Bacon Wrapped Chicken slathered with sticky BBQ sauce & stuffed with gooey, melted cheese is an easy dinner idea that’ll have everyone asking for seconds!
Easy oven-baked chicken breast recipes don’t have to be boring and tasteless. Flavorful, yet manageable recipes, such as Bacon Wrapped Chicken and the plethora of other amazing chicken recipes we’ve made available look decadent enough for company but are easy to pull off on any given weekday. With only four simple ingredients, Bacon Wrapped Chicken breast proves easy and can still taste divine!
BACON WRAPPED CHICKEN
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Cooking for a family means going through a substantial amount of chicken recipes. We eat chicken every which way, in the slow cooker, grilled, baked, and on the stove top. Some recipes fall short, but sometimes we hit the winner, winner chicken dinner jackpots like with Spinach Artichoke Chicken and Cilantro Lime Chicken.
Bacon Wrapped Chicken recipe falls handily in the winner’s category. How could you possibly go wrong with the holy grail of flavors – tangy BBQ sauce, crispy bacon, and lots of stringy melted cheese? It’s a match made in chicken breast heaven. (Of course, there’s a chicken breast heaven!)
There’s a Reason Why This Bacon Wrapped Chicken Recipe is the Best!
Apparently Bacon Wrapped Chicken seems to be a popular and highly-searched recipe. And why not? People say, “Bacon makes everything tastes better” because it’s the cold, hard truth.
You know what they don’t say? “Floppy, undercooked bacon makes everything taste better.” That’s just sad and plain wrong.
It’s also where a lot of chicken wrapped in bacon recipes fall drastically short. Baking bacon and chicken breasts properly requires two different oven temperatures and cooking times. Therefore, wrapping bacon around chicken, throwing it in the oven, and hoping for the best is bound to yield some disappointing results. Out of the oven will come either tough, overcooked chicken, or limp, undercooked bacon. No thanks.
For this Bacon Wrapped Chicken recipe, the bacon is cooked partially at a higher temperature before wrapping it around the chicken. Therefore, when it’s time to bake, the chicken comes out of the oven perfectly moist with crispy bacon wrapped around it.
How to Make BBQ Wrapped Chicken
- Partially bake bacon on a foil-lined baking sheet at 400ºF.
- Remove bacon from oven and lower temperature to 375ºF.
- Butterfly and season chicken breasts. Place shredded cheddar cheese in the pocket of each chicken breast. Wrap 2 pieces of bacon around the chicken and brush on BBQ sauce.
- Bake for 25-30 minutes, basting chicken with more BBQ sauce halfway through.
Tips For Making Bacon Wrapped Chicken
- Try out different cheeses for stuffing chicken breasts – pepper jack, Colby, chive cream cheese, sharp cheddar or swiss.
- If you prefer extra crispy bacon, increase the pre-baking time to 8-9 minutes. Just make sure bacon is still flexible enough to wrap around chicken.
- The chicken can also be broiled at the very end to make bacon crispier. However, watch very carefully because BBQ sauce can burn quick!
- To lighten this recipe, omit the cheese. It will still taste fantastic!
- Baste chicken with more BBQ sauce halfway through baking to layer on more flavor.
Looking for more weeknight dinner chicken recipes?
- Bacon Ranch Chicken Tacos
- Crock Pot Cheesy Chicken and Rice
- Creamy Skillet Pesto Chicken
- One Pan Baked Italian Chicken & Tomatoes
- Chicken Jalapeno Popper Stuffed Shells
- More amazing chicken recipes…
Tools used to make this Bacon Wrapped Chicken recipe
Baking Sheet: A nice big baking sheet is a must-have for any kitchen. This half pan sheet is large than a regular cookie and works great for anything you’re baking.
Aluminum Foil: Foil is one of my favorite kitchen essentials. It helps keep food from browning too quickly, keeps clean up easy, and lets me make delicious foil packet meals!
Knives: A good set of kitchen knives is essential for any cook. This set is the best one I’ve owned so far and it comes with a knife block, steak knives, and an array of larger knives perfect for all your slicing, chopping, and cutting needs.
Ingredients
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400ºF. Line a baking sheet with foil and lay 8 slices of bacon on foil. Bake bacon 7-9 minutes, depending on how crispy you prefer your bacon to be in the end. Remove partially cooked bacon from oven.
- Turn down oven to 375ºF. Butterfly chicken breasts by starting at the thicker end and cutting through the middle, being careful to not cut all the way through. The chicken will be able to open like a book or butterfly with 2 thinner sides. Place 1/2 cup cheese on one side of chicken and then fold the top over it. Season the top of closed chicken with salt and pepper.
- Move bacon to one side of the baking sheet. Transfer stuffed chicken breasts to baking sheet. Lay the pieces of bacon over the top of each chicken breast, wrapping bacon around and tucking ends underneath. Brush on part of the BBQ sauce all over top and sides.
- Bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and baste with more BBQ sauce. Bake for 10-15 minutes more, or until chicken reaches an internal temperature of 160ºF. To make bacon crispier broil 1-2 minutes. the because BBQ sauce can burn quick!
Nutrition
Jen says
Turned out amazing! I added my own twist of stuffing with a mixture of cream cheese, cheddar cheese, and diced jalapeños. Definitely will make again that way!
Briana says
I am just starting to cook more & more & this chicken breast recipe definitely caught my attention. Sooo ! I am actually in the middle of baking it now & I can NOT wait to see eat it with my husband !!
Margie says
This sounds delicious i think ill make this tonight for dinner.thanks firvthe recioe idea..