#the filling is safe to eat too so you're just baking the crescent roll dough and heating up the insides

[messier51]

In reference to your tags on the food that makes life worth living post - what are chicken squares???

They're kind of like chicken salad sandwiches but wrapped up and baked in crescent roll dough.

They are very delicious.

[image description: four baked chicken squares still on the pan. they aren't very square but the crescent roll dough is nicely browned and they're covered in browned stuffing bits]

At the risk of sounding like a food blogger, these are the food that I'd ask for when given a choice for my birthday. These are kind of an ultimate comfort food nostalgia thing for me. I use an altered version of my grandma's recipe (I measure with my heart, I am so sorry gramma but it turns out just fine this way, and no extra mushrooms) which is below vvvv. There IS a recipe online, on the Official Pillsbury Website (https://www.pillsbury.com/recipes/savory-crescent-chicken-squares/) from one of their contests. The name on the recipe is not my grandma, but the location is not far from where she lived. My grandma's recipe is better (obviously) but they're very similar and the version at the link is half the size if you want to try it but don't want to do math or something.

Part of the reason for making the full 8-sandwich version from my grandma's recipe is that it uses a full modern 8oz package of cream cheese (instead of the 3oz version that used to be common I guess?), and then you do not put the other half back in your fridge and forget about it until it gets moldy. If that's too much food, the chicken squares freeze really well! Just bake them for slightly shorter (I do it about 20 minutes) and then stick them in a freezer bag in the freezer until you want to eat them. They just need to be re-baked!

Chicken Squares Recipe (from aj's grandma)

Filling:

1 8oz package of softened cream cheese

1/2 stick butter (that's 1/4 cup) (recipe says "or margarine" lol) melted (you use the other half of it below)

4 cups cooked cubed chicken (this can be approximate. One rotisserie chicken or so. Leftover turkey works great! Canned chicken would probably be good too. My sister does hers with mushrooms for vegetarian reasons but I have no clue how to do that. You can adjust this though! It's super forgiving.)

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

4 Tbsp milk (that's 1/4 cup)

4 Tbsp lemon juice

3 Tbsp chopped chives or onion. (Or like, as much as you want. If you like onion, more onion is really good in this. I have used half a large onion, a whole bundle of green onions, whatever looks good. 3 Tbsp is not enough imo, but if you're not into onions, then maybe ignore me)

2 8oz cans of refrigerated crescent rolls.

Sauce:

1 can chicken broth

2 cans cream of mushroom and/or cream of chicken soup

1 pint cream, half and half, or milk

sauteed fresh or canned mushrooms

Topping:

Pepperidge Farm Herb Seasoned Dressing (not the cubed kind) (you can use whatever breadcrumbs you have but the seasonings are really good! Sage, thyme, rosemary, poultry seasonings, whatever.)

The other half of your stick of butter

Instructions:

Cream the cream cheese (a stand mixer is helpful for this) and beat in 1/2 stick of melted butter. Beat until smooth.

Add chicken, onion, salt, pepper, milk, lemon juice. (Order doesn't really matter.) Mix well.

Separate 1 package of crescent dough into 4 rectangles. Firmly press perforations to seal 2 triangles together. Pat out dough to make thinner and larger (make it sorta square if you cant). (See alternate options below*)

Place about 1/2 cup filling into the center of each dough rectangle. Pull the 4 corners to the center. Twist slightly and pinch together, and pinch the sides that came together to seal. (It's totally ok if they're not perfect. They filling isn't gonna go anywhere.)

[4 unbaked chicken squares on a cookie sheet with a silicone baking mat. Three of them are sealed and kind of lumpy, the fourth is still laying out as a square-ish shape of dough with a scoop of filling in the middle. It's got a lot of green onions in it.]

Repeat with your second roll of rolls.

Melt other 1/2 stick of butter in a shallow bowl or pie plate and fill a 2nd shallow bowl with the stuffing/dressing/herbed seasoned bread crumbs.

Set out a cookie pan (I like to line them with parchment paper but it's fine if you don't, they won't stick).

Carefully lift one sandwich packet. Dip both sides(!) in butter and then in the stuffing. Place on the cookie sheet. (Sometimes I wear gloves for this step, your fingers WILL get gooey. You want the bread crumbs sticking out all over, it'll be delicious.)

Repeat for the rest of them.

[four unbaked chicken squares coated in butter and stuffing bread crumbs on a cookie sheet, ready to go into the oven]

Bake at 350°F for 20-25 minutes (or at 375 for about half an hour if you live on top of a mountain like me). They should be golden brown when they're done (see photos at top and bottom of the post).

You can partially bake and freeze or refrigerate for later!

Prepare sauce:

(I'm going to be honest I don't bother. Sometimes I make a can of cream of mushroom soup in the microwave and pour it on top. It's good! But it's way too much for just a me, and it doesn't freeze as well.)

Sauté mushrooms in about 1/4 cup of butter (sorry that's another half stick of butter, that wasn't in the list above)

Heat chicken broth and cans of soup.

Mix in mushrooms

Simmer until thick and bubbly. Reduce heat and add cream right before use. DO NOT boil after adding cream.

To serve, ladle mushroom sauce over each chicken square on plate.

[a baked chicken square in a shallow bowl swimming in cream of mushroom soup]

*Alternatives to trying to make squares out of crescent dough:

Supposedly it works with dinner roll dough too but I don't remember ever doing that.

Buy the sheets of crescent dough, which makes it a little less likely to split along the diagonal where you tried to smoosh them together.

Make little roll ups! Spoon filling onto large side of the crescent roll triangle and roll up just like you would if you were making it without filling (this is also really good with jam or nutella js). You can still dip them in the butter and dressing, they turn out great! You get a bigger bread to filling ratio, so you might need more rolls for the same amount of filling. Bake time is a little shorter though, keep an eye on them. They're cute though!

[three chicken roll ups(?) on a plate]

[baked chicken squares and roll ups on parchment paper-covered cookie sheets sitting on the stove]

So, go forth and eat chicken squares. I've got some in my freezer that I made after thanksgiving with my leftover turkey, I'm going to eat some on Monday for my birthday meal, as is traditional.