Buffalo Chicken w/Blue Cheese Filling & Light Panko Breading- say that 10 times fast...

So this isn't necessarily quick or easy, but when you're feeling ballsy and ready for a good home cooked meal with some intense flavor, THIS IS IT! It uses simple chicken breast and some basic ingredients you may have in your fridge & pantry, and allows you to practice your chicken pounding skills, and the "breading" technique/method which you can embrace with so many different dinners! I've given you some good tips to make the process easier, so it won't feel as intimidating, so give it a shot and soon you'll be a panko breading genius!

Ingredients & Recipe:

Printable Recipe

• 4 chicken breasts, skinless/boneless
• 1 cup panko breadcrumbs (Japanese style breadcrumbs), in a shallow dish
• 1 egg, beaten, in a shallow dish
• about 1/4 cup flour, in a shallow dish
• about 1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese
• pepper
• 4 toothpicks or small wooden skewers

For the sauce:

• 2 tabs of butter or margarine
• 6 Tbls. roasted red peppers from a bottle, drained very well & finely minced
• 1 garlic glove, finely minced
• 2 Tbls. water
• 2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp. hot sauce (more or less to taste)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and place a piece of foil on a baking dish and spray it very lightly with cooking spray.

Trim each chicken breast of the excess fat and cover each with plastic cling wrap, and place each on the cutting board. Use the flat side of a meat tenderizer (or the flat side of a coffee cup, just something you can beat your chicken with, even your rolling pin), and begin to pound the chicken forcefully, but evenly, to flatten each breast out. You want each piece to be uniform in thickness, so somewhere between 1/4"- 1/2" is perfect.

Now for the filling and the breading part: Place the blue cheese in a small bowl and lightly toss it around with some fresh ground pepper. Have your beaten egg in a shallow dish, your flour in a shallow dish, and last but not least, have your breadcrumbs in a shallow dish. This allows you to dip your chicken into each bowl and get each piece covered quite easily- but don't worry your pretty or handsome little head, I'll explain in a second... By the way, you just set up your "station" so you can easy assemble everything and you're not looking around for ingredients with messy chicken hands!

Okay, now just place a decent amount of blue cheese about 1-inch away from one end of each chicken breast, and begin to roll up the chicken breast tightly, stuffing in any cheese that tries to escape, and use the toothpick to hold the roll-up in place. Tuck in any ends of the chicken around the filling to enclose the filling. Complete the rest of the chicken breasts just like the first one!

Now, working with one rolled up chicken breast at a time, dredge the chicken lightly in the flour, then submerge in the beaten egg, and then dredge the chicken into the breadcrumbs to form a crust. Place the chicken on the baking dish, seam side down and the gently remove the toothpick (otherwise it might burn in the oven). Repeat with the remaining chicken- flour, egg, breadcrumb, seam-side down, remove toothpick. Bake about 25-35 minutes, or until golden brown and chicken is firm to the touch. If you need to cut into a middle piece to check doneness, make sure the chicken is no longer pink inside, but 25-25 minutes should do it!

For the sauce:

While chicken bakes, in a small saute pan over medium/low heat, combine the butter, water, peppers, worcestershire, garlic and hot sauce. Use a small spatula to stir and bring up to a simmer so the butter melts. Give it a taste, add more hot sauce if you like. Take off the heat and set aside until the chicken is ready.

When you slice into the chicken, you should see that warm blue cheese running through the center! Serve the sauce with the chicken! Enjoy!

You Could Also Try...

• Feel free to add some seasonings to your breadcrumbs when they are in the shallow dish (before dipping the chicken in there)-I like to add a little kosher salt & cayenne pepper but it not a necessity.