One of the fastest, easiest meals to prepare is a split chicken breast stuffed with_______  (insert your favorite ingredients here). A split chicken breast is on the bone and roasting it that way helps keep the meat moist. Even if you’re being good and not eating the skin, it’s still important to buy the chicken breast with the skin on so that you have something to hold the stuffing in while it cooks.  When it’s done, you can decide to discard the skin (Oh, the horror!).

A delicious combination I saw featured in House Beautiful is goat cheese and basil. The original recipe comes from Ina Garten (big surprise) and can be found here.

When you cook goat cheese it loses some of the strong flavor so even if you’re not a huge fan, you may still like this. Matt doesn’t love GC like I do, so for his chicken breast I use half the amount and supplement it with part-skim ricotta cheese.

Ingredients:

1 skin-on, split chicken breast per person

2 slices of goat cheese, plain or herbed, per person (about 2 ounces per person)*

2 large basil leaves per person

black pepper and kosher salt

olive oil

*1-2 tablespoons part-skim ricotta cheese if you want to use less goat cheese

Preheat the oven to 375 and line a sheet pan with foil or parchment paper. This makes clean-up a lot easier!

Gently wiggle your fingers under the skin of the chicken breast  to make a pocket for the cheese. Place two pieces of goat cheese and two basil leaves under the skin of each chicken breast. Pour about a teaspoon of olive oil on each chicken breast and season generously with salt and pepper.

Cook for 35-40 minutes. Allow the meat to rest for about ten minutes before serving. Serve with your favorite veggies and enjoy!