Using refrigerated puff pastry is a culinary trick that can make you look like a fancy pastry chef. Our recipe for Braided Chicken Pastry Roll looks great and will impress those you are serving, and it tastes delicious as well.
While authentic chefs may make their own puff pastry from scratch, most home cooks know that hand-made puff pastry isn’t really that much better than the stuff that is available in stores. When you buy manufactured puff pastry, all of a sudden all kinds of amazing, delicious, and beautiful pastries are now within your reach.
Whether you are stuffing it with sweet and fruity ingredients, or savory, cheesy meats with herbs, puff pastry makes baking for parties and potlucks simple. This refrigerated dough bakes up like magic into crispy, buttery, golden-brown layers.
Braided Chicken Pastry Roll Recipe
With shredded chicken, veggies, and cheese in a tasty sauce and surrounded by a crisp and fluffy puff pastry crust, this recipe for Braided Chicken Pastry Roll will make a great appetizer for your next party or even could serve as a main dish for dinner one night this week. This recipe comes together fairly quickly, and you need no difficult techniques or specialized equipment to create it in your kitchen. With a distinctive braided appearance, it looks absolutely amazing, and it tastes even better.
Equipment
- Medium-Sized Saucepan
- Medium-sized mixing bowl
- Two Forks
- Baking Sheet
- Rolling Pin
- Sharp knife
Ingredients
- ½ cup Mayonnaise
- 2 tbsp Dijon Mustard
- 3 tbsp Chopped Fresh Parsley
- 6 pcs Chicken Tenders
- 1½ cups Shredded Cheese
- ½ cup Frozen Peas
- 1 package Refrigerated Puff Pastry if you bought frozen puff pastry, allow it to thaw overnight in the refrigerator before you use it
Instructions
- In a medium saucepan, cover the chicken tenders with water and bring them to a full boil over medium heat. Turn off the heat that is under the saucepan but leave the pot on the stovetop. Put the lid on the pan and set a timer for 15 minutes.
- When the timer goes off, remove the chicken from the pan and discard the water. Put the chicken into a medium-sized mixing bowl. Using two forks shred the chicken into small bits. Add the mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, parsley, and shredded cheese. Stir in the frozen peas.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and lightly spray it with cooking spray.
- Unroll the puff pastry on the parchment paper. You may have to roll it out a little with a lightly floured rolling pin because you want it to be in a 10 by 17 rectangle.
- Remove the chicken mixture from the bowl and shape it into a rectangular mound the center of the pastry to within 3 inches of the edges.
- Use a sharp knife to cut one-inch slits in the long sides of the dough, kind of making a fringe along the longest edges of your dough rectangle.
- Gently fold these strips of dough toward the middle over top of the chicken mixture, alternating which strip of dough goes on top of one another, crisscrossing the dough strips to make a kind of woven appearance.
- Put the pastry roll in the oven and bake it for 25 to 30 minutes or until it is golden brown and bubbly.
- Let the pastry roll cool for about fifteen minutes before cutting into slices and serving.
Notes
If you have never worked with puff pastry before, here are a few tips. First, if you purchase frozen puff pastry, allow it to thaw overnight in the refrigerator before you try to use it. Frozen puff pastry will crack and be hard to handle.
Second, if your recipe calls for you to roll the pastry out, flour the surface and the rolling pin to ensure that nothing sticks. Also, when using a rolling pin, work fairly gently. You want to preserve all of those delicious layers and getting overzealous with the rolling pin might crush them. Third, if you need to cut the puff pastry, use a sharp knife or pizza cutter. The edges need to be cut sharply to puff up like you want them to.
Last, when you are baking something like our Braided Chicken Pastry Roll, you probably want to use something like parchment paper on your baking sheet. This will help preserve the pastry’s layers when you remove it from the pan, and you will not have to worry about the roll sticking to the pan when it has finished baking. Commercially made puff pastry is a perfect baking shortcut, so it is definitely a good idea to keep a couple of packages in your freezer for baking emergencies!
Our recipe has a braided appearance that is most impressive. It looks very complicated but actually is very easy to do. You simply cut one-inch strips along the longest side of the pastry sheets and fold them in at an angle on top of the filling. The top and bottoms of the roll simply get tucked in.
This technique can be used in many other puff pastry baked goods. Whether you fill the puff pastry with chicken, veggies, and cheese, or you have a mixture of cream cheese, fruit, and sugar, being able to create a puff pastry braid means that your contributions to a potluck will always get admiring glances and plentiful compliments.
If you want extra shine on your puff pastry creations, brush the pastry with a bit of beaten egg. For sweet treats, brush the pastry with milk and then sprinkle it with a couple of tablespoons of sugar for a glittery presentation.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
