Red pesto + chicken ? Help !

MummyEm

I've got a jar of tesco value red pesto (from dark depths of my cupboard) and some chicken breasts in the freezer. Trying to come up with a dish for Friday night but have never used red pesto before. I sometimes use green pesto just stirred into pasta but have never used the red stuff before.
I was thinking something along the lines of chicken baked in the pesto, possibly with mozzarella but have no idea whether it would work / taste nice !!
What would you guys suggest ? Thanks

thriftlady_2

It will taste dee-licious. What I would do is cut a pocket in the chicken breast, put in a spoonful of the pesto and thick slice of mozzarella. If you have any bacon or ham (Parma ham would be good or prosciutto) then wrap that around each breast -not essential though. Bake in a lightly oiled dish for about 30 mins at 180c:drool: What time shall I come round for tea?:D Garlic bread would be nice with it.

hotcookie101

I agree with Thriftlady-stuff the chicken breast with the pesto and mozzarella, and bake. You could try doing it like a kiev with breadcrumbs, but I do like them wrapped with parma ham.
Don't use too much pesto though-just a spoonful, yum yum..... gooey sticky mozzarella and red pesto yum.
I also love red pesto smeared on pastry and rolled up and cut into bits to make pinwheel thingys.

You could if you didn't fancy stuffing the chicken cook the breasts (griddled/fried/baked etc) then smear a bit of pesto over them, and then sliced mozzarella and grill it until bubbly and browned....

wow I'm hungry now and I have only had my dinner half an hour ago!

zippychick

great minds think alike Thrifty!

MummyEm

Thanks for the super quick responses.
Now I'm hungry too !! Think I'll try the putting the pesto into the breast thingy, and we have a few slices of parma ham lurking in the fridge that need using up so perfect.
Come to think of it, think I may have some garlic bread in the freezer !
Only have to buy some mozzarella :rotfl:

I'm drooling at the thought, roll on Friday evening :j

Thanks guys

sassyblue

ooooh it will be nice, we love pasta and pesto variations here, yum!

newlywed

The other one that's nice (we do thriftlady's suggestion often, but without the cheese):

Bash/roll chicken breasts till flattened.
spread with red pesto
sprinkle with cheese
add baby tomatoes cut in half

bake.

Chicken pizza melts

moneysavingmumofone

thriftlady wrote: »

It will taste dee-licious. What I would do is cut a pocket in the chicken breast, put in a spoonful of the pesto and thick slice of mozzarella. If you have any bacon or ham (Parma ham would be good or prosciutto) then wrap that around each breast -not essential though. Bake in a lightly oiled dish for about 30 mins at 180c:drool: What time shall I come round for tea?:D Garlic bread would be nice with it.

Ooh sounds delish! Apart from I dont know what pesto tastes like. Could anyone enlighten me please?

donnajt

Similar to some of the above posts but this is a recipe from an old Asda magazine:

Pizza Chicken:
[FONT=Gill Sans MT,Century Gothic][FONT=Gill Sans MT,Century Gothic]4 Smart Price British Chicken Breast fillets
125g pack Mozzarella cheese
A handful of fresh basil leaves
320g jar Asda sundried tomato pasta sauce
8 pitted black olives, halved

• Preheat the oven to 190C/Gas 5. Cut a horizontal slit in each chicken breast to make a ‘pocket’. Slice half of the mozzarella and chop the rest. Open out the pockets, divide half of the basil leaves and the mozzarella slices between the pockets and tuck inside. Season.
• Close the pockets. Place fillets on a non-stick baking tray and spoon over the pizza sauce. Scatter with the olives and the remaining mozzarella pieces, and season well with salt and pepper.
• Bake for 25 minutes until the cheese is melted and the chicken is cooked through. Serve garnished with the remaining basil leaves.

I would spread a bit of the pesto inside the chicken or add to a tin of chopped toms to make a tomato sauce

hope that helps
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CCP

moneysavingmumofone wrote: »

Ooh sounds delish! Apart from I dont know what pesto tastes like. Could anyone enlighten me please?

Green pesto is made of basil, mostly, with a bit of garlic, parmesan and some pine nuts (at least in most recipes) - it tastes of basil, with a nice savouriness from the cheese and garlic.

Red pesto is pretty much the same but has sun dried tomatoes in it, which gives it the colour - it mostly tastes of tomatoes and basil (as you would expect, really!).

You can also get other varieties of pesto - made with coriander, mint or other herbs instead of basil, or with other veggies instead of the sun dried tomatoes (I know you can buy jars of aubergine pesto, but I'm sure there's others around, too) - but I haven't really tried any of these so I can't tell you what they taste like.

Does that help at all?

thriftlady_2

I make pesto with all sorts of things but never with the traditional pine nuts because dd is allergic to them. They're also pricy so another reason for substituting them.

Basically you want;
a big bunch of herbs -basil is the traditional one but parsley, mint and corainder work well. They need to be soft leaved varieties so not rosemary or thyme. You could also use rocket or baby spinach or other strong tasting leaves.
some nut or seeds- pinenuts, almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts, pumpkin seeds. You can get away with leaving the nut element out altogether.
garlic
cheese- parmesan is traditional. A hard cheese is best-pecorino, hard goat's cheese are good.
oil- extra virgin olive, nut oil, or cold pressed rapeseed (home produced;)) are all good.

Other good additions are; sun-dried tomatoes to make red pesto, roasted peppers, chillies, toasted bread crumbs, olives, cooked peas or broad beans.

Last week I made parsley, pumpkin seed and goat cheese pesto from River Cottage Everyday. I'm going to have a go at parsley, walnut and blue cheese pesto from the same book this week.

It's great spread on flat breads like pitta topped with a bit of cheese and grilled for a quick lunch. I also like to add more oil to it to make it thin enough to use as a dressing on salads-potato salads are good like this.