Prosciutto wrapped chicken breasts always look great in pictures, to the point where they make my mouth water. So, instead of drooling over everyone else’s meals, I decided to make it for myself.

My dinner was: cream cheese and basil stuffed chicken breast, wrapped in prosciutto, served with wedges and chorizo and garlic spinach.

Jack’s Portion!

My Portion!

After my big Aldi shop I had all my ingredients ready, they were:

• Chicken breast
• Prosciutto
• Chorizo
• Sweet chilli cream cheese
• Potato
• Sweet Potato
• Spinach
• White onion
• Garlic
• Fresh basil
• Salt and pepper

Firstly I started off with my potato sides. I made two because Jack isn’t a huge fan of sweet potato, and I don’t like normal potato. Due to my dislike of potatoes, I hadn’t ever made wedges before, but presumed they couldn’t be too different from the sweet variety, and I was correct.

I chopped one baking potato in half, and then cut it into wedges. In a lightly oiled roasting tin I added the wedges, sprinkled with salt and pepper and added two cloves of garlic. As these were going to take longer than the sweet potato I put these into the oven first, which was preheated to 180 degrees.

Whilst these started cooking I prepped the sweet potato by cutting it in chunks. After 15 minutes I added the sweet potato into the same tray as the wedges, ensuring there was enough seasoning and oil to coat them lightly. These remained in the oven for a further 35 minutes.

The overall cooking time for the chicken took about 20 minutes so I started prepping it as the potatoes went in.

Using a sharp knife I carefully cut a slit in the chicken breasts, enough to be able to fill with cream cheese and basil leaves. On this occasion I decided to use up my remaining sweet chilli Philadelphia cream cheese, so spooned around 2 heaped portions of it into the chicken. On top of the cream cheese I added 3 basil leaves and pulled the chicken breast closed. Obviously, depending on the size of the chicken breast the amount of filling will vary, however the ones I got from Aldi were a really good size.

It was then the point to wrap the chicken tightly with the prosciutto. This bit is important as it ensures that everything is held in tightly during the cooking process.

I ended up using 3 slices per piece of chicken, and wrapped them over each other as best as I possibly could to keep in all the flavours. This was a bit fiddly but the prosciutto stayed around the chicken nicely and I didn’t need to use any cocktail sticks for reinforcement.

Once the chicken was wrapped and secure I seared it in a pan with 1 tablespoon of hot oil. This took about 3 minutes on each side, to make the prosciutto crisp up ready for the oven.

When there was around 15 minutes remaining on the potatoes, that I lightly shook every 20 mins or so, I added the chicken breasts on a separate baking tray.

Now, onto my final component, the spinach. In the same pan that I seared my chicken breasts I added 1/2 finely chopped white onion, along with 2 minced garlic cloves. I cooked this over a medium heat until they began to soften then adding the chorizo. I didn’t measure this ingredient, but I must say I did add quite a lot, as it is one of my favourite meats, and I knew Jack would enjoy it too.

The juices that came from the chorizo gave the onions great colour and amazing spicy flavour. Once everything had started to crisp up I added a whole bag of spinach. I was secretly hoping I would have some leftover for my lunch today, but- to Jack’s amazement- the spinach reduced a lot, and there was just the perfect amount for both of our plates.

Finally, everything was finished. I checked the chicken in the widest part to ensure it was cooked. Everything was perfect, and it all looked and smelt amazing, I was very excited to eat it. As the chicken was so juicy, and the sides so flavoursome we didn’t need any sauces- not even any mayo for me!

The whole dish was really filling, which made it great value for money. Per person the cost for the meal was about £3.25, and although it wasn’t one of my cheapest dinners, it is far more meaty than most other things I cook!

I really enjoyed cooking something a bit different, below is the recipe I followed for the chicken breast…

https://realfood.tesco.com/recipes/chicken-breasts-wrapped-in-prosciutto.html