Cheesy Baked Pesto Chicken Is Everything You Love About Summer.
We know it sounds like a hoax. A boneless, skinless chicken breast recipe that people will not just like, but LOVE? Yeah, it’s that magical. Why? Because for this baked pesto chicken we’re breaking out the big flavors—homemade pesto, fresh mozzarella, and juicy, garlicky fresh chopped tomatoes that’s basically everything you love about bruschetta.
Easy Pesto Chicken Starts With An Easy Homemade Pesto (Duh!)
For this post, we are in full on weeknight dinner mode and hoping that this recipe is one you’ll add to your rotation and make over and over again (just like we do). For this dish we had so much fun working with Diamond of California’s pine nuts! What a treat it was ripping into those packages of tiny buttery nuts. There is something particularly magical about pine nuts. And while, yes, you can totally use store bought pesto for any recipe—we get it, busy times call for desperate measures— we oh-so-highly suggest making your pesto at home if you can. What we like about homemade pesto is that you can taste all the individual ingredients in each bite. We literally eat it by the spoonful (and you will never hear us say that about the store bought stuff).
We wanted to get creative with this recipe, but couldn't bear to stray too far away from a classic pesto. There is nothing better than sweet basil, salty parmesan, and rich pine nuts all blended into one stunning pesto. You're going to love it paired with fresh mozzarella and ripe, juicy garlicky tomatoes as much as we do.
How To Make A Baked Chicken Breast That’s NOT DRY (We Swear)
Yeah, boneless, skinless chicken breast can be a little dry. Especially when you bake it. But! This pesto chicken ensures that you won’t have a single dry bite of chicken in a few different ways:
- Pesto sauce! That dollop of freshly made pesto is way #1 that we make sure that no chicken bite is dry.
- Ripe tomatoes! Ripe tomatoes are juicy enough as it is, but we took a hint from classic Italian bruschetta and tossed our ripe tomatoes with garlic, salt, pepper and olive oil so that they’re even juicier. No dry bites!
- Fresh mozzarella. When in doubt, mozzarella. It makes everything taste like a treat. Also, we love that the colors of the Italian flag are all represented here—red tomatoes, green pesto and white mozzarella.
Basil Pesto and All the Other Herb Sauces.
We’ve officially entered into the summer garden phase where we are trying to use up everything we've grown. With fresh herbs sprouting up everywhere, we can’t help but want to make all the herb forward recipes like...now! If you’ve been following along lately, you know how much we love our herbs this time of year. (We talk about them a lot!)
We’ve recently put them to good use in..
- This chimichurri to slather all over our steaks and EVERYTHING ELSE.
- This gremotata for all of our roasted potato needs.
- This green goddess sauce - perfect for grilled cheese, crudités, or you name it!
Tools You’ll Need:
A Few Things We Love To Do With Pesto.
Fresh basil pesto is easy to make and comes together quickly, way more delicious than the store bought stuff (see above) and not to mention, it's easy to freeze! (A thousand times YES to this one.) Make a big batch and save yourself time in the future. Here are some more things you can slather it on!
Baked Chicken + Pesto + Mozzarella = A Winning Combo
If you make this dish, we’d love to hear about it! Be sure to snap a photo, add it to your Instagram feed or stories and tag @themodernproper and #themodernproper if you do. Also, feel free to leave a comment on the post and be sure to tell your friends where you discovered the recipe!
This sponsored post is written by TMP on behalf of Diamond of California The opinions and text are all ours. Thank you for supporting the brands we love.
