Easy Creamy Dreamy Chicken Pillows Recipe

The Midwest knows its way around comforting, heartwarming food. Though we often associate the South with comfort food, soul food is its own category, reserved for freshly fried chicken, crispy hush puppies, smoked meats, and collard greens. Midwestern comfort food is often casserole-based, filled with inexpensive ingredients like cream cheese, egg noodles, canned tuna, and plenty of potatoes. Each cuisine was born out of culture and necessity, thriving still from the people and environments that make each region unique.

Where Midwestern cuisine gets the most inventive is its use of canned crescent rolls, which can be used for far more than the directions on the package suggest. Chicken pillows, which are creamy, cheesy, chicken-filled pockets of folded crescent roll dough, are every bit as warming and comforting as a chicken casserole or chicken noodle soup, but in the fun form of a folded, fluffy croissant. This recipe, brought to us by recipe developer Michelle McGlinn, walks through how to make easy, cheese-filled chicken pillows with a creamy cheese sauce for drizzling on top that can be made while the pillows bake. Like any great Midwestern recipe, these chicken pillows come together in less than 30 minutes, meaning dinner is not only delicious, not only kid-friendly, but also a breeze to make.

The first ingredient you'll need is shredded chicken, which can be shredded from a prepared rotisserie chicken, bought packaged from the store, or made from scratch by boiling chicken breasts until tender. From there, you'll need cream cheese, shredded Parmesan, chopped parsley, thyme, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper, melted butter, breadcrumbs, and a tube of crescent rolls (think Pillsbury). For the cheese sauce you'll reuse many of the same ingredients, like butter, fresh-grated Parmesan, salt, pepper, and parsley, but you'll also need fresh garlic, flour, chicken broth, and milk.

Preheat the oven to 375 F.

In a bowl, mix together the chicken, cream cheese, Parmesan, parsley, thyme, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, and pepper until completely combined.

Roll out the crescent rolls and break into triangles.

Scoop 2 tablespoons of the chicken mixture onto the widest part of the triangle.

Fold the dough around the chicken, forming a pillow shape. Repeat with all of the dough and chicken mixture.

Place all of the chicken pillows onto a baking sheet and brush with melted butter.

Sprinkle with breadcrumbs, pressing the crumbs into the melted butter.

Bake until golden brown, about 18 to 20 minutes.

In the meantime, make the cheese sauce. Melt butter in a small skillet over medium heat.

Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.

Add the flour and stir to make a roux.

Once the roux is browned, add the broth and milk and whisk constantly to combine, smoothing any lumps.

Once thickened, about 3 minutes, add the salt, pepper, and Parmesan. Remove from the heat and stir until Parmesan is melted.

To serve, pour the cheese sauce over the baked chicken pillows and sprinkle with chopped parsley.

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Before baking, the chicken pillows will look very small — only about 2 inches in length — but will rise in the oven to about twice the size. Still, chicken pillows are about the size of the palm of your hand, and a serving is about three to four chicken pillows per person. Made using the perforated triangles of the prepared crescent dough, the chicken pillows almost look snack size, which can be fun for kids or for sharing with a crowd. If you'd prefer the look of larger, tennis-ball-sized pillows, you can do so by manipulating the dough or by buying a different tube.

To change the size of your chicken pillows, carefully roll the crescent dough out of the tube. Likely, the dough will begin tearing at the perforation, which is normal and completely fixable. With the dough laid out, gently join the perforation with your fingers, gently smoothing into a large sheet of dough with a rolling pin. Then, simply slice the dough into 4 sections and form into pillows from there. You can also simply buy the larger "Grands" crescents, which come in a tube of 12 ounces, or the sheet of dough, which allows you to make chicken pillows of any size without worrying about perforation.

You can store chicken pillows as you would any stuffed pastry or fried food, in a paper-towel lined sealable container. You can also lay flat in a zip-top bag and store that way, or wrap in foil. Stored properly, the chicken pillows will last for 3 to 4 days in the refrigerator, or up to 6 months in the freezer.

There are a few ways to reheat chicken pillows. The best way is to use the oven, preheating to the same 375 F the crescent rolls were baked at initially and warming through until just barely browned. This method heats the inside while keeping the outside flaky, instead of overbaking and drying out the already baked crescent. The next best method is the air fryer. Heat the chicken pillows for 2 minutes at 350 F, or until crispy to touch. With this method, the exterior will be extra crispy, but may lose some of its flaky, buttery quality. In a pinch, the chicken pillows can be microwaved, but this will result in a moist and soggy crust.

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