Chicken Cordon Bleu

If you read the name of this recipe and expected a stuffed then fried chicken breast, you will be disappointed.

This chicken breast is stuffed but not fried.  Instead, it is baked in a delicious sour cream sauce.

So please do not criticize the misleading name.

This is my mom's recipe and I grew up eating this and I love it and I didn't have the heart to change the name of this recipe that has been passed from generation to generation just because it might be deceiving.

So there.

Besides that, you won't be disappointed with this recipe.  My husband asked me to tell you that it's one of his favorite meals of all time.

This is also a great company meal because you can make it for four or for forty.  My mom has made it for dinner parties and it is always a hit.

So here we go.

First we need to flatten some boneless, skinless chicken breasts.

I like to do this with a plastic zipper bag because then I don't send bits of raw chicken flying around my kitchen.

You can pound these out with a mallet or a skillet or virtually anything that is hard and flat.  We don't need to pound too hard, though, because chicken flattens easily.  So don't pound it to smithereens.  It's just not necessary.

Once you pound out the chicken, it's time to get the stuffing ready.  We're stuffing this chicken with dried beef (you can find this in the aisle with the potted meats like Spam.  I can't believe I just wrote the word Spam.) and Swiss cheese.  Either buy a block of cheese and slice it yourself or use the pre-sliced stuff.  I like to slice it myself because I like thicker slices.  But that's not very surprising, is it?

So lay a piece of chicken flat and cover it with cheese and 2-3 slices of dried beef. 

Roll it up any old way - it really doesn't matter.  My mom always sticks a couple of toothpicks into the chicken to really hold it together, so stab it if you want. 

This recipe makes four chicken rolls easily, but I only made three because the girls still share a piece of chicken for dinner.  It's clearly an easy recipe to make and difficult to mess up.

Now it's time to make the sauce that the chicken will cook in.  I know that's not grammatically correct.  Moving on.

We need all of two ingredients for the sauce.  A can of cream of chicken soup and about a cup of sour cream.

Mix them together

And pour the sauce over the chicken in the baking dish.

We need to bake this low and slow.  325 degrees for close to an hour.  Check it at about 40 minutes to see if the chicken is done.  As soon as the chicken is done, then pull it out.

In the meantime, make some wild rice.  It's just the perfect side dish for this meal.

Here's what I use:

After an hour or so, here's what you will have:

Bubbly and hot.  Saucy and cheesy.

Wonderful.

Serve a simple vegetable with this dish.  Green beans are good.  Or steamed broccoli.

I wish I had sliced open a chicken breast so you could see the meat and cheese inside.  But I was so focused on eating that I forgot.

You can also pour some of the sauce over the rice.  That's the way we eat it.  The rice is simply a vehicle to eat more sauce.

Make this soon.  Your husband will thank you.

Chicken Cordon Bleu

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 small jar of dried beef (you'll need enough for 2-3 slices per chicken breast)
8 oz. Swiss cheese, sliced
1 10 oz. can cream of chicken soup
1 cup sour cream
1 box of long grain & wild rice mix, prepared according to package directions, for serving

Place the chicken breasts into a plastic zipper food storage bag.  Using a mallet, gently pound the chicken breast until it is flattened and roughly the same thickness throughout. 

Lay the chicken flat on a plate and cover each breast with equal amounts of Swiss cheese and dried beef.  Roll the chicken around the filling.

Place the chicken into a greased baking dish (an 8x8 size works well).

To make the sauce, mix together the soup and the sour cream.  Pour it over the chicken.

Bake in a 325 degree oven for 45 minutes to an hour, or just until the chicken is cooked through.

Serve with the rice and plenty of sauce on top.