Have you discovered Pesto Chicken?! These chicken pesto roll ups are stuffed with cheese, juicy tomatoes and pesto sauce! This pesto chicken tastes like fine dining with Tuscan flavors but they are so easy to make.
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This is my sister, Svetlana’s pesto chicken recipe. She sent me a photo of her dinner last week and I set out to recreate it right away. My Mother (who was trained in the culinary arts), was particularly smitten with this recipe. Mom’s rave reviews are especially valuable to me. 🙂
Chicken Pesto Roll Ups Recipe:
These chicken roll ups are simple enough for weeknight cooking but are also special occasion worthy!
Ingredients for Pesto Chicken Roll Ups:
The list of ingredients in this pesto chicken is short and uncomplicated: Chicken, simple seasoning, shredded mozzarella and tomatoes. P.S. We fell in love with homemade pesto sauce but the one from Costco also works really well.
How to Make Chicken Pesto Roll-Ups:
1. Preheat oven to 425˚F. Cut each chicken breast in half lengthwise so you have 8 thin chicken cutlets. Pound each cutlet in a quart sized ziploc bag or between 2 sheets of plastic wrap to 1/8″ thick. Season both sides of your thin cutlets with garlic salt and black pepper.
2. Spoon and spread 1 Tbsp pesto in the center of each cutlet, top with 2 thin slices of tomato and sprinkle with 2-3 Tbsp shredded mozzarella cheese. Roll the chicken up as tightly as you can and seal ends with a toothpick.
3. Preheat a large oven-safe skillet over medium/high heat with 1 Tbsp oil and 1 Tbsp butter. Add chicken roll-ups and sear on both sides until golden (4 min per side for a total of 8 minutes on the stove).
4. Sprinkle tops with remaining cheese and scatter 1 cup of baby tomatoes over the top. Place the oven-safe skillet on the center rack of your preheated oven and bake 425˚F for 13-15 minutes (13 minutes for these medium chicken breasts and 15 minutes for larger chicken breasts, or until internal temperature of chicken reaches 160˚F on an instant-read thermometer.
To serve, remove toothpicks then plate chicken pesto roll ups, spooning pan juices and roasted tomatoes over the top and garnish with freshly chopped basil. Serve with mashed potatoes and roasted asparagus for a fancy (but simple) dinner!
Watch How to Make Chicken Pesto Roll Ups:
Is your mouth watering yet??
⬇Print-Friendly Chicken Pesto Roll-Ups Recipe:
Chicken Pesto Roll-Ups (VIDEO)

Ingredients
- 2 lbs chicken breasts, (4 medium/large chicken breasts)
- 1 tsp Garlic Salt, (or to taste)
- 1/4 tsp Black Pepper, (or to taste)
- 1/2 cup Pesto sauce, (about 8 Tbsp total)
- 8 oz Mozzarella cheese, shredded,, (reserve 2 oz for topping)
- 2 tomatoes (medium), thinly sliced into 16 rings
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes, optional
- 1 Tbsp Fresh basil leaves, shredded, optional garnish
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 Tbsp unsalted butter
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425˚F. Cut chicken breast in half lengthwise so you have 8 thin chicken cutlets. Pound each cutlet in a quart sized ziploc bag or between 2 sheets of plastic wrap into 1/8" thick cutlets. Season both sides of chicken with garlic salt and black pepper.
- Spoon and spread 1 Tbsp pesto in the center of each cutlet, top with 2 thin tomato slices and sprinkle with 2-3 Tbsp mozzarella cheese. Roll the chicken up tightly and seal ends with a toothpick.
- Preheat large oven-safe skillet over medium/high heat with 1 Tbsp oil and 1 Tbsp butter. Add chicken roll-ups and sear on both sides until golden (4 min per side or 8 minutes total on the stove).
- Sprinkle tops with remaining cheese and 1 cup of cherry tomatoes. Place the skillet on the center rack of oven and bake 425˚F for 13-15 minutes (13 min for these these medium chicken breasts and 15 min for larger chicken breasts, or until internal temp of chicken reaches 160˚F on instant-read thermometer.
Notes
Nutrition Per Serving
If you make this recipe, I’d love to see pics of your creations on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter! Hashtag them #natashaskitchen
Q: Have you tried Pesto Chicken?
P.S. These chicken pesto roll ups reheat really well if you’re lucky enough to have leftovers! I hope you and your family love these easy, excellent chicken pesto roll-ups.
If you love chicken, check out this popular one-pan Chicken Madeira and all of our favorite chicken recipes HERE.
These were absolutely delicious but did anyone else have trouble with the thickness of the chicken? I had large breasts and they didn’t roll up like Miss Natasha’s. And even as big as they were I did the less a time of 13 minutes and they were over done. Against DELICIOUS!!!! But I would like to get them to look better. Oh, and be sure to add the cherry tomatoes.
Hi Paige, you want to get them as thin as you can – make sure you cut your large breasts into two or three if very large and then pound each one down even more to 1/8″ thickness. Regarding it cooking too fast, was the temperature possibly too high?
Love love love the pesto chicken. Made in iron skillet so good. I did add a splash of wine to it couple minutes before final removal from oven. Salad, pasta and crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside bread on the side. Delicious! But no surprise, has never made any recipe from Natasha that wasn’t!!!!
Thanks for your good feedback, Teresa. Glad you’re enjoying the recipes that you tried!
Can’t wait to make!! Such a summery, luscious twist to a chicken fontaine blu recipe. The pesto and field tomatoes…make it fabulous! Gail, Hamilton, Ont.
The perfect summer dinner! I hope you love it, Gail!
natasha I made this last night for the family it was amazing and so simple. i will be trying more of your recipes they all look so good thanks
Thanks for sharing that with us, Brent. Glad you and your family enjoyed this recipe!
I made this tonight and it was fantastic. I used your pesto recipe as well(so yummy). My husband doesn’t even like pesto. The tomatoes on top were so sweet after roasting.
Wow! That’s just awesome! Thank you for sharing your wonderful review, Meri!
WOW, just WOW. AMAZING recipe as always. Your recipe’s never let me down. Thank you for giving us great recepies, they make us feel like we’re gourmet chef’s! They do me anyways! Lol.
You’re welcome Charity! I’m so happy you enjoyed this recipe. Thank you for sharing that with us!
My husband is not a fan of chicken, but he loves this recipe. I now make this once a week. Very delicious!!
That’s so great! It sounds like you have a new favorite!
Omg YUMMMMMMY. I’m 56 years old and cook a lot and well, but this is a too 10 favorite thing I e ever cooked. I had a 6 ounce jar of organic pesto (check ingredients find one with basil and olive oil as first ingredients. Some use spinach and sunflower oils. Ewww. Most use cashew. This has pine nuts and cashew.) I only used two chicken breasts so it made 4 servings. I cooked 1/2 lbs of whole wheat pasta and mixed all the left over jarred pesto and a sprinkle of Parmesan. Served with airfried asparagus with garlic lemon and olive oil. Delicious
Perfect! Thanks for sharing your experience and great feedback with us, Elizabeth. We appreciate your review!
Gotta try this one! I’ve done this with sun-dried tomatoes and feta but never with pesto! I love all your recipes! Дякою!
Thank you, I’m glad to hear that you’re enjoying my recipes! I hope you like this one too.
delicious
Thanks, Sue!
Your dishes I have cooked are delicious
I’m glad you’re enjoying them, Sue!
I made this today, and delivered it to my adult children! Needless to say, they absolutely loved it! Excellent! I added some red onion to a couple of them for added flavor, and it worked also. Thanks for the recipe!
My son-in-law said it tasted like it came from a 5 Star Italian restaurant!
Wow! That’s so great, thanks for the amazing comment.
Hi Roger, you are very welcome. I’m happy to know that they all loved this recipe!
made this last week and the family loved it! super easy and love when I have all the ingredients on hand…thank you for your yummy recipes!
You’re welcome, Monique! I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Seriously, one of The BEST chicken dishes I have ever tasted. So amazing & mouth-watering… fabulous for “company,” too! ++++
Yay, that is so awesome! Thank you so much for your great feedback, Annemarie.
Fantastic and easy! My husband said – this is the top 3 recipes I’ve ever tasted. Thank you!
Wow! That’s just awesome! Thank you for sharing your wonderful review!
Made this for my son & daughter-in-law after the birth of their baby. They loved it! Didn’t have large tomatoes, so I used Trader Joe’s sun dried tomatoes & TJ’s Pesto sauce. It was a hit and will make again. Had more than enough for dinner for 3. Then froze the left overs so they could have another meal. It seems to freeze well.
Thank you for sharing that with us, Ronda. It’s great to hear that your family loved this recipe! Thank you for sharing.
This recipe was a hit, despite my lack of skill in one aspect of the preparation. Besides being somewhat sloppy to handle (again, my fault) it tasted great. I look forward to making it better on my next try.
I’m sure you did great, Kurt! Thanks for sharing that with us.
Is that a cast-iron roasting pan with a plastic handle you used. The manufactures name??
Hi Jim, this was the Staub braiser and we LOVE it! It’s very versatile
Are you using Kirkland chicken breasts here?
Hi Colleen, these were a little smaller than the kirkland ones I believe. The Kirkland brand ones from Costco are definitely very large, but they would still work here and you’d get larger roll-ups which would need slightly longer cooking time. For reference, 4 chicken breasts in this recipe weighed 2 lbs.
Made this last night and will be saved in my ‘keeper’ list! Thanks very much for creating this it was very well received!
You’re so welcome, Rosemary. I’m happy to know that you loved the roll ups!
What an impressive dish! We loved it.
That’s so great! I’m so glad you enjoyed this recipe!