EASY CHICKEN AND LEEK BAKE

I love a chicken pie but I am not that mad on pastry, therefore I was delighted to find this recipe for a chicken bake with a crispy topping. The weather is miserable and winter is on its way so this was the perfect recipe to cook. Plus it was easy!! It took about 45-50 minutes in total to prepare and cook.

Ingredients for 4 people:

2 tbsp olive oil
6 chicken thighs,skinned, boned and cubed
6 rashes of smoked streaky bacon, roughly cut into 1 cm wide strips
2 leeks, sliced
4 lemon thyme sprigs (I just used normal thyme as that is all we had in the garden)
350g tub of cheese sauce (I used a three cheese sauce)
35g fresh white breadcrumbs
2 x 25g packs Walkers Sour Cream and Cracked Pepper Sunbites, crumbled
25g flat leaf parsley, chopped

Prepare all the ingredients such as cutting the chicken, crumble the crisps (I squeezed the packets), slice the leeks and chop the parsley.

You can fry the bacon but I prefer to grill it as it is "slightly" healthier so heat the grill to a medium to high heat and then put the bacon in for around 8 minutes, turning half way through.

Once the bacon has cooked start preheating the oven to 200 C / gas mark 6.

At the same time heat 1 tbsp of oil in a large pan and cook the chicken over a high heat for 6 minutes until nicely browned.

The bacon should be ready around now and so chop into strips and then add to the chicken with the leeks and the thyme and cook for a further 2-3 minutes until the leeks are softened.

Stir in the cheese sauce, cover and simmer gently for 10 minutes until the chicken is cooked through - it is always wise to check….no one wants food poisoning!!

Meanwhile stir the remaining 1 tablespoon of oil into the breadcrumbs and then mix in the crumbled Sunbite crisps and parsley.

Spoon the chicken mixture into an oven proof dish.

Scatter over the parsley and breadcrumb mix.

Bake in the oven for 15 minutes until crunchy and golden.

Serve either on its own or with a mixed green leaf salad or vegetables.

This was good - I will admit we added some grated cheese which I think it needed, however I am a cheese obsessive. When I cook it next time, I will add some Parmesan to the breadcrumb, crisp and parsley topping. If you are a vegetarian you could substitute the chicken and bacon for some mushrooms, peppers and courgettes and the chicken mixture is freezable.

I much preferred this to a normal pie - Arabella moaned there was too much parsley and I think I should have chopped it into smaller pieces however it didnt really make a difference as we really enjoyed it and managed to polish off the entire portion between the three of us! 

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