- Feb 3, 2013
- 32
- 11
Hey there everyone... This weekend I decided to do some chicken. Now, I've done bacon-wrapped chicken breasts before and they turned out awesome... super juicy and chicken really seems to do a good job of taking on a smoke flavor. So this time, I decided to kick it up a notch and stuff them with ham and Swiss, Cordon Bleu style. Classic Chicken Cordon Bleu requires the breasts to be flattened so that they can be rolled up like a jelly roll, but I've always found that to be way too much work. So I decided to cut some slits in the breasts and shove my little ham and cheese rolls inside that way.
I tried to cut some on the underbelly of the breast and stuff it from there, but it turned out to be relatively hard to stuff them that way.
I ultimately decided to cut the opening on the end of the breast, which made it much easier to stuff.
Here are the 4 stuffed breasts, waiting for the bacon.
Now, I'm not an expert bacon artist like some on here, so there's no weave. I just wrapped about 3 pieces around each and secured them with toothpicks.
I put a try of hickory chips into the trusty old MES 30, set her to 225 degrees, and just for some added smoke, I filled the AMTS with Mesquite pellets and lit it up. Well, after about 10 minutes, I realized that there was smoke billowing out of the vent, so I opened the door and was hit with a solid wall of smoke. Lol. So lesson learned, the AMTS makes plenty of smoke on its own, it really doesn't need the built-in chip try to be smoking too. Since it was already burning, I put it on my grill and stuck some peanuts in with it. I hate wasting smoke, after all.... :)
So anyway, I smoked the breasts until an IT of 160, which took about 2.5 hours. I actually made 8 of them, 4 stuffed and 4 just wrapped in bacon. Here they are, fresh from the smoker...
And, the obligatory money shot...
Some of the best chicken breasts I've ever had, I must say.
Thanks for the read, everyone!
I tried to cut some on the underbelly of the breast and stuff it from there, but it turned out to be relatively hard to stuff them that way.
I ultimately decided to cut the opening on the end of the breast, which made it much easier to stuff.
Here are the 4 stuffed breasts, waiting for the bacon.
Now, I'm not an expert bacon artist like some on here, so there's no weave. I just wrapped about 3 pieces around each and secured them with toothpicks.
I put a try of hickory chips into the trusty old MES 30, set her to 225 degrees, and just for some added smoke, I filled the AMTS with Mesquite pellets and lit it up. Well, after about 10 minutes, I realized that there was smoke billowing out of the vent, so I opened the door and was hit with a solid wall of smoke. Lol. So lesson learned, the AMTS makes plenty of smoke on its own, it really doesn't need the built-in chip try to be smoking too. Since it was already burning, I put it on my grill and stuck some peanuts in with it. I hate wasting smoke, after all.... :)
So anyway, I smoked the breasts until an IT of 160, which took about 2.5 hours. I actually made 8 of them, 4 stuffed and 4 just wrapped in bacon. Here they are, fresh from the smoker...
And, the obligatory money shot...
Some of the best chicken breasts I've ever had, I must say.
Thanks for the read, everyone!
