Jalapeno Popper Chicken

I have a love/hate relationship with chicken. When I prepare chicken I trim half of it away because it's fatty, or stringy, or has those random red veiny blood spots (ughhhhhhh). Then, when I cook it, it ends up dry.

Not this time.

Sometimes, because we have a tiny freezer/fridge, I store some frozen things in my parents' extra freezer in the basement. I didn't remember until this week that I had chicken breast and hamburg down there. Last night I brought up the chicken to our fridge and scoured through my saved recipes. Which one would I choose?

I gravitated toward Pinterest (again), and went with a stuffed chicken. I was a little weary of making a stuffed chicken, because in the past, they have either been over-cooked, the filling comes out, they don't cook evenly, or it's a lot of work to flatten them out of you want to roll up your chicken. When I got home today from gathering the few ingredients I needed for this, I found my chicken still decently frozen. I defrosted it in the microwave until it was easy enough to slice a pocket into. To my surprise, I only added about 5 minutes to the cook time from the original recipe. I figured with the partial frozen-ness of the chicken that I would run into the over-cooked category or the uneven cooking category, but no. These came out PERFECT. Perfectly cooked and ridiculously juicy. This one's a keeper.The fact that they're stuffed with the ingredients of a jalapeno popper makes it even better. Tell me it doesn't.....

Jalapeno Popper Chicken
adapted from Skinny Taste

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1/2 pkg. cream cheese (I used 1/3 less fat), softened (You can use Neufchatel for less fat)
2 jalapenos, diced
4 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
Juice from 1 lime
2 tbsp olive oil
1 cup Italian style breadcrumbs
salt and pepper

1. Preheat oven to 450. Wash and dry chicken, and season with salt and pepper.
2. Combine cream cheese, jalapeno, bacon and cheese.
3. In a shallow dish, combine the olive oil, lime juice and a sprinkle of salt and pepper.
4. In another shallow dish, lay out the breadcrumbs.
5. Lightly spray a baking dish with cooking spray.
6. Cut a pocket into your chicken breasts and fill them with the cream cheese mixture. Use toothpicks to secure them closed so the filling doesn't leak out as easily.
7. Coat the chicken breast in the oil and then dredge through the breadcrumbs, being sure to coat the entire breast evenly.
8. Place in baking dish, and repeat with all chicken breasts. Bake for 25-30 minutes.

The original recipe was doubles, so I reduced this to my liking. You may not want 2 full jalapenos, and leave out the seeds of you don't want that serious heat, I left them out. I also eyeballed the cheese, I probably had around 1/2 a cup, but I recommend even more. I also upped the bacon, it called for 2 slices for 8 chicken breasts, but really, how is less bacon the answer? It's not.