Hi everyone,

In my pre-low carb days I made this delicious hot artichoke dip and would slather it on baguettes. I used to think the dip would actually work as a sauce on chicken. well, I made it a week ago and I really liked it so I thought I would share it with you. I would love it if someone more kitchen-savvy could come up with a way to make the sauce a little less thick without just adding more mayo because i don't want it to be too greasy.


2 8-ounce packages cream cheese, room temperature
1/3 cup sour cream
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
3 6-ounce jars marinated artichoke hearts, drained, coarsely chopped
1 cup grated mozzarella cheese (about 2 1/2 ounces)
3 green onions, finely chopped
2 teaspoons minced seeded jalapeño chili


Using electric mixer, beat first 8 ingredients in large bowl to blend. Fold in artichokes, mozzarella cheese, green onions and jalapeño. Transfer to 11x7x2-inch glass baking dish. (Can be made 1 day ahead if necessary. Cover and refrigerate.)

Brown chicken breasts in a pan. Put breasts into a casserole dish and cover with the artichoke dip. Cover in foil and bake until the dip is bubbling and brown on top.

So I made this with four large chicken breasts but I think there was enough sauce for 8 breasts. If anyone has any great ideas to make this better, I would love to hear them. I am fairly new at all of this and am always looking for ways to improve my LC recipes!!

By the way, the artichoke dip is from the epicurious.com website. If you haven't checked it out yet, you should. It is my favorite site for recipes...besides this one, of course.

Beanie

Hi Beanie

This looks really good....I really love artichokes anyway!...

I haven't had a chance to make it yet, but I was thinking of dividing into a half recipe and adding a little heavy cream to make it a little thinner...I would add just a little at a time until I reached the consistency you wanted...maybe a teaspoon at a time.....

I'll let you know how it work when I get a change to make it!

I made this dish tonight for dinner, with a couple modifications. (Hope you don't mind!)

Both because you mentioned the sauce was quite thick after cooking, and because my wife isn't a huge fan of artichoke hearts, I decided to try and puree the holy bejabbers out of the sauce ingredients. Lo and behold, it made a relatively smooth sauce with no bits of artichoke, and it was the perfect consistency after coming out of the oven.

Here's what I did:

I ran all the sauce ingredients except the cheeses and artichokes through the food processor until smooth. I added 1/2 cup whole milk mozzarella and 1/2 cup shredded parmesan (lower carbs, and great flavor!) and the drained artichoke hearts one at a time. The whole sauce was scooped into a bowl and refrigerated for a couple hours.

I browned the chicken in a little peanut oil until they were about 140 degrees inside (about ten minutes), then put them in a glass casserole. I scooped all the sauce over the chicken and put the casserole lid over. Baked at 350 for about half an hour, then finished with the lid off under the broiler to brown the top of the cheeses.

Delicious with fresh steamed asparagus!

(Although I agree that we can probably cut the sauce in half; we had a LOT left over...)

My best guess is that the chicken and sauce added up to about 1.5 effective carbs per serving (counting only what went with the chicken when it left the dish). I'll enter the recipe into MasterCook later tonight and see what the breakdown really is.

This was great, and we've added it to our "we'll do it again!" list.

OK, here's the breakdown from MasterCook. Remember that the software adds up ALL the nutrition info for the sauce, and I figure about 1/8 of the sauce actually went to the plate.

I also cut the sauce ingredients in half, so there wouldn't be so much left over. (Except for the garlic. No point in a half clove of garlic... )


* Exported from MasterCook *

Creamy Artichoke Chicken Breasts

Recipe By :"Beanie"
Serving Size : 4 Preparation Time :0:00
Categories :

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
1 package cream cheese -- softened
5 1/2 tablespoons sour cream
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1/2 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 tablespoon dijon mustard
1 clove garlic -- minced
1/2 teaspoon worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
1/4 cup mozzarella cheese -- grated
1/4 cup parmesan cheese -- shredded
9 ounces marinated artichoke hearts
1 each green onions -- finely chopped
2 each chicken breast, no skin, no bone, R-T-C -- cut in half
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Mix cream cheese, sour cream, mayo, lemon juice, dijon, garlic, worcestershire and hot pepper sauce in food processor until smooth.

Slowly add cheese, artichoke hearts and onions

(Sauce can be made up to a day in advance)

Brown chicken breasts in oil until 140 degrees (about 10 minutes)

Place in casserole dish and cover with prepared artichoke sauce.

Cover with lid and bake at 350 for 30 minutes

Uncover and place under broiler until cheese bubbles and starts to brown on top

Source:
"Low-Carb Forum"
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Per Serving (excluding unknown items): 600 Calories; 47g Fat (69.7% calories from fat); 37g Protein; 8g Carbohydrate; 2g Dietary Fiber; 157mg Cholesterol; 649mg Sodium. Exchanges: 5 Lean Meat; 1 Vegetable; 0 Fruit; 0 Non-Fat Milk; 7 1/2 Fat; 0 Other Carbohydrates.

I am really glad you liked the dish!
Great idea to use the food processor on the artichokes! I will definately try that next time.

Thanks so much for doing the nutrition breakdown on it!

Beanie

Hi S_Hysmith:



Is that a 9 ounce jar of marinated artichoke hearts including brine weight or excluding brine weight? I'm assuming "including", but want to double check.

Come to think of it, are those artichokes drained or do you toss in the entire jar?

Great idea Beanie!

Thanks,
Wanda

I drained but did not rinse the artichoke hearts. I just plopped them one at a time into the food processor after pureeing the rest of the ingredients.

And I went with the label weight on the jar, so I guess that would be included.

Thanks Beanie & S_Hysmith:

Turned out wonderful. Only problem is that it's pretty rich for me with all the sauce. I could probably double the amount of chicken next time.

Definately a keeper. Quick to prepare too!

Wanda

Hey, I just found another way to eat this sauce. I'm still trying to use up the leftover sauce. It's so good on everything.

Anyway, I put it on a fried LC tortilla as a white sauce base and made it into a pizza, then put it under the broiler. Was it good!

Wanda