Stuffed and Wrapped Chicken Breast

I grabbed some cream cheese on sale not too long ago and wondered what I would do with it besides having bagels, bagels, bagels.  It's the lower fat cheese so it's not so great for cheesecake.  I found some helpful options on AllRecipes.com.  This is not something that I will probably keep in our rotation but it will help us use up some of the cream cheese!

Stuffed and Wrapped Chicken Breast


8 slices bacon (or more)
6 oz cream cheese, softened
4 green onions
1/4/C red bell pepper
1 t garlic powder
1 t salt
1/2 t pepper
4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves (pounded thin)

Preheat oven to 350F.  Lightly grease a small baking dish.

Cook bacon over medium-high heat until the grease has mostly rendered but still very soft, about 3 minutes.  Remove, pat dry with paper towels, set aside, resist eating it.

 Stir together the cream cheese, green onions, bell pepper, garlic powder, salt, and pepper in a bowl until well combined.  Divide mixture onto each chicken breast.  Fold the breasts in half, wrap with two or three pieces of bacon.  Secure with toothpicks as needed.  Place in prepared baking dish.

Bake in preheated oven until the chicken is no longer pink in the thickest part, 30 - 35 minutes, and juices run clear.  Remove toothpicks before serving or at least give them fair warning.

**As you can see above, I did not cook the bacon.  I read that it would cook well enough.  While that is true it was a little soggy in places so I would probably cook it first, next time.  I was trying to streamline the process.  The cheese melts quite a bit and there will be some soupy goopy on the bottom but doesn't hurt anything.

Another option for flavoring the cream cheese would be to use 1 clove of garlic and two tablespoons of dried chives.  You can also substitute regular bacon for turkey bacon.