These homemade Chicken Packets are so nostalgic and comforting! Warm chicken and cream cheese oozing out of a toasted crescent roll – they’re perfection!
Homemade Chicken Packets
Chicken Packets has been one of my favorite meals since childhood. My mom had this recipe book, and she would draw a smiley face next to the recipes we liked. I remember coming across this recipe one day and drawing like 50 smiley faces all around the recipe. I loved it. I still love it. And now I can appreciate how quick and easy it is to make. Kevin calls them Hot Pockets. He *always* comes up with a fast food / boxed food alternative name for all my recipes. :p Whatever you call them, they are just downright good. And picky-kid approved. :D
Here’s what’ you’ll need:
2 cups cooked, chopped chicken
1 (3 oz) pkg cream cheese, softened
2 tbsp milk
2 pkgs refrigerated crescent rolls
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup seasoned breadcrumbs
For the chicken, you can cook it any way you like. Boil it and shred it, grill it and slice it, cut it up and cook it in the skillet with some olive oil, or you can even buy that pre-packaged stuff from the grocery store. :D However you do it, just make sure you have about 2 cups of bite-sized chicken.
How to Make Chicken Packets
Preheat your oven to 350 and spray a rectangular baking sheet with Pam. Or don’t, if you use a Pampered Chef baking stone like me. :) Unroll the first package of crescent rolls. Each tube will contain 4 rectangles of dough with a diagonal perforation. Press along diagonal perforation to seal together and arrange on baking sheet. Like this:
Mix chicken, softened cream cheese, and milk a large bowl. I can never remember to soften my cream cheese on the counter, so usually I put it in the bowl first and warm it in the microwave for 20 seconds or so until it softens up. Then I mix in the chicken and milk. Stir that up really good, then start spooning it into the middle of each rectangle.
Make sure you leave some room on the edges so you can seal the packets. Open the second package of crescent rolls and lay those 4 rectangles over your chicken mixture.
Melt 2 tbsp butter in a small bowl and brush over packets. Sprinkle on seasoned breadcrumbs.
Bake at 350 for 20-25 mins or until golden brown.
Yummy, yummy, yummy. And ya know? I bet these would be good with other stuff mixed in. Salt and pepper? Fresh herbs? Maybe a packet of Italian or Ranch dressing?? I’m always looking to spice up my favorite recipes, so if you make a modification that you just love, leave me comment and let me know!! I wanna try it!! :D
And of course, Chicken Packets has its own scrapbook page in its honor! It was one of the first ones I ever made.
Chicken Packets
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Prep Time: 10 minutes -
Cook Time: 20 minutes
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Total Time: 30 minutes
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Yield: 4 packets 1x
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Category: Lunch
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Method: Oven
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Cuisine: American
Prep Time:
Yield:
Category:
Method:
Cuisine:Description
These homemade Chicken Packets are so nostalgic and comforting! Warm chicken and cream cheese oozing out of a toasted crescent roll – they’re perfection!
Ingredients
- 2 cups cooked, chopped chicken
- 1 (3 oz) package cream cheese, softened
- 2 tablespoon milk
- 2 tubes refrigerated crescent rolls
- 2 tablespoon butter, melted
- 1/3 cup Italian seasoned breadcrumbs
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350. Spray rectangular baking sheet with Pam.
- Mix chicken, cream cheese, and milk a large bowl. Unroll crescent rolls. Each tube will contain 4 rectangles of dough with a diagonal perforation. Press along diagonal perforation to seal together. Spoon chicken mixture into the center of 4 rectangles. Place the other 4 rectangles over the filling and pinch the edges together of seal tightly. Brush each packet with melted butter and coat with breadcrumbs.
- Bake at 350 for 20-25 mins or until golden brown.
Love this but I add salt, pepper, 2 T melted butter, and 1 T onions to the mix, and cover them in melted butter and crushed cheddar cheese croutons. My go to side is lowly applesauce for this. I even like dipping the chicken bites in the applesauce.
I once had a chicken calzone in a restaurant that I can’t forget. I don’t know what was in the middle with the chicken but what was another yummy part they brought a dipping sauce that was green chilis and ranch dressing. I have a bottle of jalapeno hot sauce that I add to any ranch type sauce.
I’ve been making these for over 10 years and we just recently started using panko bread crumbs and it is so much better.
Made these for dinner tonight and they were super delicious. And so easy and quick to make, too. My favorite kind of recipe. I also didn’t realize how HUGE they would turn out. That made me happy, though, because it means I have leftovers for tomorrow. Yummy. Thanks for another awesome recipe, Amanda!
This is a brilliant idea! My hubby will adore these. I love your blog! Just stumbled on you guys here, and I think I’m in love. Easy delicious recipes – and adorable dogs – yay!! :-)
we do a dish very similar that is my FAVORITE! but we use roll dough and form little pockets, and also add celery into the filling. It’s delicious!! We also make it with leftover turkey after thanksgiving!
And I saw someone (a long time ago but still ha) asked what to serve it with and we always had it with potatoes and chicken gravy … YUM!
I made these last night for dinner and they were so good. I covered my skinless/boneless chicken breasts in Montreal Steak Seasoning and then cooked them on the stove in olive oil and butter. FANTASTIC!! I have used your recipes every night this week for dinner! My husband thanks you :) as do I for all your tasty dishes!! Tonight we will be having Red Beans and Rice.
Yum! I made these tonight for the family.
I’ve blogged about it here: http://momommamoney.blogspot.com/2011/04/dinner-chicken-packets-as-seen-on-kevin.html
Yum! Love your take on these! :)
I’ve made these for years. We have called them Chicken Pillows. I take the triangle and put filling in each one, then roll up and form into a pillow. Your method would save me some time. They take awhile to roll up, dip in butter and crumbs, and so on. I like the comments about different things to add in. Tonight I made the cinnamon bun icecream. It hasn’t set up yet, but I know it will be delicious just from licking the spoon. Yummy!
Your Chicken Packet recipe resembles my “Chicken Pocket” recipe, however I omit the cream cheese and milk. For each pocket, I use two crescent roll triangles, pinched together in the center, so you have one whole rectangle. I cook the chicken with carrots, onions, celery, salt and pepper, then place a spoonful of the chicken mixture in the center of the crescent rectangle. (The chicken mixture inside the pocket will be dry, but you could add chicken soup to the mixture to make it creamy.) Fold each corner of the crescent roll toward the center and pinch them together, so it looks like a little sack of money. :) Cook the Chicken Pockets until the rolls are lightly browned. In the meantime, use one can of “Cream of” soup (I usually use cream of chicken) and a bit of milk to thin it out to a gravy consistency, add salt and pepper to taste. Before you serve the pockets, pour the gravy/soup over the top of them. Serve with rice or mashed potatoes, use the soup for gravy, and remember to make some veggies or a salad. Tonight though, I’m going to try them your way, thanks!
YUM!! I just wanted to contribute our family’s variation to this DELISH recipe!! We actually just lay out the cresent rolls, put a pile of the chicken/cream cheese goodness in the middle, and fold them up over the top so they look like little blobs {hence, we call them ‘Chicken Blobs’}, and then once they come out of the oven, we laddle some hot cream of chicken soup over the top! MMMM BOY!!
Love these! I cooked the chicken in olive oil with Italian seasonings and garlic salt. Then I added minced onion and garlic cloves to the pan. I also added cooked broccoli to the chicken mixture to get some good green veggies in (plus I think it increases the aesthetic appeal of the filling). We had friends over for dinner and everyone loved it! So yummy!!
Can I just say I made these tonight and they were absolutely delicious and so easy to make!!! A new favorite in my house!
my mom makes these all the time! she adds dry onion soup mix to the mixture and it is sooooo delish.
I love these with small diced celery. You can also make a cream of chicken soup gravy for them too! I love the “hot pocket” idea of them. great idea!
Hi Amanda! I’ve been stalking your blog for awhile now but this is my first time commenting. I tried this recipe tonight and loved it; even my super, super picky fiance loved it! Just wondering – is there a particular way you prefer to prepare the chicken (or a particular type of left over chicken) that you like to use best? I chopped and cooked mine in olive oil, salt and pepper and it was good – but I’ll bet it could be GREAT! Thanks for all of your hard work on this blog!
I fix these and include some chopped onion in the chicken mixture. Delicious!
My whole family absolutey loved this an we don’t even like cream cheese! My husband, who has been trying to loose weight, looked up the nutritional value for these suckers on caloriecount.com and they are really not bad for you!! He ate the leftovers as snacks. Next time I may just make them the triangle size (snack size) and keep them around for the hubby to snack on. Great idea, thanks!!
These are scrumptious! I have added pecans to mine and loved the extra crunch. I’ve also added chopped green onions for some extra zing.
i am gonna try this for my jewelry PARTY:) thanks, i am loving your site.
Yum! Made these tonight to use up some leftover grilled chicken from yesterday and they were a HUGE hit! I added some thawed & drained frozen spinach, and some Penzey’s Fox Point & Singapore seasonings. We only had plain breadcrumbs, so I added the same seasonings with some paprika. So good!
Hey! I made these!
Since we’re a family of five, I thought to double the recipe (little did I know that that wasn’t necessary because the packets are humungo and there’s now four leftover packets in the fridge for tomorrow’s consumption!). I added 1/2c bacon bits and a couple swirls around the bowl of Ranch (Hidden Valley thankyouverymuch) and had enough stuffing for EASILY another four packets.
Cooked for 20 mins and HOLLLLLLEEEEE COW! So yummy! Hubby liked them and said he would love to have them again! They went great with salad as our side dish! These would also be awesome with broccoli, corn, fruit salad, ANYTHING. These go will with pretty much ANY side dish.
Thanks Amanda! Tomorrow I’ll be making the breakfast casserole. I’ll let you know how that goes too!
*sorry for the novel-of-a-post*
Love these. We have tried these twice. First time I followed recipe exactly, Second time I added sauteed peppers and onions but left off bread crumbs. Definite keeper in my recipe rotation.
Amanda, just checked out the recipe scrapbook pages {what a beautiful cookbook that would make!}. I gotta tell you that you are breaking some law for creating such cute things like that drives people to want to cuten up their own blogs {guilty as charged}! I mean seriously!!!!! How adorable are those recipe cards!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m wondering if this would be good as a chicken cordon bleu type dish- adding swiss cheese and a little ham and broccoli or something. Maybe I’ll try that next time…THANKS for yet another delish meal :)
Yum, that sounds awesome. Great idea!
I was looking for a quick and easy dinner tonight, and made these. They were great! I tossed some fresh spinach, onions, mushrooms and green pepper in the food processor for a a few seconds and added it to the chicken mixture. They turned out really well, and my kids loved it dipped in marinara sauce. Yum! Thanks so much for the idea.
Tried this tonight! I can’t believe I’ve had this recipe for so long and never tried it before. This will be great for those nights I need something quick to fix. I served it with a pasta salad and it made a really great meal for all!
These look really yummy, I have a couple picky eaters in the household, this they may like :-) What do you serve it with?
I made these tonight and they were so yummy! I am a pretty picky eater but all these ingredients I love! I think they’d be great heated up for my lunches at work…a nice alternative to the normal food I take! Thanks for sharing…
I just made these and they look delicious, mine aren’t nearly as pretty as yours but they taste amazing! I think some trial and error is in order! I added chedder cheese and chives !!
I’ve been making a similar recipe for a while now, and it’s a favorite in my home. We’ve never used breadcrumbs (but we might now!).. but we mix some garlic powder in with the chicken and cream cheese.
These sound yummy! I think I will try these out on my husband and son. They are picky eaters. I think I will add some cheddar and bacon to them. Thanks for the recipe.
Hey Amanda, I love your site, you are seriously talented! I just made these for dinner, VERY YUMMY! Thanks for sharing all your wonderful ideas and recipes…
Hey amanda, Im trying to get some ideas for some things to take up to the hospital for my family to eat while my papaw is in ICU.. do you think these would reheat well in the microwave? Its so expensive eating at the hospital, but the only way to heat things is by microwave..lemme know :)
Amanda,
I made these last night and they were awesome! Thanks for the recipe!
I’ve been using a recipe similar to this for years, too. My recipe has chives, mushrooms and lemon pepper in with the cream cheese. I’ve substituted salsa for the mushrooms and lemon pepper with tasty results.
My daughter and I make large batches of these and freeze them for lunches.
I got a similar recipe from a friend years ago: I sautee’ mushrooms and then add scallions and chopped green chilis (Ortega-style) to the chicken/cream cheese… and then assemble. We serve them with country sausage gravy in the winter and they are an awesome comfort food!
LOVE your recipes/blog! My first time here, but I will be back!
I mixed in tomatoes and green peppers and it was FANTASTIC! Thanks for the GREAT recipe!
Sound delicious and easy adding some nice seasoning to make it look like it took forever. Another great recipe to try.
These look so yummy! I know my kids will love them. What do you serve them with? I was thinking zucchini?? I have NO idea!