Roasted Chicken with Baby Bella Mushroom Sauce

As you know, I tend to cook by the seat of my pants. Quite often, I look to see what we have in the pantry/fridge/freezer and create something from that. I like to throw things together and just create a dish. Usually, the dish turns out quite good although there are a few failures here and there. The hardest part of cooking right now is the fact that I’m not eating dairy or sugar, and I’m limiting grains. Normally, I taste everything as I cook to make sure it’s properly seasoned and that the flavors are coming together. Right now, I can’t taste. Talk about frustrating! Thankfully, D and Munchkin don’t mind trying out new things, and they’re happy to be my guinea pigs when it comes to food.

Since I had some beautiful Baby Bella Mushrooms in the fridge waiting to be used, I thought I’d made some roasted chicken breasts with a creamy mushroom sauce. I had to rely on my taste testers to tell me if the sauce had enough seasoning. Since some of that is personal preference, there is no exact science to that part of the dish. Munchkin, who is not a big fan of mushrooms, even thought it all tasted good. She’s currently limiting the amount of dairy that she’s eating, so she had a smaller portion of the sauce.

Roasted Chicken with Baby Bella Mushroom Sauce Recipe

Ingredients:

• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 1 Tbsp Organic Natural Butter Olive Oil
• 6-7 Baby Bella mushrooms, washed and sliced
• 1-2 cloves of garlic, finely diced
• 4 Tbsp butter or Natural Butter Olive Oil, divided
• 1 Tbsp tapioca starch
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• salt & pepper
• parsley (optional)
• sweet basil (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Over medium high heat, heat cast iron skillet. Add in the Tbsp. of Organic Butter Olive Oil. (Make sure the olive oil does not smoke. Lower heat if needed.)
3. Once the skillet is hot, place chicken breasts in skillet. Cook for 2 minutes on each side or until nicely browned.
4. Place in oven to finish cooking. (Internal temperature should be 165 degrees F.) Remove and allow to rest when done.
5. While the chicken is cooking, heat up another cast iron skillet over medium heat. Add in 2 Tbsp. butter or olive oil.
6. Once the butter/olive oil is heated, add in the mushrooms. When the mushroom are almost done (soft), add in the garlic. (You don’t want the garlic to burn, so don’t put it in right away with the mushrooms.)
7. Reduce the heat to medium low and push the mushrooms over to one side of the pan.
8. Add butter/olive oil to pan. Once melted (if using butter), add in the tapioca starch. Whisk together.
9. Slowly add in the milk and combine the mushrooms with the sauce.
10. Stir in the sour cream.
11. Add seasonings to taste (salt, pepper, herbs)
12. As it cooks, it will thicken. Once it’s thickened, turn off the stove.
13. Cut the chicken breasts into slices and arrange nicely on plate. Top with mushroom sauce. Sprinkle with parsley and basil, if desired.

Notes:

*For a dairy free version, you can omit the sour cream, use only olive oil, and use coconut milk. It will give a slightly different flavor, but it does work. You may need to use more of the tapioca starch as a thickening agent depending on the coconut milk that you use.

Special thanks to Devo Olive Oil Company for the olive oil sample used in creating this recipe.