Italian Chicken Roll Ups

Baked Italian Chicken Roll Ups: an easy showstopper dinner that is sure to become your family’s next favorite. Baked in Italian spices, melted cheese and marinara sauce, it's as beautiful as it is delicious. 

Hi friends! How are you today? No seriously, how are you after the hustle and bustle of Christmas? I feel like the weeks leading up to Christmas were pure insanity at our house, so Christmas came and went in a blink of an eye. I hate that.

In my head, I already made a promise to myself that next year we slow things way down the month of December. Life goes by to fast to be swept up in all the dumb things that don't matter.

Life also goes by too fast for you not to try this awesome recipe today. So you should in the following order, read, prep, cook, and eat these chicken roll ups super stat.

These baked Italian chicken roll ups are so tasty they have made it into our weekly dinner rotation. They are easy enough for a weeknight meal but so pretty and impressive when baked you could totally serve these pizza flavored chicken rolls to guests. 

Live up to the hype

Let’s be real here friends, baking chicken is always on the top of the list for recipes to find for weekday meals. But chicken recipes don't always live up to their hype.

I know how it is wanting a no fuss chicken dinner and still wanting it to be delicious. Well guess what?! These flavorful chicken roll ups live up to the hype. They are easy, and only use a handful of ingredients and are budget friendly. 

Annnnd in case you missed it, these chicken rolls taste like pizza because they are stuffed with an amazing dried italian herb blend, two different cheeses, and natural pepperoni.  Then you cover it with a jar of marinara sauce, top with more cheese and bake!

Pizza flavored anything makes it an automatic kid favorite! Fact.

There is something very satisfying about pulling this baked chicken out of the oven. It is bubbly, and cheesy and smells like you opened an Italian restaurant in your kitchen. 

Perfect for low carb or keto meals and is primal and gluten free so you can satisfy so many dietary goals in one dish, while making a chicken meal your kids will love! 

Ingredients for Italian Chicken Roll Ups

To make these chicken roll ups you will need:

• Chicken breast- boneless and skinless
• Marinara sauce- find your favorite flavor and make sure it is sugar free if you are watching carbs
• Italian herbs- a blend of basil, oregano, garlic and salt coats the inside of your chicken breast
• Cheese- this recipe will use mozzarella cheese and parmigiano reggiano cheese

That’s it!  

How to make chicken roll ups

Making these cheesy, flavorful rolls ups is super easy. The most time consuming part is using a meat mallet to pound the chicken thin. After that it is smooth sailing to the oven and into your mouth!

So we start with pounding the chicken breasts. Place two chicken breasts at a time in between two large pieces of saran wrap and beat with a meat mallet until your chicken is about ¼” thick. The thinner you make it the quicker it will cook and easier it will be to roll. Just be sure to make all chicken breasts even in size.

After you have pounded all of the chicken coat the inside of the chicken with the dried herb mixture. Just sprinkle evenly and rub it in. Next layer your pepperoni on the chicken. My chicken was large enough to place two pieces of pepperoni on each piece of chicken. Finally each piece of chicken will get 1 tablespoon of each cheese spread evenly ontop of the pepperoni. 

Rolling the chicken

The trick to rolling the chicken is to use a motion that is rolling forward at the same time you are pulling back. Makes zero sense right?  Let me try and explain more. 

Roll the chicken a little, then bring the entire breast back towards your body, roll a little more, and bring it back towards you. This helps make the roll a little more tighter so you have a nice pretty swirl when you cut it in half. This way you will be able to see all of the beautiful layers.

Place the chicken, seam side down, into a casserole dish that can withstand 450F temperature. Place ¼ cup marinara into the dish first than place each chicken breast into the casserole dish after rolling. They cook fine being close to each other. I used a casserole dish that was a little smaller than a 9x12.

Top it off

Once the chicken is rolled, top with remaining marinara sauce, add some more shredded mozzarella and then cover it with foil.

The chicken will bake with the foil on for 25-30 minutes. Be sure to check the chicken for doneness with a meat thermometer. It will be tricky otherwise because the chicken is rolled. The internal temperature should be 160F. 

After your chicken is 160F you will remove the foil and bake for 5 more minutes until the cheese is golden and bubbly. If needed you can always throw it under the broiler for a few minutes. Just keep a close watch on the cheese to ensure it doesn’t brown.  

There you have it! A kid friendly chicken recipe they will actually beg for you to make!

What do you think? Let me know below! Don't forget to Pin this for later ????

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