Cheesy Chicken Garlic Bread
Just 5 minutes of prep work for this cheese-topped garlic bread stuffed with pesto-tossed chicken, red pepper and onion.
Equipment
- Large baking tray
- Bread knife
Ingredients
- 2-3 garlic bread baguettes
- 1 tablespoon oil
- 400 g chicken mini fillets (tenderloins US)
- 1 red pepper very thinly sliced
- 1 small red onion sliced
- 190 g jar red pesto I use Tesco’s Red Pepper Cremosa Pesto
- 250 g bag grated mozzarella & cheddar mix or just mozzarella
See notes for baby & toddler
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 200ºc/180ºc fan/400ºf/gas 6.
- Heat the oil in a large frying pan over a high heat for 1-2 minutes. Then add the chicken fillets and fry on one side for 3 minutes and then the other for another 3-4 minutes or until deep golden and cooked through.
- If the pan is now dry add a little more oil and turn the heat down to medium-low. Add the red pepper and the onion. Fry for 12 minutes or until the red pepper is soft, stirring often. Then add the chicken back in, remove from the heat and stir through the pesto.
- In the meantime, slice your garlic baguettes lengthways down the middle until you almost reach the bottom. Open them up a little and place on your largest baking tray (or use two trays). Bake for 7 minutes.
- Then fill the garlic bread with the chicken and pepper mix. Top with a good, even layer of the cheese. Return to the oven and bake for a further 5-6 minutes, until the cheese starts to turn golden-brown. To serve, cut the baguettes in half or thirds.
Baby & Toddler
Serve their portion de-constructed. Set aside some of the chicken and vegetables once cooked instead of adding it into the garlic bread. Because of the salt content in shop-bought pesto, you can toss theirs in just a small amount of the pesto - just to give it a colour. Or you can choose to leave it plain. The garlic butter on garlic bread is also salty, so you can serve them a plain roll instead and give them a little of the grated cheese. For each age stage, you can give them a bread roll cut in half.
6-7 months serve them a chicken mini fillet as is. The pepper and onion can be served as is.
7-12 months slice one mini fillet into finger-width strips. Again, serve the pepper and onion as is.
12 month + chop up the chicken, peppers and onions into bitesize pieces.
FUSSY EATERS
For fussy eaters who don’t like cooked red pepper, you can leave it out of their garlic bread section. Just give them a veg on the side they will eat instead.
STORAGE
Store any Cheesy Chicken Garlic Bread leftovers in an air-tight container or resealable food bag in the fridge for up to 3 days (cook day + 2). You can also freeze them (I like to wrap them in foil) and defrost for 24 hours in the fridge. Reheat in the oven at 180ºc / 160ºc fan / 350ºf / gas 4 for 12-14 minutes (garlic bread should be sliced in thirds). Just make sure the chicken is steaming hot.
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