Presto! Paleo Pesto Chicken with Garlic Spinach and Bacon
Whenever I go grocery shopping I seem to skip over the chicken. I tend to go for the red meat or pork because cooking chicken intimidates me. But there's no time like the present and since cooking in it's entirety used to scare me and I've conquered that, chicken is the next step of my culinary conquest.
I decided that I wanted something that would jazz chicken breasts up since JoeyWaffles loves breasts (ha) but we usually buy thighs since those are my favorite. What can I say, I date a sweetheart who always wants me happy. Lucky for him it's mutual so I threw chicken breasts in my cart a la Mary Tyler Moore and came up with something new for dinner. I had homemade pesto and spinach so I knew something good was going to happen.
Ingredients
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
3 handful of spinach depending on how much you like
2-3 cloves garlic chopped
1/2 a pack of bacon
1/2 cup pesto (you can use my mess-cipe here)
toothpicks
salt + pepper
Directions
1. Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees
2. Butterfly the chicken. That's fancy for cut it in half in even portions. You should end up with about 4 pieces. I am not great with cutting so I had six. These were originally going to be stuffed and not rolled but changed lol
3. Lay the slices on saran wrap and cover
4. Pound the chicken with a tenderizer. I have one from my Grandma but everyone is not so lucky. If you don't have one, use a can and pound it out. (ha pound it)
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| step 4 |
5. When it's nice and thin, about 1/4 inch, you can stop.
6. Sautee garlic over medium heat with oil or avocado oil and add spinach when browned
7. In another pan, start frying bacon until crispy
8. Let the crispy bacon sit for a minute or two and then chop into small pieces.
9. Drain spinach
10. Add chopped bacon to spinach
11. Season chicken with s + p.
(You can also choose to marinate ahead of time with pesto and s +p if you have the time)
12. Baste the chicken with Pesto on the inside and fill with the spinach mixture
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| step 12 |
13. Slowly roll one end of the chicken in, basting with Pesto as more chicken is exposed.
14. When it is all rolled, use 2 toothpicks to hold the roll together
15. Baste any area you missed
16. Repeat with all the breasts
17. Place in glassware baking dish
18. Place in over and bake for about 25 minutes.
19.Enjoy!
This was my first attempt and I think they came out pretty good. You could easily just stuff the breasts and not roll them. You could also roll them tighter and make then look a little neater. I really enjoyed making these and it certainly made for a non boring chicken dinner!
You look so cute in an apron! Another recipe to add to my "To Try" I think the added bacon will make me fall in love.
ReplyDeleteYou look so cute in an apron! Another recipe to add to my "To Try" I think the added bacon will make me fall in love.
ReplyDelete