Cheap Eats: Bacon Wrapped Chicken with Mushroom Sauce

A couple of days ago on my Facebook page I showed the above photo as a sneak peek of this post, well it's finally here! This post is a recipe for a twist on the classic chicken and mushroom combination which has many incarnations mostly in pies and as flavouring for instant noodles. This version is a little bit more up market compared to the last examples and would be best served for a date night or if you fancy treating yourself. I guarantee this will be just as tasty as something you'd find in a restaurant but for a fraction of the cost. The recipe I'm using here will serve two people.

Ingredients:
2 chicken breasts - £3.50ish
100mls double cream - £0.40
2 garlic cloves - £0.06
200g mushrooms - £0.40
2 rashers of streaky bacon - £0.20
Chicken stock cube - £0.02
2 carrots - £0.15
2 handfuls of spinach - £0.20 (or other veg you like)
Pepper
Olive oil - £0.02

Total = £4. 77/£2.38ish per portion


1. Pre-heat your oven to about 200. Prepare your chicken breasts by wrapping a rasher of bacon around each breast and placing on a baking tray. Cover the chicken with foil, this will prevent the breasts (ooo er) drying out and the bacon burning to a crisp. Once the oven is up to temperature place the chicken in the oven for around 30 minutes. Take the cream out of the fridge so it can get to a slightly warmer temperature.

2. Whist the chicken is cooking you can prep your sauce and veggies. First you need to put some olive oil in a frying pan and heat it up to a medium heat. Olive oil has a low smoking point so ensure you don't set the heat too high otherwise your kitchen will look like an episode of Stars In Their Eyes but without Matthew Kelly or a sequinned costume. Next finely chop the garlic and add this to the pan once you are done. You also need to chop your mushrooms into quarters or eighths depending on the size mushrooms you are using and add those to the pan too. You might as well chop the carrots whilst you are chopping stuff, I did match sticks because I think they taste/look better.

3. Now you need to boil some water in the kettle, you need enough to steam your veg (or boil it) and make 200ml of stock. Give your mushrooms a good stir and add some pepper. You now need to make up your stock and add it to the pan then let it simmer and reduce down. At this point your chicken should have been in the oven about 20 minutes.

4. Have some wine. 

5. Your chicken should have been in the oven about 30 minutes now, so you need to take the foil off it so it can crisp up and get all delicious looking. You should also start steaming your veg. I did carrots first because they take longer to cook (around 7 minutes) compared to spinach which ideally needs about 2 minutes.

 6. Once you have a thick mushroom sauce you need to remove the pan from the hob so the sauce

can cool down a little. You now need to wait until the chicken and veg are cooked.

7. Have some wine.

8. Once everything is cooked you need to plate up the veg and chicken. Now add the cream to the sauce stirring it all in thoroughly, serve this immediately on to the chicken and get stuck in!

I hope you enjoy this recipe! Let me know how you get on via Instagram, Facebook and Twitter

Massive thank you to Richard Taylor for the photos