Stuffed Artichokes
Stuffed Artichokes – The perfect lunch, side dish, or main meal! These incredible; show-stopping, stuffed artichokes scream Italian home cooking with their tender leaves and herb-infused bread stuffing.
Jump to Recipe
Ingredients for Stuffed Artichokes:
This is everything you will need to make Stuffed Artichokes. Large artichokes, round Italian bread, parsley, olive oil, chicken stock, lemon juice, salt, black pepper, and water.
How to Pick a Good Artichoke?
For this recipe, you will want to shop for artichokes that are large in size and very vibrant green on the outside. That will be a fresh artichoke. If the leaves of the artichoke are very browned and the artichoke looks like is missing moisture, those are old artichokes and are on their way out.
Inedible Parts that Must be Removed on an Artichoke :
There are certain parts of an artichoke that you can’t eat and must be removed.
- Before the artichoke is cooked, you must remove the spikes at the end of each leaf of the artichoke. Simply make a clean cut across the top 1/4 of the artichoke, and then snip off 1/4 of each remaining leaf.
- The very center of the artichoke contains more spikes and fine hairs. You can address this in two ways. Either remove the center leaves (the leaves will be lighter in color at the base and have a slight purple color at the end) and scrape out the hairs before you cook the artichoke or leave them and cook the artichoke as is. When you are eating the artichoke, you can easily just pull off the center leaves when you get to them and then use a spoon to help scrape off the hairs from the heart of the artichoke at its center.
How to Eat an Artichoke:
If you have never eaten an artichoke before you will want to watch this video here.
Can I use a Different Type of Bread:
Truthfully, I have only ever made stuffed artichokes with round Italian Panella’s. If you can’t find that in your supermarket, you can experiment with a different type of Italian bread.
Can I use Dried Parsley:
This recipe requires fresh herbs. The fresh parsley is the secret ingredient in the stuffing.
Watch Stuffed Artichokes Being Made:
Storing Your Stuffed Artichokes:
If there are leftovers simply place them in an air tight container and place it in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. To re-warm them, place them in the microwave with a damp paper towel.
Love Stuffed Vegetables? Try These Other Popular Recipes!
Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms – Italian Style – These mushrooms are stuffed with Italian Bread, Italian Sausage, Italian Mozzarella Cheese, and Italian Parsley. It doesn’t get any better than this with these heavenly stuffed mushrooms.
Stuffed Artichokes
Ingredients
- 4 Artichokes with stems
- salt
- lemon juice
- olive oil
- Chicken Stock
Artichoke Stuffing Ingredients
- 1 whole round Italian panella bread + 1/2 of another round loaf diced (If you can get it pre-sliced it will help make your slicing more uniform)
- 1 whole bunch of Italian flat leaf parsley
- 2 eggs
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 1 tablespoon ground black pepper
- ¾ cup olive oil
- 3 cups cold water
Instructions
- Wash and clean the outside of your artichokes with cold water.
Making the Stuffing
- Take your 1 whole round Italian panella and 1/2 of another one; and slice them so you create small cubes of bread. Place the cubes of bread into a large bowl.
- Wash and dry your fresh parsley. Cut off the bottom stems and toss. Then finely chop all the parsley and place it into the bowl.
- Cut off the bottom stem of the artichoke. Make a nice clean even cut so that your artichoke will sit up straight.
- Peel the outer layer of the stem so that you expose the stem flesh. Cut off the bottom of the stem so you have a fresh cut. Then slice them into match sticks and then slice them again in the opposite direction so they are small cubes. Place them into the bowl with the bread cubes.
- Next add the salt and pepper to the bowl and set aside.
Preparing the Artichokes
- Using a kitchen scissor, cut the top 1/4 off of every artichoke leaf. You want to remove all the spikes from each of the leaves.
- After you have removed the spikes, you will want to cut off 1/4 of the top of the artichokes in a nice even cut so most of the top of the artichoke is visible.
- Under cold running water, pull the artichoke apart and open it up and wash the inside of the artichoke. The more you pull it apart to open (image opening a flower) the more room for the stuffing you will make.
- Next place your artichoke into 2 pans. 2 per pan. Salt them generously! At least 1.5 teaspoons of salt per artichoke. Get the salt into the crevices of the artichokes.
- Next; take your bottle of lemon juice, and generously coat each artichoke with lemon juice. At least 1 tablespoon per artichoke, getting the lemon juice into the artichokes crevices.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Finishing up the Stuffing Mixture
- Next add the eggs, olive oil, and the cold water to the cubed bread stuffing bowl.
- Mix together by tossing the bread with your hands until the bread mixture is uniformly moist. You want the bread to have some moisture without it being soaking wet.
- Once your stuffing is fully mixed grab an artichoke and start stuffing. You want to stuff each individual leaf. Start on the outside of the artichoke and work your way into the middle. Once each leaf is stuffed, you can stuff the top of the artichoke by mounding some of the stuffing on top.
- When all your artichokes are stuffed and placed in your pans, you will add 1/2 cup of olive oil to each pan, 1/2 cup of cold water to each pan, and enough chicken stock so that the lower 1/4 of the base of the artichoke is submerged in liquid.
- Then top each artichoke with at least 1 tablespoon of olive oil.
- Tightly cover/wrap the pans in aluminum foil. Trapping the steam will cook the artichokes.
- Bake them in the oven for 3 and 1/2 hours. Check on them periodically to see if the pans need more liquid during the baking period. If the artichokes have absorbed all the liquid, add a little more water, olive oil, and chicken stock so the base of the artichoke has liquid to absorb while it bakes. And make sure to tightly recover them with the aluminum foil.
- After the 3 and 1/2 hours, uncover the artichokes, and put them back in the oven for about 8 to 10 minutes or until the bread topping has browned.
- When the bread topping is browned, remove them from the oven. Let cool for 10 minutes, and serve.
