PW Wednesdays: Ranch Style Chicken

This ranch style chicken is smothered with bacon and cheddar cheese and marinaded in a honey dijon mustard sauce. Unbelievably delicious and easy.

All super buttery, fat laden, sugar coma good things must eventually come to an end and that’s where we’re at with PW Wednesdays.

Rachel had the last pick and I think her indecisiveness on what recipe to choose speaks to how “done” we all are with this cookbook.

I could flip through the 200+ pages and literally not get excited enough about any other recipe to want to make it, a sure sign it’s time to move on.

This recipe is definitely one I would’ve skimmed over and ignored if Rachel didn’t pick it for our last hurrah.

It’s basically smothered chicken like you see on every Applebees, Chilis, Outback kind of menu. In other words, played out.

So I didn’t have high expectations. Sure smothered chicken tastes good, but it’s just kind of “eh” as far as creativity.

Cheese and bacon are nothing original. I looked at the ingredients in this one and my initial thought was “boring”.

I was wrong.

It’s all about the marinade in this recipe, a simple honey dijon mustard mixture that takes it from boring chain restaurant quality smothered chicken to perfectly flavored, moist, cookbook worthy chicken.

For once, I didn’t sub out any of the ingredients (besides using smoked paprika instead of regular paprika) and I’m glad to know there’s at least one recipe in this book that keeps the excessiveness in check (and also forgoes sugar or butter).

I honestly wouldn’t have been surprised if Ree somehow snuck sugar into a chicken recipe. If anyone can do it, my vote goes to her.

I did take the marinade, throw it in a sauce pot, boil the heck out of it because of that whole raw chicken thing and reduce it to a sauce though which was not part of the recipe.

Kind of the best decision ever.

Don’t get me wrong, a topping of cheese and bacon is delicious, but the honey and dijon mustard sauce steals the show.

And with a simple American chicken dinner, PW Wednesday comes to a close. It’s been real folks.

For the recipe, check out Rachel’s post.

And as usual, check out Julie and Megan’s take on it as well.

Julie-Table for Two 

Megan-Wanna Be a Country Cleaver

The run down of all the other PW Wednesday recipes:

Fried chicken tacos

Mushroom swiss sliders

Carnitas pizza

Breakfast pizza

White chicken enchiladas

Billie’s Italian cream cake

Orange Sweet Rolls

Honey Plum Soy Chicken

Gina Matsoukas

Founder and Writer at Running to the Kitchen | About

Gina Matsoukas is an AP syndicated writer. She is the founder, photographer and recipe developer of Running to the Kitchen — a food website focused on providing healthy, wholesome recipes using fresh and seasonal ingredients. Her work has been featured in numerous media outlets both digital and print, including MSN, Huffington post, Buzzfeed, Women’s Health and Food Network.