Crepes with Chicken

Name: Chicken Crepes (Nalysnyky) with Fried Onion Filling
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 1 h
Cuisine: European
Ingredients: Thin crepes (nalysnyky) 20–25; Butter for frying 1 tbsp; Water for cooking the chicken; Celery root, parsley root, carrot, onion for the broth; Bay leaf, black peppercorns, allspice berries to taste; Chicken breast fillets 4; Onions 5–7; Olive oil 3–4 tbsp; Salt, ground black pepper, bay leaf to taste; Curry powder or turmeric a pinch; Dried chili pod 1

☆ 4.8

1 h

Surely, as soon as people learned to grind grain into flour, the first thing they made was a thin batter fried on a hot stone. Consider those the very first crepes.

Thin crepes, also called nalysnyky, palachinki and so on, are a dish of world cuisine: a kind of pancake made with milk and without any leavening, starter or yeast. As a rule, they’re sweet, with sweet fillings. But very often they get meat or fish fillings, mushrooms or cheese. Thin crepes are often cooked on one side only. They also make wonderful layered crepe cakes.

The beauty of crepes is that you can make a big batch quickly, wrap any filling in them, stack them in the fridge, and your meals are sorted for the whole week.

All you need to do is reheat them. Thin crepes with chicken are an easy and very affordable option. You can make the nalysnyky from any recipe you know. A few chicken breasts, some soup roots and ordinary onions make a superb filling.

Crepes with chicken: you can make lots of them, wrap ground chicken inside, stack them in the fridge and enjoy them for a long time. Step-by-step recipe with photos.

Ingredients

20–25 crepes

Thin crepes (nalysnyky) 20–25
Butter for frying 1 tbsp

Water for cooking the chicken
Celery root, parsley root, carrot, onion for the broth
Bay leaf, black peppercorns, allspice berries to taste

Chicken breast fillets 4
Onions 5–7
Olive oil 3–4 tbsp
Salt, ground black pepper, bay leaf to taste
Curry powder or turmeric a pinch
Dried chili pod 1

Step-by-step recipe

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Crepes and chicken

Make thin crepes, or nalysnyky, as they’re called. Everyone usually has their own recipe for thin crepes. For example, you can make as many as you need using my nalysnyky recipe. You’ll need eggs, flour, milk and a small piece of pork fat.

Trim any leftover fat and membranes from the chicken breasts.
Before cooking the breasts through, I recommend covering them with water and bringing it just to a boil. As soon as a lot of foam starts forming, rinse the chicken with water.
Pour water into a pot and add a bay leaf, black peppercorns, allspice berries, celery and parsley roots, a carrot and an onion. Add the prepared chicken breasts and cook until done. Cooking time is 20–30 minutes. That’s enough.
Once the chicken is cooked, take it out of the broth and let it cool. Cover the cooling chicken with a plate or cloth so it doesn’t dry out. Strain the broth and set it aside for now.

The filling

For a juicy, tasty dish you need plenty of fried onion.

Fry the onion. Peel the onions and finely chop them with a knife. Heat the olive oil in a deep frying pan and fry the chopped onion in it. Add the spices: salt, ground black pepper, 1–2 bay leaves and a pinch of curry powder or turmeric. I recommend adding a dried chili pod: it adds aroma but not heat. Fry the onion until nicely browned; it should be properly fried, not soft or sweated, but really fried. Plus, the curry will give it a yellow color.

Put the cooked chicken breasts through a meat grinder.
Combine the ground chicken and the fried onion and season with salt and pepper to taste if you like. Usually it isn’t needed, since all the spices went into the onion. Add some of the strained chicken broth so the filling is juicy but not runny. Mix thoroughly.

Filling the crepes

Fill the crepes. Thin crepes are usually stacked on a big plate. Then, as a friend of mine says, whatever you like: condensed milk, honey, jam, preserves. But I like mine with chicken.
Put 1½–2 heaping tablespoons of the chicken and fried onion filling on the edge of each crepe.
Wrap the filling in the crepe like an envelope, and you have crepes with chicken. Really, they can be any shape and folded any way you like.
Usually (I have no idea why it works out this way) you’re a couple of crepes short and have filling left over. Or the other way around.
In the first case, the filling gets happily eaten with a spoon and washed down with tomato juice. In the second, the extra crepes get spread with jam or honey and eaten with tea or just like that.

Reheating

Crepes with chicken keep in the fridge for a long time in an airtight plastic container. Reheat them in a frying pan as needed, depending on your appetite.

Melt a piece of butter in a frying pan and put in as many crepes as you need. Important: the heat under the pan shouldn’t be too high.
Fry the crepes on one side over low heat, covered, so the filling warms through. When one side is golden, you can turn up the heat and fry the other side, uncovered.

Serving

Serve hot; if you like, drizzle with a little melted butter.
Extra sides or garnishes are completely unnecessary. And pouring ketchup from a packet over the crepes is strictly forbidden.

Calories and macros

191 kcal

100 g

Protein12.8 g27% of kcal
Fat8.2 g40% of kcal
Carbs15.4 g33% of kcal

Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.

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To Get It Right

If your family doesn’t like fried onion

For the crepe filling, you can skip frying the onion and put it through the meat grinder with the cooked chicken instead, then add the spices and a little broth. Readers do it this way, and the filling still comes out juicy. Another option is to swap half the onions for shallots.

With cheese or mushrooms

Cheese: grate a little hard cheese and stir it into the cooled filling before wrapping the crepes.
Mushrooms: fry them with the onion and grind them together with the chicken.

With chicken liver

Crepes with chicken liver follow the same principle: lightly fry the liver, fry onion and carrot separately, and grind everything together. The filling will be a bit dry and higher in calories, so you’ll need a little more broth. Hearts and gizzards are on the tough side; I’m not sure about them for crepes.

How to store and freeze

Cooked crepes are usually kept in a closed container in the fridge for 1–3 days. For a longer supply, freeze them: lay them out in a single layer, and once firm, move them to a bag. Reheat straight from frozen, covered, over low heat, a little longer than usual.

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Questions and answers

How do I make a juicy chicken filling for crepes?

You need plenty of properly fried onion and strained broth: add it until the filling is juicy but not runny. And to keep the cooked chicken from drying out while it cools, cover it with a plate or cloth.

Can I mix chicken breast with chicken leg quarters?

Yes, and it won’t be greasy: skinless leg quarters give very little fat, and the filling comes out juicier than with breast alone. Just cook the leg quarters a bit longer, about 35–40 minutes.

Can I use leftover chicken from making broth?

Yes, the filling is made from cooked meat anyway. Chicken from soup or broth works: remove the skin, take the meat off the bones and grind it with the fried onion.

Can I bake chicken crepes in the oven?

Yes, if you need to reheat a lot at once: put the crepes in a greased baking dish, drizzle melted butter on top and bake at 180 °C for 15–20 minutes, until golden.

What can I use instead of a meat grinder?

You can chop the cooked chicken in a blender with short pulses so it doesn’t turn into a paste, or mince it very finely with a knife.

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