to cover entire piece of chicken.  Top each chicken piece with a healthy amount of mozzarella, sliced fresh mozzarella would be perfect if available, if not you can use a block of mozzarella and slice into thick pieces. Add more grated parmesan to the top of each. Sprinkle a little bit of parsley over the top. Bake at 350 degrees about 25 minutes.  Cheese should just be starting to brown on top.

When I made this recipe I used pre-shredded mozzarella because that was what I had on hand, and did this sort of last minute.  Next time I will definitely use fresh mozzarella. I think also next time I will marinate the chicken breast since this process does not really inhibit a lot of moisture into the chicken. Otherwise I really liked this recipe.  I am a big lover of spinach.  I think this would also work well with a large portabella mushroom for a vegetarian version. I served it with fried zucchini and ranch dressing on the side.