Walnut Crusted Chicken with Honey and Brie

Half Baked Harvest hit us with another winner with this one. It’s from her Super Simple cookbook but I made a couple of adjustments to make it super simpler. (I don’t think it impacted the taste, and I called them all out below.) For a recipe with a long title like this one, it actually requires few ingredients and very little prep. The recipe’s author is great with food photography and spends a lot of time on presentation. I was starving so my version doesn’t look nearly as dramatic or gorgeous as hers, but it tasted dang good

The recipe calls for a dredge in buttermilk followed by a coating of the crust ingredients. I didn’t have buttermilk so I dipped chicken tenders in beaten eggs (1-2 eggs will work for 1 lb of chicken) and then through a mixture of flour, finely chopped walnuts (I could have gone with an even smaller chop), thyme (recipe called for fresh; I did a healthy dash of dried), a pinch of cayenne, salt, and pepper. Press the nut mixture onto the chicken so it sticks and lay on a sprayed baking sheet. Drizzle the chicken with a little olive or avocado oil and bake at 375 for 15-20 minutes. (I flipped them at the 13ish minute mark.) While they’re cooking, mix honey and dijon mustard in whatever ratio you like best. (The recipe says to do this in a saucepan, but I think it works just fine to mix in a bowl. I used grainy mustard because it felt more French, just like the other flavors in this dish.) When the chicken comes out of the oven, drizzle the honey mustard all over it and top each chicken tender with a wedge of brie. Then stick it back in the oven for a few minutes so the cheese can get drippy and sexy lookin. Drizzle with some extra honey sauce and garnish with thyme if you’ve got the fresh stuff and feelin frisky.

When it comes to recipe cheeses, meaning: melty cheeses that you can throw on top of a dish or inside a casserole, mozzarella and cheddar are the go-tos. But who knew brie could be such a stunner when melting on top of chicken like this?! It looked and tasted downright decadent.