Chicken Piccata Stuffed Spaghetti Squash

Chicken picatta is hands down my favorite Italian dish.

99% of the time, I’ll order piccata at an Italian restaurant. It’s my go-to comfort food. It’s simple, light, and breezy when it comes to your typical heavy Italian food fare. I love those little capers that burst in your mouth with salty, tangy goodness!

By the way, did you know that capers are pickled rosebuds?? I had no idea about that until a few years ago. When I learned about it I almost lost my mind…pickled rosebuds??

I had probably eaten 10 pounds of capers in my lifetime before I truly knew what they were.

Capers are essential to a good picatta. That, and fresh lemon juice. If you have those two things you’re pretty much golden when it comes to making a good picatta.

I’m also a fan of throwing in a bunch of spinach with my picatta sauce. It just beefs it up more and gives it that green goodness it needs. Wilted spinach is pretty much good in anything.

So for this picatta to fit into my Squash September marathon, I decided to use spaghetti squash instead of pasta. I’ve had spaghetti squash with regular red meat sauce before, and made a carbonara, but I had shockingly never done it with my favorite Italian dish.

This piccata turned out even better than I could have imagined. The spaghetti squash gives it that crunch and slight sweetness that a classic piccata is lacking. I used almond flour to bread my chicken cutlets with, but you could obviously just use regular flour. The chicken is just lightly pan fried then sliced and laid on top of your “pasta”. This recipe is one heck of a good meal that’s not too difficult to make!

Step-By-Step Instructions

First, roast the spaghetti squash: preheat oven to 425 degrees. Drizzle spaghetti squash halves with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast, cut-side down, for 25-30 minutes in the oven until squash flakes easily with a fork. Take out and let cool.

Make the chicken: set up a dredging station by putting mustard in one bowl and almond flour in a shallow bowl. Add garlic powder, salt, and pepper to almond flour and mix together. Dredge cutlets in mustard and then in flour, shaking off excess.

Heat 1/2 cup oil in a large, deep skillet. Pan-fry cutlets, one or two at a time, until brown on one side, about 3-4 minutes. Flip and cook for another 3-4 minutes on the other side. Transfer to a plate to drain.

In another skillet, heat remaining 1 tablespoon oil over medium high heat. Add garlic and saute until fragrant, 1 minute. Deglaze pan with white wine and let cook for about 2 minutes.

Add chicken broth, lemon juice, and capers and stir, cooking for about 4-5 minutes.

Add spinach to pan and remove from heat, stirring to wilt. Make the picatta: toss spaghetti squash with lemon-caper-spinach sauce. Top with sliced chicken cutlets.