Kotleta po-Kyivsky.
Chicken Kyiv with Herb Garlic Butter
Котлета по-київськи · Kotleta po-kyivsky · say it: kot-LEH-tah po-KIH-yiv-skih
Chicken Kyiv is a boneless chicken breast beaten thin, rolled tightly around a piece of butter mashed with garlic, dill and parsley, then coated twice in egg and breadcrumbs and fried until the crust is deep amber and the inside has turned into a pocket of herb butter under pressure. The point of the dish is the moment you cut it: done properly, the butter should run out in a steady stream, not sit as a greasy smear. It takes technique rather than skill — freeze the butter hard, seal the roll with no gaps, chill it before frying — and every part of this recipe exists to keep the butter inside until it reaches the table.
- Gate
- Ukraine
- Prep
- 40 min
- Cook
- 20 min
- Total time
- 2 hr 30 min incl. 1 hr 30 min rest
- Serves
- 4
- Status
- Takes skill
- Nutrition / serving · estimated
- Calories 720 kcal
- Protein 51 g
- Carbs 38 g
- Fat 41 g
- Fiber 2 g
- Sodium 780 mg
Why this recipe works.
- The butter is shaped and frozen solid first, which buys you the time it takes for the crust to set before the filling melts.
- Double breading with a chilling rest in between — the single most reliable defence against a blowout in the pan.
- Fried to colour, then finished in the oven, so the chicken cooks through without the crust burning black.
- Tells you honestly where leaks come from and how to check the roll before it ever meets hot oil.
Ingredients.
13 itemsFor the herb butter
For the cutlets
For the coating
For frying
To serve
Equipment
- Meat mallet or rolling pin
- Three shallow bowls for breading
- Deep heavy pan or wok
- Instant-read thermometer
- Wire rack
Instructions.
Make and freeze the herb butter
Mash the softened butter with the garlic, dill, parsley, lemon zest and salt until it is evenly green-flecked. Spoon it onto cling film in a line, roll into a tight sausage about 3 cm thick, twist the ends and freeze for at least 1 hour, until rock hard.
Tip Make it the night before if you can — properly frozen butter is the single biggest factor in success.
Butterfly and pound the chicken
Slice each breast almost in half horizontally and open it out like a book. Lay it between two sheets of cling film and pound from the centre outwards until it is an even 5 mm thick, working gently enough that you never break through. Hold each one up to the light and check for tears.
Roll the cutlets
Cut the frozen butter into four equal logs and take out one at a time. Season a pounded breast, lay a butter log across the narrow end, fold the long sides inward over it and roll up tightly, making sure no butter is visible anywhere. Wrap each roll firmly in cling film and chill for 20 minutes.
Bread twice
Set out flour, beaten egg and breadcrumbs seasoned with pepper. Unwrap a roll and coat it in flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs, pressing the crumbs on firmly — then dip it back in the egg and crumbs a second time, paying attention to the seam and both ends.
Tip The second coat is not optional. A single layer of crumbs will split.
Chill the breaded rolls
Put the finished cutlets on a rack and refrigerate uncovered for 30 minutes. The coating dries and grips, and the butter core refreezes — both work in your favour once they hit the oil.
Fry to colour
Heat the oil to 170°C in a deep pan and lower in two cutlets at a time. Fry for 5–6 minutes, turning once, until the crust is an even deep gold and sounds crisp when tapped with a spoon. Lift onto a rack set over a baking tray.
Tip Never pierce the crust with tongs. Use two spoons or a spider to turn them.
Finish in the oven
Slide the tray into an oven at 190°C for 12–15 minutes, until an instant-read thermometer pushed into the meat away from the butter channel reads 74°C. The cutlets will look slightly swollen and taut.
Serve without waiting
Transfer straight to warm plates with a lemon wedge and take them to the table immediately. Cut into the middle of the cutlet — the butter should pour out at once, so make sure there is something on the plate to catch it.
Tips from our kitchen.
- Pound from the centre outwards with even strokes, and use the flat side of a mallet or a rolling pin. Punching straight down tears holes you will not see until the butter finds them.
- Aim for a uniform 5 mm thickness. Thin patches split under the butter and thick patches leave you overcooking the outside to reach the middle.
- Freeze the butter logs for at least an hour, and take them out one at a time. A softening log smears as you roll it and coats the inside of the chicken instead of staying a core.
- Press the breadcrumb layers on firmly with your palm and pay particular attention to the seam and the two ends — those are where every leak starts.
- Chill the breaded rolls for 30 minutes before frying. It firms the coating and re-hardens the butter, and it is worth more than any other single step.
- Keep the oil at 170°C. Hotter and the crust darkens before the chicken is cooked; cooler and the coating drinks oil and goes soft.
Substitutions.
- Fresh breadcrumbs → Panko breadcrumbs
- Not traditional, but panko gives a crisper, more open crust that holds up better if you need to hold the cutlets in a low oven for a few minutes.
- Deep frying → Shallow-fry in 2 cm of oil, turning to colour all sides, then finish in the oven
- Uses far less oil and works fine. Turn carefully with two spoons rather than tongs, which can pierce the crust.
- Dill and parsley butter → Tarragon and chive butter, or butter with garlic alone
- Dill is the Ukrainian default. Tarragon points the dish back at its French ancestry, which is not historically unreasonable.
Variations.
- On the bone, with a frill
- The restaurant presentation: the wing drumette is left attached to the breast and protrudes from the finished cutlet as a handle, traditionally dressed in a paper cuff.
- Cheese-stuffed kyivska
- Some Ukrainian versions add a slice of hard cheese alongside the butter, which gives a thicker, less dramatic flow but a richer filling.
- Baked instead of fried
- Brushed with melted butter and baked at 200°C for about 25 minutes. Noticeably less crisp and honestly a compromise, but far less mess and far less oil.
Storage & reheating.
Chicken Kyiv is a dish to eat within minutes of cooking — the crust softens fast and the whole point, the liquid butter core, is gone once it cools and resets. Uncooked breaded rolls are the thing to store: they keep 24 hours refrigerated and freeze for 2 months. Cook frozen rolls from frozen, browning them in oil and then baking at 180°C for about 30 minutes, since thawing makes the coating soggy. Leftover cooked cutlets reheat acceptably in a 190°C oven for 12 minutes but will have lost the butter.
Serve with
Buttered new potatoes with dill, and a sharp salad or quick-pickled cucumbers to cut the richness.
The story behind Kotleta po-Kyivsky.
The origin of chicken Kyiv is genuinely disputed and anyone giving you a single clean answer is overstating the evidence. The dish belongs to a family of French-derived stuffed chicken cutlets — côtelette de volaille — that spread through Russian and Ukrainian restaurant cooking in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when French chefs and French technique dominated elite kitchens across the region. From there the accounts diverge. One version credits a Kyiv hotel restaurant in the early twentieth century. Another traces it to Saint Petersburg under a different name that was later changed. A third argues the modern dish was formalised in Soviet restaurant standards and only then attached firmly to Kyiv. All three have supporters; none has a document that settles it.
What is well documented is what happened next. Chicken Kyiv became one of the signature dishes of Soviet restaurant cooking and, from the 1970s onward, a fixture of Western restaurant menus and then of supermarket freezers — in Britain it was among the first ready meals of its kind and effectively taught a generation what a breaded chicken breast was. That commercial afterlife is why many people know it as a slightly sad frozen product rather than as a proper restaurant dish, which is unfair to it.
The naming is not a small matter. The city is Kyiv, the Ukrainian transliteration, and the older English spelling Kiev came through Russian; the shift in international usage is deliberate and recent. Ukrainian menus write it as kotleta po-kyivsky. Traditionally the cutlet was made on the wing bone, with the bone left protruding and dressed in a paper frill, partly for presentation and partly as a handle. Most home cooks now skip the bone, and this recipe does too — the technique that matters is the sealing, not the drumette.
Questions, answered.
Why did the butter leak out during frying?
Either the chicken had a hole in it from pounding, the roll was not sealed all the way around, or the butter was not frozen hard enough. Check the pounded breast against the light for tears before filling, tuck both ends in and overlap the seam generously, press the breadcrumbs firmly onto the seam, and chill the finished rolls for 30 minutes so everything is cold and set when it hits the oil.
Is it called chicken Kyiv or chicken Kiev?
Both spellings refer to the same dish and the same city. Kyiv is the Ukrainian transliteration and is now standard in international use, while Kiev came into English through Russian and is the older form. Ukrainian menus call the dish kotleta po-kyivsky. Recipes and supermarket packaging in many countries have been updated to the Kyiv spelling since 2022.
Where does chicken Kyiv actually come from?
It is disputed and there is no decisive evidence. The dish descends from French-style stuffed chicken cutlets (côtelette de volaille) that were common in elite Russian and Ukrainian restaurant cooking from the nineteenth century, and competing accounts place its modern form in Kyiv, in Saint Petersburg under another name, and in Soviet restaurant standardisation. What is certain is that it became a Soviet restaurant classic and then a global one.
How do I know when the chicken is cooked through?
An instant-read thermometer pushed into the meat, avoiding the butter channel, should read 74°C. If you do not have one, the reliable method is to colour the cutlets in oil for about 5 minutes and then finish them in a 190°C oven for 12–15 minutes depending on thickness — timing based on the crust colour alone will mislead you, because the crust browns long before a thick roll is done.
Can I prepare chicken Kyiv the day before?
Yes, and it is the better way to do it. Assemble and bread the rolls completely, then keep them uncovered on a rack in the fridge for up to 24 hours — the coating actually dries slightly and adheres better. Fry them straight from the fridge, adding a minute or two of oven time since they start colder.
You might also like.
All recipes →
Keep exploring Ukraine.
Ukraine has 9 more dishes in the atlas — Banosh and Deruny, and 7 more.
Recipe by The DishRoute Kitchen · published August 20, 2026 · updated August 20, 2026