Broccoli Cheese Stuffed Chicken Breasts with Homemade Ranch Mix

 

Early this week, Katie asked if I'd make Spinach stuffed Chicken.  I haven't made it in ages and it did sound good, but no spinach on hand, neither fresh nor frozen.  When I told her this, she said, "Then try some Broccoli and Cheese stuffed breasts instead."  She knew full well I had a LOT Of the little individual packets of broccoli frozen in the freezer, courtesy Sam passing me the extra lunch food items given out by the school.

I didn't look up a recipe.  I just thought about how I'd want it to taste.  I debated on plain cheddar and broccoli, but I wanted a little something more.  I happened to see a short video of someone making a Ranch Cheese Ball...And that's where my mind began to come up with a plan.

Now I will tell you that I'd planned to use a packet of dry Ranch seasoning.  I didn't have one on hand, but we've often enough dumped a bunch of herbs, garlic and onion powder into mayonnaise and milk and made our own.  That's what I did.  I'll share my herb and seasoning mix below this recipe.

It turned out to be quite good!  Here's my recipe:

Broccoli Cheese Stuffed Chicken Breasts

6 ounces softened cream cheese

1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded

1.5 cups finely chopped broccoli florets

Ranch dressing mix (see below for my homemade dry mix)

3-4 boneless skinless breasts

Butterfly breasts.  I cut a line down the middle of the breast and then filleted either side of the line.

Mix cream cheese, broccoli, seasoning, cheddar well.  Divide into portions and put a portion at the smallest end of each breast then roll into bundles.  Mine were like long jelly rolls.   I placed mine in a slow cooker on High for two hours then cooked on low for two more hours.  

This served three but could easily have been halved to serve more with an additional side dish.  I served it with Mashed Potatoes and a salad.

 My Ranch Mix

1 tsp. Chives

1 tsp. dried Celery leaves

1 tsp. Dill Weed

1 tbsp. Parsley flakes

1 tsp. Tarragon leaves (in future, I'll half this)

1 tsp. onion powder

1 tsp. garlic powder

1 tsp. Lemon pepper

This was quite good but the Tarragon kind of took over the other flavors a bit.  I'm not accustomed to using Tarragon but there it was on the herb and spice shelf so in it went.  I would have liked the tang of buttermilk powder and that's why I decided to add the lemon pepper.  I really liked that added touch.

I mixed a little of this with some salt and sprinkled over the top of my chicken.  

My family all liked it.  Katie and John both complimented me on this dish and I found it to be quite good myself.  

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