Chicken Breasts Roma

This is the kind of Italian cooking that turns a regular dinner into an event.

Chicken breasts get pounded wide and thin, then rolled around a filling of savory Italian sausage and a stick of mozzarella that melts into a gooey center as it cooks.

Browned in the sausage drippings for extra flavor, the rolls simmer in a chunky sauce of tomatoes, bell peppers, mushrooms, onion, and red wine until everything is tender and the kitchen smells like a trattoria in Trastevere.

It takes a little more hands-on work than your average weeknight meal, but the payoff on the plate is worth every minute.

Pro Tips

• Pound the chicken breasts wide enough to fully encase the filling. Patch any holes by pressing the meat back together so cheese doesn’t escape.
• Brown the rolled chicken in the sausage drippings. That rendered fat is packed with flavor and gives the outside a gorgeous crust.
• Use a dry red wine you’d actually drink. Cooking wine has added salt and a flat taste that drags the sauce down.
• Let the rolls simmer gently, not boil. A hard boil can burst them open and you’ll lose that beautiful stuffed center.