What's for Dinner? Chicken Cordon Bleu

When I was first living on my own, I bought a lot of pre-made dinners in the frozen section of the grocery store. My favorite thing was these stuffed chicken dinners. They had several options and Wal-Mart sells them for a good price. But as I learned to cook more things, I thought, I can totally make that. The first time was not good or simple or easy or quick. The more I made it, the easier it got. You can freeze the extras and have it later as well.

 

First of all, chicken cordon bleu is relatively simple. You only need a few ingredients and it's not expensive to make.

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts or thighs

1 egg

1 cup breadcrumbs or 1 cup crushed croutons

Ham or prosciutto

Shredded cheese

Toothpicks

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. While the oven preheats, let's prepare! If you have chicken breasts, you can pound them to about 1/4-inch thickness. That's what I usually use. Tonight, I'm trying it with chicken thighs. You can just open them like this:

 

3. Next, pack in your ingredients!! I normally use provolone for the cheese but I already had shredded mozzarella so we're trying that out tonight. (I found that, unlike when I use sliced cheese, the shredded cheese did not leak out but that could just be me) Since I have ham baked already, I just took out a couple of pieces and stuffed them in.

 

Next, you'll roll it up. Fancy version? We are now going to roll it into a "roulade," which just means we're rolling it up. It's one of those methods that you can use to make a million dishes. Thanks, Mom! Once rolled, toothpick it in place.

I know it doesn't look fabulous like this, but you just want it to stay in place.

4. Traditionally, these are breaded. I was out of breadcrumbs BUT I had some leftover croutons. I smashed them and added a little bit of parmesan so I had probably a cup's worth of breadcrumbs.

Dip your chicken in the egg mixture and the breading mixture. It doesn't have to be perfect; it just needs to be coated. Then, put them on the cookie sheet or whatever baking dish you want. I didn't grease mine.

5. Once you're set, place them on a cookie sheet or whatever you have and put them in the oven for 35-45 minutes. You want to make sure there's no pink and that the cheese is melted. With these chicken thighs, they cooked for 40 minutes.

 

Nice and golden on the outside!

 

Gooey and cooked in the middle!

 

Budget Breakdown:
2 lbs of chicken thighs = $2 (on sale for 99 cents per pound)
1 egg = About 11 cents (full dozen was $1.29)
Croutons = I used what was in my pantry
Ham = I used leftover ham from an earlier meal
Shredded cheese =  About 29 cents (I used about 1/8 of a 2-cup bag while was $2.29)

Total cost = $2.40 for 4 servings.