Chicken With Bacon And Honey-Balsamic Vinegar Sauce

This recipe is adapted from a description my father gave me of a dish he'd eaten at Outback Steakhouse. Apparently they do a salmon dish involving a honey-balsamic vinegar glaze, and he wondered if I could do something like that at home. This was a twist on what I imagined that recipe would have tasted like, though I used chicken since it was what I had in the freezer and added bacon because everything is better with bacon. Fast, simple to make, and really good flavors here.


Chicken With Bacon And Honey-Balsamic Vinegar Sauce

4 thin sliced chicken breasts (what I actually do here is take 2 whole chicken breasts and butterfly them)
4 slices of bacon
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 Tbsp honey
1/2 inch piece fresh ginger, very finely minced
1/2 tsp fresh rosemary, very finely diced
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper

To make the sauce, measure out the balsamic vinegar then add the honey, ginger, rosemary, and 2-3 Tbsp water to the measuring cup. Whisk thoroughly to incorporate the honey, then set sauce aside for a moment.

Slice a shallow cut down the center of each chicken breast. Lay a slice of bacon on top of this little channel for each breast. Heat a non-stick pan with just a very small dash of olive oil -- you won't need a lot, since the bacon will contribute its own fat to the process. When the oil is hot, lay the chicken breasts in the pan bacon side down and turn the heat on the pan down to medium. Salt and pepper the exposed non-bacon sides of the chicken. Shake the pan occasionally to make sure that nothing sticks, and allow the chicken to cook until there's a nice sear on that side and the bacon has cooked through and started to crisp at the edges. Flip the chicken breasts, and give them another 3-4 minutes to cook through. Remove to a plate and pat with a paper towel to take off any excess fat or oil.

Drain the grease from the pan you cooked the chicken in, and set it back on medium-high heat. Whisk the sauce again to make sure that the honey hasn't settled to the bottom, then pour it into the pan. Reduce for 3-4 minutes or until sauce thickens somewhat, then pour sauce over the chicken. Serve immediately.

Serves: 4