I hope everyone had an excellent Halloween. I know we did. We took the boys trick or treating in my mom’s neighborhood. We had our traditional grilled cheese and tomato soup dinner before going out – seriously the perfect comfort food.
The boys had a great time. There was a big group of my sister’s friends and Otto couldn’t get enough of the big kids. Are you ready for the reveal? We were the Justice League.
Mike was Superman, I was Wonder Woman, Otto with Green Lantern, and Eddie was Batman. I loved Otto’s little muscle suit. He’s been wearing the mask and Green lantern ring for a couple weeks now. I even got him to recite the Green Lantern oath.
And now food.
**Thank you to everyone for your comments about the recipe. I’ve taken many of them into consideration (especially the boullion notes) and I’ve made over Mel’s sauce. I think this recipe has gotten better thanks to your feedback. :)
- 3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut in half (like you’re butterflying, but finish the cut)
- 12 slices deli honey ham
- 1 cup Panko bread crumbs
- 2 tablespoons butter, melted
- 6 slices Swiss or Provolone cheese
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 cup milk
- ½ cup chicken broth
- ½ tablespoon Dijon mustard {if you like a strong mustard taste, use 1 tablespoon}
- ¾ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- ½ cup finely grated Parmesan cheese
- Parsley, for garnish
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- Coat a 9″ x 13″ baking dish with non-stick cooking spray. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- In a medium bowl, combine the bread crumbs and 2 tablespoons melted butter; set aside.
- Lay all of the chicken breast halves in a single layer in the bottom of your baking dish – unlike the traditional CCB recipe, there is no second layer of chicken in this dish. Top each breast with two slices of ham and 1 slice of cheese, so that the entire breast is covered. Sprinkle bread crumbs over the top of the chicken.
- Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through (clear juices), the cheese is bubbly and the bread crumbs are golden brown. You may want to broil the chicken for a minute or two to really brown the bread crumbs.
- While the chicken bakes, melt butter in a medium sauce pan over medium heat. Whisk in the flour to form a roux, cook for 1 to 2 minutes. Slowly pour in the milk and chicken broth while whisking constantly, make sure there are no clumps. Whisk constantly until the mixture begins to thicken, about 5 to 7 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in mustard, Worcestershire sauce, and Parmesan cheese, until the cheese is melted. Season sauce with salt and pepper. Keep the sauce warm.
- Remove chicken from oven, plate, and top with sauce. Sprinkle with parsley, if desired.
That stuff in the background?
That’s the BEST side dish EVER!!
OOOH YUM! This looks delish!
I love the fact that you get the same great taste as the 'fancy' version without all the fuss. It looks incredibly good! Now if I had only remembered to buy chicken breast when I was at Costco the other day… Looks like another trip is in order.
This looks delicious! I am definitely going to try this in the very new future. Thanks for sharing!
Hi! Stopping in to invite you to join us at the Clever Chicks Blog Hop this week!
http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2012/10/clever-chicks-blog-hop-6.html
I hope to see you there!
Cheers!
Kathy
The Chicken Chick
Going on the menu this week. Yummy.
I bought 40 lbs of split chicken breasts last week because they were on sale for $0.79/lb. I removed the breasts and have been looking for different ways to serve them – this recipe looks like a winner.
This looks so yummy! Can't wait to try it.
I will be making this soon. It looks so good, and I love that the sauce is NOT cream of chicken soup with sour cream!! I know this will be so much better!! Thanks for the recipe.
Okay, my dinner was fabulous. I left the salt out of the sauce part of the chicken recipe and used cream instead of milk and Better Than Bullion instead of a cube, for the chicken part I used up some Gruyere cheese I had in the fridge (I shredded it). It was fabulous, the husband liked it, it was easy and it is now being added to our regular dinner rotation!
Made this for dinner tonight, very good! The sauce is what made it, we even put it over our broccoli. Once in the middle of the recipe I got a bit confused about the chicken and layering. I really wanted to stack the chicken on top. So instead I pounded the chicken out and then rolled it up with the ham and Swiss. The cheese oozed out but it didn't matter you could still eat it. I made three chix breasts for me, husband and our two toddlers. The dog also got a few pieces.
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When making this chicken.. we are cutting the breast in half, but do we put ham cheese on one half and then put the other on top then the Panko crumb topping? Sorry just confused.
When I made it the first time, I cut the chicken Brest in the middle ( not all the way) and stuffed with 2 pieces of ham and 2 pieces of Swiss. When I shut the chicken to cover in panko crumbs, I had to stick 2 toothpicks in the middle to make it hold! But it was soooooo good.
I’m glad it worked out! I’ve thought about making this recipe in a more traditional way.
Yes I'm also wondering what Carol asked… Came across this great recipe on Pinterest. Thank you!
Everything is assembled in single layers. All the chicken in the bottom of the dish in one layer. Then a layer of ham across the top of all the chicken, overlap the ham slices a little. Layer the cheese pretty much the same way as the ham.
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I was thinking the same thing as meg and carol. Traditionally, CCB has chicken on the top and the bottom, with ham and Swiss in the middle, and if you look really closely at the pics provided that is how it looks, yet she does not mention it, so I am going to make them open faced and see how it turns out.oh, and in looking at the pic again, she only has three on the platter, which is how many breasts it calls for. Not 6 which is what it would be if we left the chicken open faced instead of sandwiching it.
Also, what is sprinkled on top? parsley? it is not mentioned in either the list of ingredients or the instructions.
Do you have to use the bouillon? I hate those things! What can I use instead?
I wish you had a print button. Am I missing it?
I just made this for dinner. All I can say is AH-MAZING!!!!!! SAUCE IS DELISH!! how wonderfully clever. Lol
happy cooking!
I'm glad you enjoyed it Michelle. Thanks so much for your feedback.
Thank you for sharing this recipe! I made it for dinner tonight. It’s delicious and filling. We loved it!
This was fabulous!!! My very picky daughter said it was the best chicken she had ever eaten!! Thanks for sharing.
I’m so glad she liked it Sue! I’ve got some picky eaters myself, so I feel ya.
Made this tonight & it was wonderful!! It was easy to make, especially since while the chicken was cooking, you make the sauce, & the dinner was done in no time at all!! Thank you so much for sharing, only thing I did differently, was I did season the chicken a little before layering it with all the good stuff
Thank you again for a great recipe
Made this tonight for dinner! Didn’t have that specific type of bread crumbs so I just used the ones I had. Came out great anyways and everyone loved the “stuffing” (breadcrumbs + butter mixture). Served with corn and egg noodles. I would recommend marinating or beating the chicken prior to cooking though because it will end up melt in your mouth tender rather than tough.
I loved this and so did my husband. Thanks for sharing.
Made this tonight and the chicken came out awesome but the sauce was WAY too salty.. neither my boyfriend nor I could stomach it so we ate the chicken without the sauce. I followed the recipe exactly except used almond milk instead of milk because my boyfriend is lactose intolerant (so I do this for all recipes that call for milk) but I wouldn’t think that would cause the smack in the face of salt.. not sure what happened but it was very sad!
This looks really beautiful, I absolutely love the combo of crust and sauce!
This recipe is AMAZING! All the flavors compliment each other so well and it’s easy! I love everything about this recipe. Thanks for sharing.
This was delicious, made it tonight. But I think I messed the sauce up. It ended up with a glue or paste texture more than a sauce. I followed the recipe to a t and it looked great until the cheese was added. Any idea what could have happened?
Two things I can think of….cooked the roux just a smidge too long. Add milk to thin it. Also, my biggest struggle was mastering a smooth sauce after putting the cheese in. We now fiinely grate it then add slowly so it has a chance to melt and not be gloppy.
Good luck, hope you try again.
Made this tonight. Big hit! Used the bouillon cube, it just a seasoning, I crushed it with my mortar and pestle. Cutting the chicken in half helps a lot, with adding the ham and cheese it is plenty big. It had a very strong mustard taste, next time I will 1/2 it.
I made this tonight and it was fantastic. Very simple but had bold flavors with the mustard in the sauce – I added a bit more!
This was FABULOUS! Thank you!
Hi i made this last week and it tastes magnifico!!!! Omg! Im thi king of doing it d traditional way of rolling up the chicken with d ham and cheese inside. Do i have to adjust d baking time and baking temp? Im not pounding d chicken,just butterflying it to make a flap then put ham and cheese inside before rolling up d breast
The baking temp would remain the same. I would definitely bake it a little longer, probably in the 40 to 45 minute range. That’s how long I bake whole chicken breasts for. Basically you want to juices to run clear, but you may want to grab a meat thermometer just to be sure.
Delicious! My 5yo told me it was ‘jumping into his mouth’ and had seconds for the first time in a long time! I think I would omit the bullion next time though, with the mustard and Parmesan the sauce has plenty of flavor on its own. Also thinking about trying crushed pretzels for the topping sometime just to switch things up (since I know this is now a regular part of our rotation)!
Pretzels sound great
Oh my god soooooo good! A definite staple in my house. Sauce was a bit salty. I’d hold the 1/2t of salt. Thanks for sharing this recipe
I will be making this tonight for the 3rd time. My daughter says this is her favorite way to eat chicken now. That is a huge compliment because she is so picky about food right now. Thanks for a great go-to chicken recipe!
I’m so glad! I’d do just about anything to have a recipe I know my boys would always eat.
I made this for dinner tonight and it was very very good! I also omitted the salt from the sauce and added some extra mustard as I love mustard and wanted a stronger mustard taste – I thought the sauce was perfect. For the chicken I butterflied but didn’t cut all the way through and kept the chix open faced topped with ham, cheese, then panko mixture cooked for 30 min. it was just right. My fiancee loved the dish; I will definitely be making this again.
Made this for dinner tonight! Turned out marvelous. I used a trader joe concentrated chicken flavor packet instead of a bullion cube… Turned out good!!! Hubby said this is “company food”… Lol
Gotta love “company food” Hehe. I hadn’t heard for TJ’s flavor packets. I’ll have to give those a try. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Julie,
Just have to tell you this was a big hit at my house tonight. I cut down on the mustard in the sauce but stayed true to your recipe. I mentioned you on my blog at http://theorangedoor-debrasdish.blogspot.com/2013/04/a-rave-review-for-chicken-cordon-bleu.html
Thanks for a great dinner!
Thank you for this wonderful dinner. I gave you a shout out on my blog about dinner tonight! http://theorangedoor-debrasdish.blogspot.com/2013/04/a-rave-review-for-chicken-cordon-bleu.html It’s rare that both kids will eat the same thing so thank you!
Thanks so much Debra. I’m so glad everyone liked it!
This was delicious and easy. I test drove it for myself by making one breast and all the sauce. Nice make ahead dish for company. I had no Dijon, so I used a little dry mustard. It as very good. Added pan juices from the chicken to the sauce. Will use the extra sauce elsewhere.
SUPER RECIPE !!!!! Only tweak I will make next time is to REDUCE the Dijon. Its not bad using the whole Tablespoon; It was just stronger than it needs to be. It goes together so fast and easy and is done so quickly this could easily be used for a large party, church supper or community dinner. It didnt even fall appart when it was served. My husband said to DEFINATELY KEEP this recipe = )