I’m Back! And With Almond-Meal Encrusted Baked Stuffed Chicken

I had a crazybusycrazy week. I missed keeping up with everyone’s blogs and making my own random contributions! But I’m back online, and am reporting on the almond meal experiment.

I made almond milk last week and was left with a good bit of almond meal, a byproduct of the milk-making. I was excited to experiment with using the almond meal! I decided to coat chicken with it and bake the chicken, sort of an oven-fried chicken experience. And I thought while I was experimenting already, why not stuff the chicken breasts? It only took a few minutes to make the stuffing and put the whole thing together to bake. Here is the process and the result:

Stuffing: I ended up using a cup of chopped cooked broccoli and three Laughing Cow cheese wedges, with a little garlic.

Smash ‘em up.

Then for the assembly. I seasoned the almond meal with salt and pepper. I like to keep it simple when I’m cooking with something new, since I don’t really know what kind of flavor I am working with.

Slice a pouch in the side of the chicken breast and push in a couple tablespoons of the stuffing. Dip the stuffed breast in beaten egg, place in almond meal, flip the chicken to coat both sides, then place in baking dish. Drizzle with olive oil and bake. I know I set the oven at 425 but I have no idea how long I baked it. I’m terrible at that part! I just check it after 25 minutes or so, then check it every 5 or 10 minutes until it looks done.

Here’s a blurry picture where I am trying to show you a cross-section of the stuffed bird parts. You can almost make out the filling. I need to work on my zoom technique instead of just leaning in really close to take a picture!

Verdict: yummo! It could have been a little moister. Next time I’ll cover the chicken for the first 20 minutes or so of baking, then remove the cover and crank the heat to brown the coating.