Last week, I made Basil Walnut Pesto and stuck it in the freezer for a future use. I pulled it out last night with a couple of chicken breasts and tonight used them both to make Kalyn's Easy Recipe for Baked Pesto Chicken. If you haven't found Kalyn's Kitchen recipe website/blog, I heartily recommend it. Kalyn was one of the first, if not the first, food bloggers I started following. She mainly features South Beach, or South Beach adaptable recipes and really was a big part of my inspiration to start my own blog.
Tonight's chicken was easy, very tasty and quick-all good! Here's the recipe, adapted very little from Kalyn's-enjoy...
Baked Pesto Chicken
makes three 4 oz. servings approximately 375 calories, 2 grams carbs, 26 grams fat (mostly from the EVOO and walnuts, so good fats, but probably 1/3 to 1/2 of your daily allowance so keep this in mind), 33 grams protein for 4 oz chicken and 2 TBSP pesto sauce, cheese
Ingredients:
12 oz chicken breast meat
1 cup Basil Walnut Pesto with 1/2 cup parmigiano-reggiano stirred in if not already added (or your favorite pesto recipe)
1/2 cup shredded part-skim mozzarella
Method:
Wash, dry and slice chicken into 1 inch thick slices and place in oven proof dish. Cover with pesto and place in fridge for 30 minutes to a couple of hours for the flavors to get happy with the chicken (I let mine play for 3 hours).
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| Happy Chicken! |
Remove from fridge and let chill come off while oven preheats to 375 degrees. Cover chicken with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove foil, top with mozarella and cook an additional 5 minutes, or until cheese is melted. Turn broiler on and broil until cheese browns, 2 1/2 minutes for my oven.
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| Topped with mozzarella |
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| Finished-most excellent! |
Sounds yummy and a good work-night dinner! Guess i have to make more pesto.
ReplyDelete@anonymous-there are so many wonderful pesto recipes out there right now on blogs and websites. This chicken would be great with any of them and, you're right, a great work night entree. Enjoy!
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