Bacon-Wrapped Chicken With Shallot Sauce – Less Than $3 Per Person

I love this bacon-wrapped chicken recipe because it’s super flexible as far as some of the ingredients go, making it easy to keep the price down, depending on what’s on sale. You could serve this chicken as is, perhaps with a bit of butter drizzled over it or even your own white wine sauce but I’m serving it with a shallot sauce that kicks this simple recipe up a notch. If you like a bit more spice, you could add some fresh garlic to the shallot sauce.

To round out the meal, I add broccoli and pasta. I was able to make the entire meal, including the pasta and broccoli, for a family of 4, for $11.60. But if you use cream cheese in place of the goat cheese, you’ll lower your costs. Feel free to use any fresh herbs you might have on hand or to lower the price even more, add dry herbs or chopped green onion. Broccoli was on sale for $1.99 a pound so I bought a pound and split it 4 ways. Greens like kale or spinach would go great too. And of course you could serve the chicken over rice, mashed potatoes, or again, just by itself. If you’re partial to prosciutto and not on a strict budget, you can use it in place of the bacon.

The whole dish looks pretty enough for a “special” dinner and takes only about 35 minutes to make. You can do a lot of the prep work beforehand, and then cook the pasta and broccoli while the chicken bakes, making it so easy, especially on those hectic weeknights.

PRICING… I bought my chicken at Albertsons during a “Buy 1 Get 2 Free” sales, making it cost $2.65 a pound. Bacon was on sale for $3.99, milk was on sale for $1.99 a gallon and I bought inexpensive white wine for $6.99. You can substitute chicken broth for the wine if you want to keep it alcohol-free.

SERVING PORTIONS… A single serving of chicken breast should be about 4 to 6 ounces per person. Normally I’d serve twice as much broccoli but since I’m serving this with pasta, I used less broccoli so I could keep my price down. Of course the healthier thing to do would be to serve no pasta and twice the veggie but I’m a pasta-loving woman.

BACON -WRAPPED CHICKEN WITH SHALLOT SAUCE –

FOR THE CHICKEN –

Prep Time: 15 minutes      Cook Time: 35 minutes        Serves: 4 for approx. $6.38

Ingredients:

4 chicken breasts* (about 4 to 6 ounces each, approximately 1 to 1 1/2  pounds)

4 tablespoons goat cheese (or cream cheese) at room temperature

1 tablespoon fresh chopped thyme or rosemary (you can also use chopped green onion or dried herbs)

8 slices bacon, partially cooked

Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Make sure cheese is at room temperature.

Slice a pocket down the side of each chicken breast.

Using your fingers, work the pockets open and press goat cheese into the center of each chicken breast. (I HIGHLY recommend wearing disposable gloves when doing this. That chicken juice can get under your nails, in your cuticles, ridges, etc., making it easy to cross-contaminate other foods.)

Add fresh herbs or chopped green onion to pocket of cheese. You can also mix the herbs to the cheese and then stuff chicken.

Season the chicken with salt and pepper.

Wrap 2 slices of the partially cooked bacon around each breast, sealing the pockets. Lay chicken in greased baking dish and bake for about 25 to 30 minutes. If you like your bacon crispy, pop under the broiler for an additional 3 to 5 minutes, keeping an eye on them so they don’t burn.

Spoon shallot sauce (or other sauce of choice if desired,) over each breast.

*Another way you can prepare this chicken… Pound out each chicken breast so it’s about 1/4″ thick. Mix cheese and herbs/green onion together and spread mixture over 1 side of chicken breast. Roll chicken breast up to conceal cheese. Wrap partially cooked bacon around chicken and secure with a toothpick. Cook as above.

SHALLOT SAUCE –

Prep Time: 5 minutes        Cook Time: 5 to 6 minutes        Serves: 4 for approx. $2.73

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon flour

1/2 cup milk

2 shallots, sliced into rings

1/2 cup dry white wine

1/2 cup chicken broth

Kosher salt and black pepper to taste

Directions:

Warm olive oil on low heat in a skillet.

In a bowl, whisk flour and milk together.

Add shallots to the skillet. Saute for 2 to 3 minutes or until softened.

Add wine and chicken broth to skillet. Whisk the flour/milk mixture into the broth. Let cook for about a minute.*

Add salt and pepper to taste and spoon over chicken.

*You don’t want this to cook to far ahead or sit on the heat for too long or it will become too thick.

For the chicken and shallot sauce, my cost was $9.11. I add a pound of fresh broccoli, cooked in the microwave, for $1.99, along with 8 ounces of spaghetti that cost 50 cents, which will feed 4 for approximately $11.60…less $3 per person.

You can see the difference in the chicken…pounded and rolled versus with a pocket.

Make sure your sauce doesn’t thicken too much…this was almost overdone. You can always whisk a bit more wine or chicken broth in to thin it out if you want to.

You can tell I didn’t wrap the chicken tight enough or use a toothpick in the middle piece.