Chicken Pesto Sandwich

April is Grilled Cheese Month. I’m not sure who decreed it to be thus, but I’m not complaining. I love grilled cheese sandwiches, although I’m not very good at making them. Perhaps because I have a tendency to momentarily forget about them until I smell burnt toast.

Yeah. Not so tasty.

I don’t have a grilled cheese recipe per se, but I did make a sandwich with melted cheese, which is close enough in my opinion. Honestly, I wanted it to be a panini, which is definitely a cousin to grilled cheese, but it didn’t work out for me.

I don’t have a panini press since cupboard space is a premium in my apartment. In a pinch, I’ve used my George Foreman grill before, but this sandwich was a bit thicker and ended up rather mangled. So I melted the cheese the old fashioned way—in the oven.

If you do have a panini maker, I would strong encourage you to use it. Somehow flattening a sandwich just makes it a tad bit more special. ;D

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Original EatLaughPurr Recipe

Ingredients:

1 lb chicken breast
1/4 cup olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon oregano, dried
Juice of 1 lemon
Zest of 1/2 to 1 lemon
Mozzarella
Pesto sauce (I bought a bottle but you can make fresh too)
French bread baguette
Tomato slices (optional)

Instructions:

Combine the olive oil, garlic, salt, oregano, lemon juice and lemon zest together. Pour into a Ziploc bag.
Add chicken and marinade for up to 4 fours in the refrigerator.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Heat 1 teaspoon of olive oil in an oven proof skillet.
Remove chicken from marinade and sear for 2-3 minutes per side.
Bake chicken for 10-12 minutes. It will not be fully cooked.
Remove from oven and cover skillet tightly with aluminum foil and set aside for 10 minutes. This will finish cooking the chicken.
Slice the chicken and place on french roll baguette. Add tomato (if using), mozzarella cheese and pesto sauce.
Bake until cheese is melted and serve immediately.

Makes 2-3 sandwiches

Special Notes:

My method of cooking the chicken was taught to me at a cooking class. The end result is a very moist chicken breast. The chicken continues cooking after you remove it from the oven. Because eating raw chicken is very, very bad – you do want to make sure it is heated to 160 degrees before eating. I’ve used this method for more than two years and it’s always turned out perfectly for me. If you’re chicken breasts are mutant size – you may need to bake an extra minute or two.
You can also pick up a roasted chicken from the grocery store as a substitute.
Or even use good quality chicken slices from your grocer’s deli

Enjoy!