A Day in the Life....: Baked Chicken Cordon Bleu

This has been a long time favorite of mine.

Baked Chicken Cordon Bleu

Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts
Honey Dijon Mustard
Swiss Cheese sliced
Ham sliced
Breadcrumbs

Set oven to 350

First you will need to pound the chicken flat. Most people would say put the chicken breast between two pieces of wax paper and you totally can do that but the wax paper breaks down, tears, then you have to use more. Instead I use a plastic baggie. You can zip it closed and then you will also prevent chicken goo from slinging all over your counters.

So place one breast at a time in a plastic baggie, zip it closed squeezing out the air, and pound away. I use the flat side of a meat mallot but a rolling pin, canned veggies or even a cast iron skillet will do the job!

Take the chicken out of the bag and squirt some honey dijon mustard on it.
I put the bottle in a baggie so I don't have to worry about clean hands or salmonella.

Spread it out with the back of a spoon.

Add a slice of ham!

A slice of swiss cheese!

Then roll it up! You can secure the roll with wooden toothpicks...naturally I didn't have any so I used twine. I actually think it worked better. Don't worry if a little cheese or ham is hanging out some will oooze out while baking anyway.

So line them up in a casserole dish then spray with cooking spray. You could brush olive oil on them but the baking spray lightens it up!

Now comes the breading! Out of necessity one I had to make my own breadcrumbs and now I will never go back. I usually save the ends of the bread that no one eats and tear it into cubes and freeze it for stuffing. This time I took those ends, tore them into small pieces, threw them in my food processor, sprinkled on some italian seasoning and processed them into crumbs.