Cheesy Mushroom Stuffed Chicken Breast

This recipe is a firm favourite that is suitable for all the family, and there are lots of variants you can make. I first had stuffed chicken breasts nearly 20 years ago. On that occasion they were made with a prawn loaded filling, held together with cocktail sticks, but I like to use mushrooms and use a slice of bacon to wrap around the chicken breast holding the filling in place.

Ingredients (serves 2)

• 2 Chicken Breasts
• 1 large closed cap mushroom (diced)
• 2 tbsp low-fat cream cheese
• 2 slices of back bacon

For this recipe you can use fresh or frozen chicken breasts - make sure frozen ones are thoroughly defrosted first! Use either smoked or unsmoked bacon, according to taste.

Method

Remove the stalk from the mushroom and slice and dice the mushroom into small pieces. Put the cream cheese in a bowl and add the mushroom. Mix together well, the mushroom pieces may break down as you mix. Place the mixture to one side.

Take each chicken breast and slice through the thickest part creating a pocket. Take roughly half the cream cheese mixture and fill the pocket in the chicken breast. Repeat for the other chicken breast. Make sure there is a small amount of cheese mixture left for later. Wrap the bacon slice around the chicken breast, using the thickest part of the bacon to fully cover the pocket opening, and pull the thin part around so that it overlaps and forms a seal. Repeat for the other chicken breast. If the chicken breast is particularly large, or the bacon small, you may need to use an extra slice of bacon.

Place the wrapped chicken breast on a baking tray and garnish the stuffed breasts with the small amount of cream cheese that you left when stuffing them. Put the stuffed breasts in a pre-heated oven at gas mark 6-7 for roughly 40 minutes. Check that the chicken is thoroughly cooked by using a skewer or thin, sharp, knife to pierce the thickest part of the stuffed chicken breast. They are ready once the juices run clear and there is a deep colouring to the garnish and bacon.

You can serve this with anything, so even your carb-loving friends and family can enjoy it - serve with a jacket potato, chips and vegetables, or rice, for them and with a healthy salad or vegetable mix for yourself.

Nutritional Information - per serving based on medium (125g) chicken breast

Fat: 11.95g
Carbs: 1.8g (Fibre: 0.2g; Net Carbs: 1.6g)
Protein: 45.37g

Calories: 306

Variations

The first time I made these I didn't have any cream cheese, so I used grated low-fat mature cheddar. Whilst this had a nice taste most of the cheese simply melted away.

For variations on this you can use any flavoured cream cheese - I like a herb and garlic one when I fancy a change - or add your own herbs to the cream cheese and mushroom mix. You can add to the mushrooms, or replace them, with prawns, leek, tomato, chilli, pesto, or anything else you fancy as long as it will mix with the cream cheese.

Try this tasty recipe out & let me know what variations you think taste great...