Happy Friday everyone! A few posts back I wrote about my lovely little town of Encinitas, CA and shared the recipe for my Dairy-Free Cherry Garcia Ice Cream made with local cherries form the farmer’s market! These Cherry Stuffed Chicken Breasts Wrapped in Prosciutto use the Rainier Cherries I bought as opposed to the Red Cherries I used in the Cherry Garcia.
It was the very last week of cherries at my local farmer’s market, so I grabbed two pounds and loved every bite of these cherry dishes!
This recipe uses one of my new favorite discoveries… Date Lady Organic Date Balsamic. I use it not only in the cherry mixture, but also on top as the sauce!
This dish is such a treat for a weekend or special occasion… it takes a little longer than my other recipes (which are generally pretty darn simple), but this dish is absolutely worth the extra effort. Plus, cherries are an aphrodisiac, so this makes a great date night meal! Wink wink.
CHERRY STUFFED CHICKEN BREASTS WRAPPED IN PROSCIUTTO
Ingredients
- 4 chicken breasts
- 12oz fresh cherries (any variety will do), pitted and diced
- 3 teaspoons Date Lady Date Balsamic Vinegar
- 1 medium sweet onion, diced
- 2 tablespoons avocado oil
- ½ cup cashews
- 1 tablespoon fresh thyme, chopped
- 1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, chopped
- juice of ½ lemon
- 8 slices prosciutto
- salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400.
- Add cashews to a cast iron pan and toast until lightly browned.
- In a small or large food processor, pulse cashews until they are in very small pieces, but not a powder.
- Heat the same cast iron pan over medium high heat and then add 1 tablespoon avocado oil. Lower heat to medium and allow the oil to heat up for a minute or two.
- Add diced sweet onion and cook until translucent.
- Add salt and pepper, to taste.
- Add cherries and sauté for another 5 minutes or so.
- Remove from the pan and place in a medium sized mixing bowl with ground cashews, 1 teaspoon Date Balsamic and chopped herbs.
- Add 1 tablespoon avocado oil to a large stainless skillet and set aside.
- Using a meat tenderizer, pound chicken breasts between two pieces of saran wrap until they are about ½ inch thick.
- Place flattened chicken breast on a separate piece of saran wrap.
- Add cherry mixture down the center and using the saran wrap, roll the chicken around the mixture until a tight roll up is formed.
- Twist the plastic on each end of the rolled chicken breast to keep contents tight while you roll the rest of the chicken breasts.
- Once all the breasts are rolled, once again using a piece of saran wrap, place two slices of prosciutto side by side, the same length of the rolled chicken breast.
- Remove chicken breast from the saran wrap it was rolled in and place on top of prosciutto.
- Using the saran wrap under the prosciutto, roll in the same way, making sure the prosciutto becomes tightly wrapped around the chicken.
- Place rolled chicken on prosciutto on top of 3 pieces of cooking twine and tie each roll up carefully so that the contents don't spill out during cooking. The middle and each end should be tied in a relatively loose but secure tie.
- Place chicken and prosciutto rolls onto the lightly oiled skillet and place in the oven for about 30-35 minutes until the chicken is fully cooked.
- Remove from the oven and and remove the chicken from the pan, allowing it to rest on a cutting board.
- Pour out the majority of liquid in the pan, but save about 4 tablespoons.
- Heat on medium high and add the lemon juice and remaining Date Balsamic (2 teaspoons).
- Reduce the contents of the pan by half and remove from heat.
- Carefully remove the twine from the chicken and slice, topping with the drizzled pan sauce.
