Good Morning Bakers and Bloggers! I’ve had a crazy couple weeks and have had a hard time finding time to sit down and write to you all. But have no fear, I’ve also been spending this time perfecting a few recipes to share with you. Today I want to transition back to some healthy food and talk to you about chicken. I’m not a huge fan of chicken on it’s own, but if you add the right seasonings and ingredients, it can be super tasty.

This particular dish, caprese hasselback chicken, is one I’d never heard of. But after seeing pictures, I thought, “oh I have to try that”. First, I love anything caprese. If you don’t know what that includes, ‘Caprese’ is a term used to describe a salad with tomatoes, fresh mozzarella cheese, basil, and olive oil or italian dressing. However, it is also very popular with balsamic vinagrette. I love all of these ingredients and being able to add those flavors to chicken sounds amazing.

The next element is the “Hasselback” technique. I had no idea what that was either. The Hasselback technique is rumored to date back to a potato dish served at the Hasselbacken Hotel in Stockholm in the 1700’s. The idea is to cut thin slices into a potato, but not all of the way through. This way you can fan out the pieces and they’re all still connected at the bottom. They are also called “accordian potatoes”. If you’re interested in the technique like I was, check out this website to start making your own fancy taters.

Ok, now back to chicken. If you haven’t figured it out already, the idea with this recipe is to cut slices into chicken breasts, and stuff them with the tomatoes and mozzarella cheese. This isn’t as difficult as it sounds, but you shouldn’t try to rush it. I used the thickest chicken breasts I could find so that the mozzarella and tomatoes wouldn’t fall out, but the cheese and tomatoes were still really tall.

Here are my unbaked pieces of chicken in all of their glory. I probably could have cut the tomatoes and cheese slices in half again, but I wanted to fit as much flavor in the chicken as possible. The recipe called for fresh basil, but I was out, so I used dried basil flakes. This worked just as well. After inserting the cheese and tomatoes in the chicken, I drizzled both pieces with balsamic vinagrette and then topped with the basil flakes.

I know this looks like a lot of work, but it’s really not. Just make sure you have a really sharp knife and don’t rush yourself when cutting into the chicken. Here is my final result.

I hope you all try this out. It was a lot of fun and super healthy. Have a great rest of your week, everyone! -Jen