Spinach Stuffed Roasted Chicken
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Plan Z Phase: This is a Z2 (ZReduction) recipe from our dieting friend from Canada…Loretta. A unique way to stuff a chicken and a great dish for the entire family! If you are on ZReduction, you’ll eat the white meat (only boneless skinless chicken breasts are allowed on ZReduction). The rest of your family can eat the dark meat.
Servings: Serves 2. The spinach may serve as your vegetable but I found when feeding more than one person on this chicken it wasn’t enough because of shrinkage (you could always use more spinach in the roaster). I made green beans with lemon zest, as well as a salad.
Ingredients:
- 1 whole roasting chicken
Stuffing Ingredients:
- 10 oz bag spinach leaves
- 4 cloves garlic, chopped
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 6 oz canned bamboo shoots, diced
- 4 basil leaves, chopped
- 1/2 red pepper, diced
- 1 celery stalk, chopped
- 1/2 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp poultry seasoning
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
Chicken Rub:
- 4 Tbl garlic powder
- 4 Tbl onion powder
- 2 Tbl dried thyme
- 4 Tbl paprika
- 4 Tbl ground celery seed
- 1 Tbl black pepper
- 1 Tbl salt
Instructions:
Mix chicken rub ingredients in a small dish and set aside. Clean out and rinse the chicken. Remove any “chunks” of fat. Gently lift the skin of the breast and put some of the rub under the skin. Then rub the rest all over the chicken, even inside the cavity if you wish.
Empty the bag of spinach into a large bowl. Sauté the onion, garlic, bamboo shoots, red pepper, basil leaves, and celery for just a few minutes til softened. Sprinkle with the salt, pepper, cumin and poultry seasoning and mix. Pour over the bowl of spinach and stir together. The spinach will wilt a little but mix well. Stuff chicken as full as you can. Take remaining spinach mixture and lay it in the bottom of the roaster pan and lay the chicken on top. Do not add water or any liquid to pan. The chicken makes its own. Bake in oven at 350 for approximately 1 1/2 hrs. When it is done, the spinach will be well cooked and shrunk down a lot and it will be soaking in the juices of the chicken and the spices.
Loretta’s comments on this recipe:
If you are on Z2 – no matter how tempting it may be – remember to remove the skin from the chicken.
Enjoy!
Cheers,
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This was fantastic! It was a lot of work to take off the skin, but I did it! With the carcass, I boiled it long and hard, strained it, and was able to make my own chicken broth. It was awesome! We ate the leftovers for a couple days afterwards.
Stuffing aside, we can have whole chicken / dark meat on reduction? Confused how this is a reduction recipe. I’ll go look it up again.
Hi Georgia, great question. This recipe is designed to serve a family. If you are on ZReduction, you can have the breast without the skin, and your family can have the rest. Based on how the recipe is written I can see how that would be confusing! I just updated the recipe to include those notes. Thanks!