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Delicious Stuffed Chicken Breast Recipes
Stuffed chicken breasts might look complicated when you see them on a plate but they are in fact simple to prepare. You can choose whichever fillings you prefer but broccoli and cheese is especially wonderful. Spinach is also popular in baked stuffed chicken recipes and that is because of the texture and flavor, as well as the vivid green color.
If you wrap your stuffed chicken breast in bacon, it both contributes to the flavor and helps to keep the chicken moist. Perhaps you have never combined bacon with chicken before but the results are amazing and the bacon infuses the poultry with a sweet, salty flavor and seals in the moisture too. Bacon is a wonderful ingredient to use for moist chicken breast recipes.
The lemon, mustard and white wine sauce tastes amazing too and goes perfectly with this dish. It is simple to make but the acidic flavor complements the juicy meat so well and it looks good drizzled over the stuffed chicken. The combination of ricotta and cheddar in stuffed chickens gives a nice flavor, as does the pimento but since the pimento is mainly for color rather than flavor, you could leave it out if you want. The following recipe is great served with mashed potatoes or rice.
Broccoli and Cheese Stuffed Chicken Breast Recipe with a Lemon and Wine Sauce
Ingredients -
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 cup chopped cooked broccoli
2 tablespoons chopped pimento
4 slices bacon
1 tablespoon olive oil
¼ cup ricotta cheese
½ cup grated cheddar cheese
¼ teaspoon black pepper
For the sauce:
1 cup dry white wine
1 cup chicken bouillon
Juice of 2 lemons
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
Salt and black pepper to taste
Chopped parsley leaves, to garnish
Preparation:
Pound the chicken breasts between waxed paper until they are ¼ inch thick. To make the stuffing, combine the broccoli, cheeses and pimento. Stuff this mixture into the chicken breasts and carefully roll them up like jelly rolls, wrapping one slice of bacon around each breast. Secure the stuffed chicken breasts with toothpicks. Chill them for a while, as you make the sauce.
Combine the wine and the bouillon in a saucepan. Bring to the boil and reduce it to a sauce-like consistency. Whisk in the lemon juice, mustard and season to taste. Set this sauce mixture aside.
Heat the olive oil to a medium high heat in the skillet. Add the chicken breasts and cook until the bacon is seared all over. You might need to add more olive oil. Turn the heat down to medium and cook until the chicken is cooked through. This will take about 15 minutes. Remove the chicken breasts when they are done and remove the toothpicks. Add the sauce to the skillet. Cook it over a high heat, stirring and scraping at the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon.
To serve, either leave the chicken breasts whole or slice them into medallions. Spoon some of the sauce over each one. Garnish each plate with chopped parsley leaves.
(Serves 6)
Wine Suggestion:
Which Wine to Serve with This Recipe
Stuffed chicken breast recipes like this one are usually served with a white wine such as Pinot Grigio or a White Rioja. If you are serving white wine, serve it at 50ºF. Even though this is one of the many wine recipes containing white wine, you can match this dish with a very light red wine.
If you want to be more adventurous and try a red, go for something soft like a Beaujolais. A popular favorite is the Blossom Hill Cabernet Sauvignon/Shiraz 2006. It is very soft and goes perfectly with this stuffed chicken breast recipe. These red wines are ideal served at 55ºC because they are light and fruity.
Photo Description:
A Picture of Broccoli and Cheese Stuffed Chicken Breast Recipe with a Lemon and Wine Sauce - this dish is made with chicken breast that has been stuffed with broccoli and cheese then wrapped with bacon. It makes an incredibly moist and flavorful chicken recipe that will delight the whole family.
What is Wine - A Beginner's Guide
Most people know the wine they enjoy with their stuffed chicken recipes is made from fermented grape juice but it can be interesting to learn more about it. Wine is made from water, alcohol, acids, tannins, and aromatic compounds. It starts with grapes and yeast is used to convert the sugar from the grapes into wine. This yeast is often found on the grape skins, which is handy! White wine comes from white grapes, although these might be yellow or green. Some might be red or pink. Hardly any grapes have red flesh so the color of the grape means the color of the grape skin. You can make red wine or rose from red grapes but you can also make white wine from them.
The yeast eats the sugar in the grapes, turning them into alcohol. A lot of vineyards prefer to use the yeast which is naturally found on the grapes, rather than adding other yeast. Every vintage has slightly different yeast strains and this can give wine complexity and a distinctive flavor. A lot of wineries use commercial yeasts though because they are tolerant of high-alcohol environments and they work efficiently.
Acidity and Tannins
Acid occurs in all fruit and also in wine. It is important to have a good acidity versus sweetness balance (just imagine lemonade without sugar in it!) As grapes become riper, the sugar levels rise and acids go down, so some winemakers add extra acid. Citric acid, malic acid, and tartaric acid are the most popular. You can also remove acid from wine using special salts. Grapes contain tartaric or malic acid naturally although there is another fermentation, after the yeast fermentation, which makes the acid flavor softer. The first acid would be like green apples. For the second kind, think of yogurt.
Tannins are found in the skin and seeds of grapes. They are also found in the grape stems, although these are not always added to the fermenting mixture. Wooden barrels, which hold aging wines, can also contain tannins. These act as a preservative. It is important to have a good balance between tannins and acids. Tannins make your mouth feel dry and your gums feel fuzzy. Extra tannins, in powder form, might also be added to wine.
What Else is in Wine?
Enzymes, which prevent the growth of bad yeast, are also added to wine. Bad yeast can cause wine to spoil. Some enzymes can improve sediment formation in young wines, which allows them to be filtered better, so you get more wine from the fermenting mixture. Gum Arabic might be added to the wine and this locks in the aromatic compounds and also adds a richness to the body of the wine. Polysaccharides promote color, tannin and flavor retention. Sulfur products are added to wine and these have antioxidant properties, although these feature less in modern wines because winemakers now realize only a little bit is necessary.
Wines used to be fined with egg whites and ox blood. Fining is like filtering except the filtering goes down through the wine instead of an actual filter being used. Egg white is still used sometimes but modern fining agents can also include gelatin, silica, and bentonite clay. Fining does not leave any residue so you will not find any of these ingredients in your wine glass. The flavor of the wine comes from all these ingredients and processes, with acid giving wine a tangy bite and tannins giving it an astringent zing, which also helps to stop the fruit reacting with oxygen.
Learn More About Wine>> California Wine Country Mini Articles are spread through out the site get a list of articles at this link.
