French onion…chicken?

The other day, I saw a recipe for a gruyere chicken, where the chicken was baked in the oven with some onions and mushrooms and topped with gruyere at the very end. Gruyere got me thinking to how much I love French onion soup. But, I didn’t really want to make soup since my kitchen is about 112 degrees on a good day. I decided to be inventive and came up with a French onion chicken. Basically, this is a chicken breast stuffed with gruyere, topped with a French onion soup sauce, and served atop garlic crostini. It was seriously delicious! I  just made some green beans with garlic and pine nuts to go with it.

French Onion Chicken
1 Tbsp. butter
1 small onion, sliced
1 sprig thyme
1 bay leaf
2 Tbsp dry sherry
1/2 cup beef broth
1/4 cup chicken broth
splash of cream
2 chicken breast halves
salt
pepper
garlic powder
1/4 cup shredded gruyere
EVOO
2 slices French bread (or other bakery bread)
1 garlic clove, halved

For Sauce

Heat a skillet over medium to medium-high heat. Add the butter and melt. Reduce heat to medium-low and add sliced onions, thyme and bay leaf. Cook, stirring frequently, until the onions begin to turn golden, about 20-25 minutes.

Add sherry and cook until it’s just about evaporated and onions are brown, about 8 minutes.

Increase heat to medium-high and stir in broths. Cook until liquid is reduced by about half. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Turn heat to low and stir in cream, just heating through.  Remove thyme and bay leaf (unless you are using it for photographing purposes, like yours truly 🙂

If you want to decrease the cooking time of the dish, you can just cook onions until translucent in the pan where you browned the chicken and follow the remaining steps accordingly. I didn’t do this because I wanted my onions to caramalize, but I’m sure it would still taste great.

For Chicken

Preheat oven to 350.

Depending on the size of your chicken breasts and whether you prefer a stuffing or roll-up technique, prepare/pound chicken accordingly.

Season chicken with salt, pepper and garlic powder.

Stuff chicken with gruyere.

Heat a pan over medium high heat. Add EVOO and heat. Pan fry chicken on both sides until browned. Remove pan to oven to finish cooking.

Meanwhile, spray or drizzle bread with a little olive oil. Put bread in the oven at the same time as the chicken (or, if you are using thicker chicken or didn’t pan fry it, the last 8-10 minutes of cooking).

When bread is out of the oven, rub with a clove of garlic.

Plate dish by placing chicken on top of toasted bread and spoon onion sauce over the top.