Arizona Spinach Artichoke Dip

 

I recently went to one of my favorite casual restaurant chains in Houston, called Barnaby’s.  I almost always order their Chicken Mill Valley.  It’s a skinless chicken breast topped with spinach artichoke dip and cheese.  It’s so good!  I love trying to turn rich, decadent ingredients like spinach artichoke dip into WW friendly recipes so that’s what I’ve done.  I hope you enjoy my WW friendly spinach artichoke dip I’m calling Arizona Spinach Artichoke Dip!

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Using my Arizona Spinach Artichoke Dip I created my own version of Chicken Mill Valley and it was delicious!   I’ll share with you how I made my artichoke dip and then at the end I’ll show you the chicken entree.  The overall meal was only 2 points on the Blue, Purple and Green plans!

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 2 tbsp minced garlic
• 1 cup diced onions
• Butter flavor cooking spray
• 1  14 oz can of artichoke hearts without oil
• 4 oz Neufchatel cheese
• 1 cup part-skim mozzarella cheese
• 10 oz frozen spinach
• 4 oz fat free sour cream
• Salt and pepper to taste

Afterthought…  I think a can of diced green chilis would be great in this recipe but I haven’t tried it yet. Next time!

Here’s what you’ll do:

• Spray a large pan with butter flavored cooking spray
  • My go-to pan for so many of my dishes is my T-Fal Jumbo saute pan.  You can see it here on my Mom’s Salmon Patties and Fried Chicken recipes.

• Add your diced onions and minced garlic to the pan
• Add more cooking spray on top of the onions and minced garlic
• Toss to coat and allow onions to cook down with the garlic
• When the onions are cooked, add the mozzarella and neufchatel cheese, and sour cream
• Stir and allow the cheeses to melt
• While that is all melting together, squeeze out the excess water from the thawed spinach
• Roughly chop the spinach and artichoke hearts
• When the mixture is hot and bubbly, add the spinach and artichoke hearts
• Combine all ingredients and add salt and pepper to taste

Optional:  

Put the dip in a casserole dish sprayed with cooking spray and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

Note: I’ve done it both ways, where I bake the dip or complete it on the stove. It firms up just a little in the oven but there isn’t a big consistency or taste difference.

 

To make my Weight Watchers’s version of Chicken Mill Valley:

There is nothing worse than an overcooked, dried out skinless chicken breast and I think many people have their favorite way of cooking them to combat this.  So if you already have a favorite way that gives you a moist tender chicken breast, by all means cook it your own way.  And share your secrets in the comments!

I have an air fryer and I have found that it makes fantastic chicken breasts so that’s how I cook mine.  This is the Nuwave air fryer I use…

And this is how I prepare it…

• Take a large skinless, boneless chicken breast and pound it down flatter with a meat tenderizer.  This can be a bit messy, so I put a piece of wax paper on top of it first. 
• Spray one side of the chicken breast with butter flavored cooking spray
• Add a dusting of onion powder and garlic powder to the chicken
• Place in the air fryer (I don’t preheat it) seasoned side down
• Once it’s in the cooking tray, spray the other side of the chicken and add the dusting of onion powder and garlic powder
• Bake at 370 degrees for 8 minutes
• At the end of 8 minutes, turn the chicken over and add 2 heaping tbsp of the Arizona Spinach Artichoke Dip to the top of the chicken
• Add a half a piece of pepperjack cheese to the top of the dip
• Close the tray and cook for 6 more minutes

Note:  The cook times definitely depend on the size of the chicken breast.  I get mine from Fry’s (Kroger) and they’re pretty big.  For smaller or larger portions you’d need to adjust your times.

That’s all there is to it!  It’s an easy, delicious, low calorie, and filling entree for only 2 WW points! 

Of course, if you want to add a whole piece of cheese to the top, or more mozzarella, or low fat sour cream instead of fat free…do that!  Just adjust the points using the recipe builder in the WW app.  

I hope you’ll give this recipe a try and let me know how you like it.

Happy tinkering,

Susan