Easy Chile Stuffed Chicken is quick and tasty, an ideal main dish
This Easy Stuffed Chicken is a straightforward, flavorful, and elegant way to serve a very tasty chicken breast with a distinct Mexican flair. I served this at a backyard family get together and it was easy and got rave reviews.
I like to put a lot of green chiles in it – with 1/4 cup per breast, you’ll have green chiles coming out the sides. Yum! You can’t really see this in the photo – the chiles are poking out into the mound of rice. But this is also good with less green chile – you might want to put 2 tbsp of green chiles in each breast instead of 4. This is just a matter of preference.
To serve a group, I doubled the recipe and butterflied the chicken and blended the spices with the panko crumbs ahead of time. It just took about 5 minutes to dip them in the butter and panko crumbs, stuff them, and pop them in the oven. I served it with a salad and green beans. It’s a rather elegant dish considering how easy it is to serve for a group.
It’s also a bombproof dish that is easy to vary. You can change the spices – taco seasoning or Italian seasoning work well. It also is good with different cheeses, such as feta, mozzarella, sharp cheddar, gouda … or many other cheeses.
Hope you like it!
- 4 skinless boneless chicken breasts
- ¼ tsp cumin
- ¼ tsp smoked paprika
- ⅛ tsp salt
- ⅛ tsp pepper
- 1½ cups Panko bread crumbs
- 3 tbsp melted butter
- 1 cup shredded pepper jack cheese
- 1 cup diced mild green chiles
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- Butterfly the chicken breasts and pound to about ½ inch even thickness. (This is basically cutting the breasts horizontally in half - see this video
- Blend the cumin, smoked paprika, salt, and pepper; then whisk the spice mixture into the panko crumbs in a shallow bowl.
- Dip each butterflied chicken breast in the melted butter, then into the panko crumbs and place on baking dish. Only coat the bottom side of the chicken with butter and panko crumbs.
- Top one side of each breast with ¼ cup pepper jack cheese and ¼ cup diced green chiles. Fold the other half of each breast over so that the cheese and chiles are inside each breast.
- Place in a baking dish and bake for 25-30 minutes or until internal temperature reaches 165 degrees.
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