I'll be honest, ya'll. As much as I feel better eating healthier, today was a bad case of mid-week blues and I was craving comfort food. Luckily, I had planned to make this recipe last week and ended up having an outing to go to, so I got to make it tonight and it cured the mid-week blues.
I wanted everything you could possibly imagine that was unhealthy.
1. Ice cream
2. Chocolate
3. French fries
4. Cheese
5. Stuffing
Basically a thanksgiving feast with extra dessert....
One of my all-time favorite comfort foods is chicken cordon bleu. Now, there are several things I dislike about this favorite, as well. Such as- flattening out of chicken (I am terrible at this). I also hate that I then have to also spend all that time making the chicken portion, and then have to consider side items.
On the other hand... I love the melting, cheesy goodness that it gives. I love the flavors of the ham in combination with chicken. It's all of my favorite flavors (minus dessert) all mixed into one perfect dish. So two weeks ago when I was meal-prepping, I stumbled across a recipe for chicken cordon bleu casserole and thought...well lets give this a shot
So I used Six Sisters' recipe and just substituted a few things (primarily to make it healthier, but also because let's be honest- I wasn't paying $5.99 per pound for boneless skinless chicken breasts when tenderloins were on sale)
A little taste of deliciousy-goodness...all the flavor of Thanksgiving, half the fat. It satisfied my love of chicken cordon bleu while simultaneously being thrilled that I was getting comfort-type food on my "I promise to be healthier" lifestyle as well as my green veggies for the day.
Ingredients:
1lb boneless, skinless, chicken tenderloins, cooked & cut into cubes (The original recipe calls for chicken breasts, but I find that using tenderloins it is far easier to cube them into bite sized pieces without them being too thick and time-consuming)
1 6-oz package of chicken flavored stuffing mix, prepared (I used the low-sodium version)
1 10 3/4 oz can of 97% fat free cream of chicken soup
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
5-6 slices 97% fat free thinly sliced ham, ripped into small pieces (again I used the "in water" version to have lower sodium)
3 cups frozen broccoli florets (I use frozen just because it is more convenient, but I am sure that fresh would be equally as tasty)
5 slices part-skim, thinly sliced swiss cheese
pre-cooked delicious ham/chicken/broccoli/sauce goodness.... i'm drooling
Preparation:
1. preheat oven to 375 degrees
2. Prepare stuffing mix as directed on package (I used vegetable spread, rather than real butter in the preparation and it turned out fine!)
3. Mix together soup and Dijon mustard in a medium-sized bowl.
4. Stir in cooked, cubed chicken, broccoli florets, and shredded ham slices.
5. Spoon into sprayed 2-quart casserole dish.
6. Top with sliced cheese (I ripped my cheese up so that it wouldn't overlap, as well as so I could have all of my chicken mixture covered)
7. Top with cooked stuffing.
8. Bake at 375 for 35-40 minutes until heated through (mine took the full 40 minutes)
9. Allow at least 5 minutes to sit prior to serving (otherwise you'll get a mess)
Just a little close-up action to let you see all the delicious wonders of this casserole... (if only you could smell it from where you are, I promise you'd be famished)
Definitely plan on having this grace our bellies again soon!
Happy Comfort Food Day, Ya'll
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