Date & spinach stuffed chicken

Since starting university, I have had chicken almost every week in one form or another. Chicken is great for a quick and healthy meal, as it does not take ages to cook and you don't need to be a genius to make it - all you need is to make sure that it is cooked thoroughly ant that's it! However, there is only so much one can do to make it taste a bit different every time. After almost three years of frying or cooking it in the oven, in order to make it more interesting I decided to try out stuffing the chicken breast instead of just using the different spices to vary the taste. The end result was gorgeous. The chicken remained nice and juicy and tasted divine. Although, next time I'm probably going to put in more than just one date...

Also, I just have to say that this recipe got me absolutely hooked on dates - they are amazing as a snack and will be accompanying me throughout the revision period to keep my energy levels high between meals. I recently tired the almond filled dates by Bateel and they were absolutely divine - I'd even say that they could compete with chocolate! Oh well, enough about dates for now...

Ingredients

(Serves 1 - 252cal) 

- 1/4 onion, thinly sliced

- 1 small clove of garlic, crushed

- 1 ready-to-eat date, finely chopped

- 50g spinach

- 1/2 tsp ground cumin

- 1 skinless, boneless chicken breast

- 1tsp honey

- green beans, to serve

Directions

Heat the oven to 200C / fan 180C. Heat some olive oil in a non-stick frying pan and cook the onion and garlic with some salt and pepper for 5 minutes. Then add the date, spinach and half the cumin and cook for another minute or so.

Cut the chicken breast lengthways (so it opens like a book) and fill it with stuffing. Put the chicken in an oven dish, rub over the rest of cumin and drizzle with honey. Bake for around 20 minutes (or until ready) and serve with green beans (or other vegetables of your liking).

Chicken recipe from BBC Good Food