It’s not Sunday, but we’ve been trying so many new recipes lately that I thought I’d share the one we made last night: Bacon Wrapped Pesto Chicken.

The original recipe at AllRecipes.com calls for prosciutto instead of bacon, but based on the user submitted comments I read, bacon was a popular substitution and easier for me to get my hands on this week. The result was a pretty delicious chicken dish!

I opted for the quick way, though, and used the Private Selection (Kroger brand) jar of basil pesto that I found in the pasta aisle of the grocery store instead of making my own pesto sauce. I think it would’ve been a lot better had I not decided to cheap out; not that there was anything wrong with that brand of pesto, but it wasn’t as flavorful as homemade, and even one of the more popular brands of sauce (like Buitoni?) has better pesto flavor in my opinion. But a minor detail really. If you’re giving this recipe a try, I highly recommend a good quality pesto or homemade if possible.

The instructions said 400F for 30 minutes; it was more like 35 minutes for us. The chicken was tender and juicy, but I should point out that the better bites were the ones that included plenty of sauce and bacon; the “insides” of the chicken, while baked beautifully, were kind of bland in comparison to the parts covered in sauce and bacon. Does that make any sense? I think maybe if we had marinated the chicken ahead of time to have more internal flavor it would’ve been a little better, and I even thought about using the pesto as the “glue” and then covering the chicken in bread crumbs before wrapping in bacon and baking, just as another variation.

Hope you have a great weekend! GO BEARS!