I’ve been wanting to make this recipe for a while now. I’ve had it saved for months and my friend, Erin, even made it before I got to it! She raved about it, so I knew I had to finally get to it. I stuck to the recipe except that my toothpicks had plastic tassel thingies so I used metal poultry trussing sticks to keep them together. This worked perfectly fine. I also didn’t have almond flour but I had brown rice flour and used that instead. I’m not sure if this made a difference–you could also substitute breadcrumbs or Panko breadcrumbs. Pounding the chicken flat was a nice upper arm workout and rolling them wasn’t hard at all thank goodness.

Ready for the oven ©EverydayCookingAdventures 2013

The prep took me about 15 minutes and then the chicken went straight into the oven. Mine chicken took 30 minutes and came out tender and brown but not too brown. Another 5 minutes could have worked fine to brown it even more but it was not necessary. It looked great when I plated it and after letting it cool off a little (5 minutes because it was steamy when I first cut into it) I felt it needed some salt. Since the recipe called for no salt beforehand I think that was okay and a couple shakes made it all better. I was a yummy weeknight meal and I served it with snap peas & carrots and my all-time favorite side-dish Bon Appetit’s Wild Rice, Sausage, & Fennel Stuffing which I’d made earlier in the day and reheated in the microwave at dinner time. Here’s my stuffed chicken:

©EverydayCookingAdventures 2013

Baked Chicken Stuffed with Pesto and Cheese

Recipe from KalynsKitchen.com, 2011
Serves 2

Ingredients:
2 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 Tbsp your favorite pesto
2 Tbsp low-fat sour cream
2 Tbsp grated mozzarella cheese
1 egg, beaten
3 T finely grated Parmesan cheese
3 T almond flour
black pepper to taste

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 375ºF. Spray a small casserole dish with non-stick spray.
2. Trim any visible fat from chicken breasts, then put them one at a time inside a heavy plastic bag and pound with meat mallet until the chicken is as thin as you can get it.
3. In a small bowl mix together the basil pesto, sour cream, and grated mozzarella. Spread a thin layer of this mixture over each chicken breast, stopping about 1/2 inch from the edge of the chicken (so it doesn’t run out so much as it cooks.) Roll up the chicken breasts and secure them with a couple of toothpicks.
4. Prepare two shallow bowls, one with the beaten egg and the other with the grated Parmesan-almond flour mixture, seasoned with black pepper to taste. Dip each chicken breast roll first into the egg mixture and then into the Parmesan-almond flour mixture, patting it on so the chicken breast roll is well-coated with the mixture.
5. Put chicken breasts into the casserole dish and bake until the chicken is firm and lightly browned. (Start checking after about 25-30 minutes; total baking time will be 30-35 minutes.)