Homemade Spinach & Pepperjack Cheese stuffed Chicken breasts wrapped in Parma Ham

I have been an eggetarian almost all my life. But while doing post-graduation, one of my closest friends introduced (read forced ;)) me to try chicken. The first dish that I tried was Chilli Chicken and it still is my favorite. After that, for a very long time, I only used to eat very few chicken dishes, all of them made with boneless chicken. It was only when I got married that I started eating chicken in all forms. As I have mentioned in one of my earlier posts, my husband is an amazing cook and one of his specialties is cooking chicken. Still, I was not very comfortable in trying out any chicken dishes which were not Indian (spicy) but my brother slowly introduced me to milder, subtle flavored chicken and I must say I have come to love them too! So, here is one such recipe made with chicken breasts, which is very simple to make and super delicious 🙂

Preparation of Breasts

Serves 2

Ingredients:

• Fresh Spinach Leaves – 150 grams
• Sour Cream – 1/4 cup
• Shredded Pepperjack Cheese – 1/4 cup  (you can also use Monterey Jack Cheese)
• Garlic, minced – 4 cloves
• Red Chillies – 2 (deseeded if don’t want to make it hot)
• Skinless, boneless Chicken Breast Halves – 2
• Black Pepper – 1/2 teaspoon
• Salt – To taste
• Parma Ham (optional) – 6 slices

Steps:

1. Preheat the oven to 392 degrees F (200 degrees C).
2. Blanch the spinach by adding it to a boiling water followed by plunging it into chilled water. Alternatively, you can heat it in microwave for 3 minutes or until wilted.
3. Chop the blanched/wilted spinach roughly and make sure you have drained all of its water. Transfer it into a bowl.
4. Add sour cream, garlic, chillies and pepperjack cheese. Mix well until it has formed a smooth texture.
5. Lay the chicken breasts out on a clean surface, and make a slit down the side of each of the breasts to either form a pocket or to open a flap like I did (see figure 1 from the image above).
6. Spoon some of the spinach mixture inside each pocket or on the thicker side and close the flap. Refer to image 1.
7. Now, wrap the breasts with parma ham slices and secure the assembly with toothpicks. Wrapping with parma ham is, of course, optional so if you do not want to use the ham, simply secure the breasts with toothpicks. Arrange the prepared breasts in a shallow cooking dish, as shown in figure 2.
8. Bake it for 25 minutes at 200 degrees C and your dish is ready.
9. You can have it with rice or boiled veggies. I usually like my chicken with stir fried veggies and herbed couscous.

Homemade Spinach & Pepper Jack Cheese stuffed Chicken breasts wrapped in Parma Ham with sides of stir fried veggies and couscous.

I would love to know your experience and would love to hear about any other inventive accompaniments to go with the chicken 🙂