Red Pepper & Cheese Stuffed Chicken Breast

With 100+ degree temperatures this week, I was loathe to turn the oven on, but also didn't want to send poor Ben outside to stand over a hot grill. So, I decided to crank up the a/c and make some baked, stuffed chicken breasts (we've been getting a little sick of simple, plain chicken breasts, so I fancied them up a little bit).

I wanted to keep this low-calorie/low-fat, so I didn't want to do a bread stuffing or a traditional cordon bleu or florentine-style chicken. I opened the fridge to see what I already had that I could use, and right up front was my TJ's Red Pepper Spread with Eggplant and Garlic. Perfect! I had just a little bit of feta left, so I decided to use that up, too--although I ended up only having enough feta for one chicken breast, so I supplemented with my chevre goat cheese and did one breast with feta and one with goat cheese. They were both tasty, in our opinion, so use whichever you prefer/have on hand. :)

This was delicious. Not too heavy, but very moist and flavorful. The most time-consuming part was pounding out the chicken breasts, but other than that it was simple and easy to throw together and bake--which also didn't take very long.


Red Pepper & Cheese Stuffed Chicken Breast

Ingredients
2 Boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 Tbsp Red Pepper Spread
2 Tbsp feta or chevre goat cheese (or 1 Tbsp each)
Panko bread crumbs
1 Tbsp egg white

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cover a baking sheet with aluminum foil (for easy cleanup!). Cover chicken breast with foil or plastic and pound out until about 1/4" thick (I use a frying pan for this, as it provides enough heft to make it easy, yet doesn't damage/tear the chicken).

Spread 1 Tbsp red pepper spread on one side of chicken breast, sprinkled on top with 1 Tbsp cheese. Roll chicken breast carefully (pushing filling back in as needed), secure with toothpick. Gently brush chicken with egg white, then carefully roll in panko bread crumbs to cover (I didn't measure how much stuck to the chicken breasts--for calorie counting, I'm guessing about 1 Tbsp per chicken breast??).

Bake at 400 degrees approximately 20-30 minutes, or until cooked through.

I ate my chicken with a cool, Thai-style cucumber and radish salad that I made while the chicken was baking--I'll be sure to post that recipe, too, either later today or sometime tomorrow.

Also, I usually eat 4oz of cooked protein at a meal, but my finished chicken breast weighed in at about 9oz. I guessed and mentally subtracted 1 oz for the pepper spread, putting it at 8oz. I probably should have cut it in half and only eaten that much, but I was so HUNGRY and it was soooo delicious--I ended up eating the whole thing. I don't feel too guilty about it, though, since it's mostly lean and healthy protein, as opposed to eating a giant slice of fudge cake. Anyway, for calorie-counting purposes, I'm just going to put the information below in according to my 8 oz stuffed chicken breast--feel free to eat a smaller portion and reduce your calorie intake if this is too much for you.


Nutrition Information
Calories:  304.3
Fat: 6.57g     Sodium: 100.85mg     Carb: 5.12g     Fiber: 1g     Protein: 50.52g     Sugars: 1.26