TGIF, friends!! I’m sure many of you, like me, are glad to be at the end of a long week. The week after a long weekend is always long, no matter what is going on, am I right? I had actually planned to share a different recipe with you today, but after making this last night, I knew I had to share it immediately.
I was supposed to make this scrumptious little dish for dinner on Wednesday, but we got home too late and so it got pushed forward a day. Let me just tell you…it was more amazing than I thought it was going to be, and while it’s not the healthiest dish I’ve ever made, it’s totally worth the indulgence.
I made a few modifications to the original recipe to cut down on some of the non-healthiness, but it’s still on the cheat-meal side and not something I would tell you to eat every day. Just as a nice treat for yourself every now and again.
J and I get to have it again for lunch today, and I can’t wait!
And how cute is my casserole dish? One of my BFFs gave that to me for Christmas a couple of years ago. I loves it. A lot. And it’s very fitting for this particular recipe, too. Buffalo sauce and jalapenos give this chicken a nice little kick. But mixed with the creamy cream cheese and bacon – oh, did I forget to mention that there’s bacon?? – it evens out nicely.
Packed full of flavor and ready in 30 minutes – what, what?!?! Put it on the menu for this weekend. And then again in 6 months. Totally. Worth it.
Buffalo Jalapeno Popper Chicken
Modified from Ruled.me
Ingredients
- 8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
- salt and pepper, to taste
- 6 slices bacon
- 4 medium jalapenos (Remove the seeds if you don’t like it too spicy)
- 8 oz Cream Cheese
- 1/4 cup mayo or Miracle Whip
- 1/4 cup Buffalo Sauce
- 3/4 cup shredded Pepper Jack
- 1/2 cup shredded Monterrey Jack
Preparation
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a large baking sheet with foil and place a cooling rack on top of it. Spray with cooking spray and set aside.
- Remove as much of the fat from the chicken thighs as you can, season with salt and pepper, and place on the prepared cooling rack. Bake for 15 minutes.
- Meanwhile, cut the bacon into bite size pieces and place in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Cook until the bacon is almost all browned. Slice three of the jalapenos into rounds or smaller if you prefer, and add to the bacon pan. Cook until the jalapenos have softened, then carefully drain the bacon grease from the pan, return to the stove, and add the cream cheese, mayo or Miracle Whip, and the buffalo sauce. Stir until the cheese is melted and the mixture is well combined. There will likely still be bacon grease remnants in the pan, don’t worry about those.
- By now the chicken should be done cooking, so remove it and set aside to cool a bit until the sauce mixture is done. Leave the oven on 400.
- Carefully remove the chicken from the cooling rack and place into a casserole dish (whatever size will best fit them, mine is about a 7 x 12-ish.) Pour and spread the sauce mixture over the chicken, coating them all as thoroughly and evenly as possible. Top with the shredded cheeses and bake for 12 minutes, until the cheese is good and bubbly. Now, with that remaining jalapeno, cut it into slices and place on top of the chicken, then put it under the broiler for 2-3 minutes to brown the cheese and soften the jalapenos. Use a spatula to separate into “slices” where the chicken is, and that’s it, friends…now you get to devour this amazing dish!!
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