Garlic Wine Chicken (Olive Garden Copycat)

Garlic Wine Chicken is one of the best recipes I ever came up with and I did it by just pulling random ingredients out of the fridge! With it's short and simple ingredient list, you can whip up a batch without even having to go shopping!

I created this dish because my usually not-so picky 9 year old didn't like my made-at-home Chinese dinner. How she didn't like it is beyond me as we love Chinese food (and who doesn't?)!! After forcing her to eat it the first night my mom guilt set in and I decided to cook her something I knew she would love. While I was cooking this delicious on-the-spot dish, my kitchen began to smell like Olive Garden. That's when I knew it was going to be a success. It was so good that I skipped the Chinese myself! I closed my eyes, pretended I was out to dinner and enjoyed the creamy meal. If your a fan of Italian style chicken and sauce, or just LOVE Olive Garden like I do, you need to give this dish a try! It's made to serve 2 (perfect for date-night in) but can easily be doubled to feed a whole family.

You Need:

• 1 large chicken breast (.75-1lb)
• 2 tbs oil
• 1 tbs corn starch
• 1/2 onion
• 1/2 roasted red bell pepper (I used jarred)
• 1/2 cup packed baby spinach
• 1 tsp minced garlic (about one small clove)
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 1/4 tsp salt
• pinch ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp basil
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 1/2 cup whole milk

1. Filet the chicken breast in half.
2. Cut each half into strips and then cut the strips in half.
3. Add 1 Tbs oil to a large pan. Once the pan is nice and hot, add the chicken and cook over high heat for about 5 minutes to sear all sides of the chicken. The chicken will not be totally done cooking yet and that's okay! It will finish cooking later on.
4. Move the chicken into a bowl. Add the corn starch and mix until the chicken is coated.

1. Cut half of an onion into slices.
2. Dice the roasted red pepper and give the spinach a quick chop to make the pieces a little smaller. You don't want to chop up the spinach too much because it will shrink down once you cook it.
3. Add another tablespoon of oil to the pan with the chopped onion and garlic. Cook over medium heat until the onions soften and caramelize as shown in the last picture. This should take about 8-10 minutes.

1. Once the onions are soft add the wine to deglaze the pan. Using a spoon scrape up anything that has stuck to the pan. It has a ton of flavor!
2. Add the chicken stock, basil, salt and pepper and stir.
3. Return the chicken to the pan and add the milk, red pepper and spinach. Stir the ingredients together and simmer for 10-15 minutes until the chicken is cooked through and the sauce thickens up a bit.

You can enjoy this dish as is or put it over pasta (like Olive Garden would do!) or even rice. I served mine with angle hair pasta because I really love the texture of angle hair and the sauce is the perfect consistency to give the noodles a nice coating. Now relax and enjoy this restaurant style meal in the comfort of your own home.