Apple Stuffed Chicken Breasts
These easy apple stuffed chicken breasts will transform your everyday boneless, skinless chicken breasts into a unique and delicious dinner.
The components of this meal may seem a bit odd (apples and cheese stuffed inside chicken…come again??) but it is truly delicious. And guess what? It is quick and easy.
Basically a good, old-fashioned boneless, skinless chicken breast gets a major makeover by being stuffed with a simple mixture of crisp apples, creamy cheese and a few other helpful ingredients.
Although the original recipe calls for flattening the chicken, topping and then rolling (securing with a toothpick), I avoid flattening chicken whenever necessary. I happen to really, really hate that particular process. So I implemented my favorite chicken-stuffing method from this recipe and moved forward.
Browned and simmered in chicken broth until cooked through, the stuffed chicken stays deliciously moist and is complimented by an extremely wonderful and simple sauce. Really, the stuffed chicken would be nothing without this sauce.
Doable enough for a basic family dinner and still elegant enough to serve to company, I loved being able to present “chicken dinner” just a tad bit out of the ordinary.
What to Serve With This
I served the unique and tasty apple and cheese stuffed chicken with the rice pilaf I posted about a week or so ago, a green salad and a steamed veggie.
One Year Ago: Guacamole Salad
Two Years Ago: Simple Orzo Pilaf
Three Years Ago: Raspberry Lime Rickey
Apple Stuffed Chicken Breasts
Ingredients
- 6 boneless skinless chicken breasts
- 2 cups chopped apples, about 2 medium firm, crisp apples, peeled and cored
- ½ teaspoon garlic salt
- ½ cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
- ½ cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
- 3 tablespoons bread crumbs or 5-6 saltine crackers, crushed finely
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
- 2 tablespoons cold water
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- 2-3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley, for garnish (optional)
Instructions
- If the chicken breasts you are using are on the thicker side, slice a pocket in the center of the thickest part to use for stuffing in the apple mixture (similar to this method). If the chicken breasts aren’t thick enough to cut a pocket, pound each of them to a thickness of 1/4-inch. Season both sides of the chicken with salt and pepper. Set aside.
- In a medium bowl, combine the chopped apples, shredded cheese, bread crumbs and garlic salt. Divide the apple mixture between the chicken breasts, stuffing it into the pockets, if that is the method you used, or topping the flattened chicken breast with the mixture and rolling up and securing with a toothpick.
- In a large, 12-inch nonstick skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat until rippling. Brown the chicken breasts in a single layer, about 5 minutes per side (make sure the oil is hot before adding the chicken so it browns nicely on each side). After browning the second side, pour in the chicken broth and bring the mixture to a simmer. Cover the skillet and simmer the chicken for 10-15 minutes, until cooked through.
- Remove the stuffed chicken to a plate or serving platter. In a small bowl, whisk together the cold water and cornstarch and stir the cornstarch slurry into the juices left in the skillet. Bring the mixture to a boil, whisking or stirring, until the mixture is bubbling and thickened slightly. Pour the gravy through a fine mesh strainer (optional – only if you want to get rid of any larger ingredients that leaked out while the chicken was simmering). Pour some of the gravy over the chicken. Garnish with parsley and serve, passing the extra sauce at the table.
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Recipe Source: adapted from a recipe a reader, Mickie S., sent me – originally from allrecipes.com
I usually love your recipes, but this was just gross. Maybe I used the wrong kind of apple? I used Pink Ladies.
Same! I’ve never had a recipe from MKC that I didn’t love. But my husband literally spit it out and couldn’t stomach it. It was gross. ♀️
Hi, Mel!
I work for Readers.com, an online reading glasses brand. Last year we wrote a roundup blog post featuring fall recipes using pumpkin. We’re writing a similar blog post about cooking with apples for this fall. I came across this recipe, and it looks delicious! I was wondering if you’d be willing to let us feature you in our roundup post about best apple recipes. If so, we’d love to use one of your photos to show off your recipe. Of course, we will credit Mel’s Kitchen Cafe.
Thank you!
p.s. Your contact form was not working, so I thought this would be the best way to contact you.
Hi Kendall – sorry about the contact form; I’ll look into that. In the meantime, yes, you can feature this recipe. Will you email contact@melskitchencafe.com and my admin will help get you what you need. Thanks!
I love this chicken dish! Slitting and stuffing is far superior to rolling up since the filling to chicken ratio is much higher, and it is way easier! The flavor is all there, and the thickened chicken slurry is heaven. We ate this with plain rice (chicken juice drizzled over everything) and we licked our plates clean. Yum!
Hi Brittany – hmmm, you’ll probably have to experiment with the pasta idea (or google a similar recipe). Let me know if it works out – I haven’t tried it!
Mel,
I tried baking it and it turned out well. I would of used a little bit of apple juice instead of chicken broth next time, because i think it would make it tastier. I want to try to make chicken& apple macoroni and cheese. Any suggestions on how to change this recipe into more of a cheesy casserole with pasta? I’m thinking spiral pasta, chunks of chicken and cheeese… any ideas? 🙂
PS… I love your website ! I just moved into an apartment with my boyfriend in July… i am 23 and still learning how to cook but your website has helped me create delicious dinners for me & my bf! He has loved everything i have tried so far& it has all come from your website! thanks:)
Brittany – I’ve never baked it so I’m not sure exactly. You might try transferring the browned chicken to a baking dish, adding the broth and baking anywhere from 15-20 minutes at 350 or so but that’s just a guess. Good luck if you try it!
I really want to try this for tomorrow. how could i adapt it to be baked instead?
First I love the fruit and meat combination but it is hard to get the boyfriend to eat it (so I’ll have to be sneaky when I try this). Second, I hate flattening chicken too, so much work and so messy! And, third to answer your question, we try and do meatless meals one day a week, fish one day, ground beef/turkey another, chicken and whatever other meats I may have b/c they were on sale the remaining days (beef, pork, etc).
Chicken pops up most frequently at our house, but since your blog is practically my recipe book, I’d love some more recipes for ground beef! And pork chops, and salmon.
Looks awesome! I love stuffing chicken breasts with different concoctions and this particular one interests me. As far as chicken, we eat it twice a week usually, with one more night of leftovers. We tend to do meatless another night then beef once, if we can get our toddler to eat it. Now that it’s summer, we tend to grill a ton so flank steak, chicken, shrimp, and pork chops are taking center stage. Yum!
Just followed this recipe to a tee…it was delicious and I even refrigerated an uncooked, stuffed chicken breast and cooked it the following day; it turned out great.
I’ve actually noticed recently that we haven’t had chicken dinners consistently in a while…which is highly unusual for us! This looks fabulous and might just be added to our meal plan this week. 🙂
Mel…this recipe looks like a winner…can’t wait to try it. My husband has never been a big fan of fruit and meat, but I know the kids will LOVE it so guess what…they win 🙂
In regards to weekly meals, I cook A LOT with ground turkey breast…any recipe that calls for ground beef or ground chicken, I use ground turkey breast instead. I would say on average 2-3 nights are chicken and the other are ground turkey breast (not counting pizza night ha ha).
We eat primal/paleo so we eat meat every night of the week! Usually chicken 2 nights, beef 2 nights, turkey once and seafood once. Whole unprocessed foods, no grains or legumes for us.
Now I plan for 6 nights but usually only cook 5. 😉
We’ve been eating this way since January and luckily this still fits many of your recipes! This one looks delish! Thanks!
i usually reserve my apples for pork, but this is an undeniably delicious idea!
I have a unique situation- my husband has had half of his stomach removed, so he must have very high quality foods in small amounts. Pasta, rice, and other starches are out- I make them for the kid. We have soup/salad one day a week (farmers market day) . We have seafood once, meatless at least once, chicken once, and ground beef (I grind it myself. That leaves one fun food (hotdogs or sandwich or pizza), and Sunday night breakfast for dinner. I like that your recipes are whole foods, but still work in my real life.
Oooh, I love apples and cheddar cheese. Normally I eat them together in a quesadilla but, hey, why not stuff them into some chicken breast! Looks delicious, Mel!
As far as meats in the routine my mom gave me an awesome cookbook by the “Food Nanny” http://byutv.org/foodnanny/ she talks about each night having a “theme” with a different meat. Her rule is never serve beef two nights in a row instead to have a “meatlless” or fish day the next. I really like that idea. It helps me mix it up a bit instead of serving the same chicken over and over or over-doing on less healthy meats.
Give that baby a squish for me!
Oh man these look tasty! I’m not into flattening chicken either, so thank you for the tip!
I’d say chicken definitely makes an appearance more than any other meat, and probably twice a week on average. I do try to do at least one meatless meal a week, 2 if I can help it. Other than that, I use ground beef/turkey the most, pork roast and beef on occasion.
Recently I’ve gotten into a real groove with menu-planning: 4 meals to plan, 2 meals that are either leftovers/easy/breakfast for dinner, and we’ve adopted your Friday night pizza night (love your fast and easy pizza dough). Right now my kids are young (oldest is seven), so there’s always lots of leftovers; I know this will have to change as they get bigger. Of the four meals I have to plan, I usually do chicken, ground turkey, pork tenderloin and meatless or fish. I recently decided that I would only eat beef for company or when at a restaurant (maybe this means we’ll be having company more often). This is only because there is high cholesterol on both sides of the family– otherwise I would continue having beef once a week as we’ve done for years. I’d just rather have my saturated fats in cookie form.
We either eat chicken or ground beef, most the time. I’d love to see more ground beef recipes 🙂
I am glad to hear I am in good company with others trying to do a mix of meat and meatless meals. We probably do meat no more than 3 times a week. I can’t stand seafood (blah) so we do chicken and ground beef with the occasional roast or pork loin. We do bean dishes probably 2x a week to try to keep up on the protein.
So going to make these! Wish we hadent already made dinner tonight.:/ I have everythingg!!
This survey was interesting to me, so I enjoyed the comments. I usually cook six nights a week, and try to vary our protein. My husband wishes I cooked fish, but I am not a seafood fan. We go meatless about one night a week (would do it more often if I had a better collection of filling, tasty, healthy vegetarian meals). That leaves about 2x chicken, 1-2x ground beef or other red meat, 1-2x pork/sausage/ham/turkey/or other! I rarely serve whole chicken breasts, but rather diced chicken in pastas, casseroles, tacos, etc.
We do meat about 2 times per week. When we do have meat it is rotates between chicken, seafood, pork, bacon and beef. The meatless nights revolve around lots of black beans, homemade pizza, soups, salads, grilled sandwiches and pastas.
I’m intrigued!!!! I can’t wait to try this! I’m currently in a bit of a cooking funk…I am trying to eliminate processed foods and use as many whole foods as possible, but with us being fairly busy lately, I’m struggling in the kitchen! I do daycare and just made a 5 week whole foods menu for my little kiddos…but now I need to get a good rotation going for our dinners! We eat chicken, beef, walleye (fresh from our MN lakes) and venison (also fresh from MN) but I’m also trying to incorporate more meatless meals in as well. Now, to just get myself back in the kitchen and I will be a happy girl 🙂
Yum! Apples are great with pork, so why not chicken? I can’t wait to try this!
To answer your question, Mel, I serve chicken for dinner at least 3 times a week. I limit red meat to one meal a week, and try to serve fish at least once a week. I substitute ground turkey for ground beef most of the time, as again, I try to limit the red meat. My husband and son are carnivores, so they don’t consider it a meal unless there is animal or fish protein on the plate! My daughter and I could easily be vegetarians most days, but I always serve some sort of meat or fish for dinner. Thanks for listening! 😉 Now go snuggle with that precious baby girl! 🙂
I love the idea of the apples! I put apples in my meatloaf and it makes it so tasty! I bet this is heavely! I am going to try it!
We try to eat at least three out of seven meals per week meatless. Then I like to mix it up, because I get tired of chicken (altho’ this recipe looks delish). We eat fish once a week, kielbasa, ham, or ground beef/sausage are our staple meats. We eat a LOT of legumes. LOTS.
this looks delicious! we eat chicken 2-3 times a week (almost always shredded from a whole chicken i cooked previously), meatless 2-3 times, and pork, sausage, or beef 1-2 times.
Our weekly menu (s-th)consists of 3 meats and 2 meatless. The meats are usually chicken breast, hamburger and/or fish. The meatless is usually breakfast one night and sandwiches the other night… 🙂
We eat chicken 2-3x/week, and ground beef probably 3x/month. No seafood or tofu. The rest are meatless. New vegetarian recipes will always make me happy! But I do love your site just how it is!
I’m always looking for a good chicken recipe! We probably do chicken 3 nights/week, ground turkey once, tofu once, and meatless the other two.
Most months, there is chicken 2-3 times, beef 1-2 and fish 3-4, with the odd pork/lamb thrown in here and there. We’ve been eating entirely low-carb vegetarian this month and, so far, my husband has yet to notice. It helps that where we live (Pacific NW) vegetables are already plentiful.
Love the pork and apples, so this is a great possibility. You pretty much steer us to some great meals. As for meat and cooking, we try to cook a lot of chicken, next would be ground beef/turkey, with at least one night of pasta that may or may not have meat. I love veggies but my husband loves meat. In the summer, I love the grill and my crock pot.
This recipe looks fantastic! I love the apple/cheese combination along with simmering the chicken in broth. Can’t wait to try these – thank you!
I prepare dinner six nights a week and we eat meat about once or twice a week: chicken or fish/shrimp. Now, I do use some meat subs here and there: soy crumbles in place of ground beef and soyrizo in place of sausage, etc. My family doesn’t seem to miss meat most days since we eat so many beans and other hearty veggies.
*I’m making Mark Bittman’s “More Vegetable than Eggs Frittata” tonight.
I love the stuffing in these!
What a great idea! I have a huge bag of Apples I need to use – think I know where I’ll be using 2 of them! 😛
We do chicken maybe 2-3 times a week, and red meat every once in a while. We go meatless most of the rest of the time. This chicken recipe looks so good!
I like the stuffing into the pocket method too. The filling for these sounds delicious. I love fruit incorporated into a savory dish. We eat chicken alot here, probably at least 2 nights a week. I also try to include one meatless dish a week, one seafood dish, and we eat alot of ground turkey and pork tenderloin dishes (especially stir frys).
Apples and cheddar cheese are such a great combo and I think they would taste wonderful stuffed inside a chicken breast – yum! We probably have chicken twice a week? And its usually boneless skinless – but sometimes I would roast a whole chicken or bake or grill the whole chicken cut up. Aside from that we usually do one night meatless, one fish and then one night with beef (we very often grill hamburgers on Friday nights.)
I made apple stuffed chicken breasts a while back and they were super delicious. I’m sure these are amazing!