Chicken breasts – you want boneless skinless chicken breasts for this recipe since they’re stuffed with pizza ingredients. Chicken thighs could work here, just omit the stuffing step and sliced mozzarella, and pile all the pepperoni on top instead. They will also bake more quickly, so keep an eye on them.
Pepperoni – choose any sliced pepperoni you’d like. I like to use the Applegate Farms pepperoni as a natural option.
Tomato sauce – a jar of your favorite pasta tomato sauce is perfect here. Tomato basil, garlic, Arrabiate, or even jarred Vodka sauce all work here. Tomato basil is our favorite. This recipe uses 1 jar of pasta sauce to make the measurements easy and there’s lots of sauce that way to go with your side dishes of choice.
Garlic – I like to add a little fresh garlic to the pasta sauce to ‘jazz’ it up a bit, but I leave it out when I’m in a hurry!
Italian seasoning – I also like to add a bit of Italian seasoning to jarred pasta sauce, again to add a bit more flavor, but you can leave it out if you’d like.
Mozzarella – sliced mozzarella goes into the center of the chicken as part of the stuffing. Then the chicken is topped with grated mozzarella. You can also use any good melting cheese you have on hand like Monterey Jack, Fontina, or a young Gouda, (not the aged kind). We love using smoked mozzarella or smoked gouda sliced for the center of the chicken as well for a variation.
Parmesan – adds a bit more flavor to the grated mozzarella.
INGREDIENTS 1x2x3x
2 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts – 4
25 slices pepperoni – see notes
4 oz mozzarella – cut into 4 slices, smoked mozzarella is nice too.
3 cups tomato basil sauce – or marinara, 1-24 oz jar
1 clove garlic – minced, or 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 tsp Italian seasoning
2 cups mozzarella cheese – grated
1/4 cup parmesan cheese – grated
Chopped fresh basil or parsley for garnish
INSTRUCTIONS
Preheat the oven to 400ºF, and rub the olive oil evenly around a 9×13″ baking dish.
Butterfly each chicken breast by placing your hand on top of the chicken, and using a sharp knife cut horizontally through the chicken breast, leaving about 1/2″ not cut.
Lay 5 slices of pepperoni on one side of each chicken breast along with 1 slice each of the mozzarella.
Then mix your choice of sauce with the garlic and Italian seasoning. Spoon about 1 tablespoon of sauce over pepperoni and cheese on the chicken breasts.
Fold the chicken breasts over to close, and carefully transfer them one by one to the baking dish.
Pour the remaining sauce over the top. Then sprinkle evenly with the grated mozzarella and parmesan. Lay the remaining 5 pepperoni slices across the top of the cheese.
Bake until the chicken reaches and internal temperature 165ºF on a thermometer, and is no longer pink, about 25 minutes.
Sprinkle with chopped basil or parsley and serve immediately
