Pecan-Crusted Chicken

One of the wonderful things about WeightWatchers is all of the recipes for chicken!  I LOVE chicken, but sometimes its hard to keep it from getting dull.  This week, I once again turned to my WeightWatchers 5 Ingredient Cookbook for a chicken recipe!  Admittedly, I've made this before and made it this week because the hubby has been asking for it--in my book, that makes it an unqualified success!  I did tweak the recipe a bit, using 1/2 cup of chopped pecans instead of 1/4 cup--it ended up with MUCH better pecan coverage!

Anyway, without further ado, here's my adjusted recipe for Pecan-Crusted Chicken!

INGREDIENTS

Chicken Breasts (boneless, skinless)

3/4 cup lowfat Buttermilk

1/2 cup of chopped pecans

1/3 cup plain dried breadcrumbs

1 teaspoon Cajun seasoning

The first step is to go ahead and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Next, trim off all the fat/icky parts of the chicken breasts.  As always, I trim one of the breasts down to 4 ounces--one serving!

Once the chicken in trimmed, pour about half of the 3/4 cup buttermilk into a large bowl that has a lid.  Place the chicken breasts into the buttermilk and then pour the remaining buttermilk over the chicken breasts.  Move the meat around so that most of it is covered with buttermilk.

Then put the lid on and stick the bowl in the fridge.  The directions say to leave it in there for 20 minutes, which I did this time, but last time I only left it in for 10 minutes, and it turned out just fine.

Next, measure out the 1/2 cup of chopped pecans, 1/3 cup of breadcrumbs, and 1 teaspoon Cajun seasoning.  Pour all of it into a small mixing bowl and mix it together well.

Now, that took me all of about 5 minutes.  Which left another 15 minutes to wait on the chicken.  So, I cleaned the kitchen, watched a bit of TV, and fed the puppies...who had been watching me avidly, waiting for chicken to drop lol.

Towards the end of the 20 minutes, spread a piece of wax paper on the counter.  Pour the dry ingredients on the wax paper and spread them out evenly.  

Also, get out a medium baking dish and spray it with PAM.  Once that's done, and the 20 minutes are up, take the chicken out of the fridge and set up your assembly line:  chicken bowl, dry mix, baking dish.

Take one breast at a time out of the buttermilk and hold it above the bowl to let most of the excess drip off.  With that done, place the chicken breast on top of the dry mixture and press down so that the breading and pecans stick firmly to the meat.  Switch sides and again press down firmly.  Once the chicken breast is thoroughly coated in dry mix and pecans, place it in the baking dish.  Repeat this with each breast.

 

Once that's done, pop the baking dish in the oven for 45 minutes.  After the chicken is finished cooking it should be white all the way through, but still moist.  I served mine with SteamFresh broccoli in cheese sauce and mixed veggies.  Once again, this was a big success with the hubby, and I have to say I sure thought it was yummy too!

I hope y'all enjoy it as well!