Creamy Lemon Dilly Chicken with Bacon

Did someone say BACON everything is better with bacon ~ including this tasty combination of flavors created in a one dish skillet that can be served either with cream or coconut milk depending on your dairy needs! We use to use the heavy cream but with me attempting to limit dairy tried it last night with the coconut milk and it tasted awesome too!

Creamy Lemon Dilly Chicken with Bacon
Serves 4

What You Need 

• 1 tablespoon coconut oil
• 4 x 4 oz servings chicken breasts - chopped to bite size
• 4 strips bacon (chopped into small chunks) 
• 1/2 sweet onion ~ finely diced measures 1/2 cup
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
• 1/2 cup of homemade stock
• 1 tablespoon Lemon Dilly Seasoning from Epicure or a pinch of fresh dill weed chopped finely
• 5 thin lemon slices
• 1/4 cup heavy cream or for a dairy free version use Coconut Milk or other alternative.
• 1 cup of flash frozen peas

What You Do

• Melt coconut oil in the skillet. Saute onions, bacon, garlic and pepper in the oil for a couple minutes to let it absorb their flavors and the bacon to crisp up.
• Add chicken to the skillet and cook chicken a couple minutes on each side to sear the edges and flavor from the oils in. 
• Once the chicken is seared add your stock, lemon dilly spices, and sliced lemon over the top of the chicken and cover and let simmer as the stock reduces 'down' and gets thicker. About 8-10 minutes over medium heat ~ check to make sure chicken is heated to 165 F with a meat thermometer or no pink is visible in the middle of chicken.
• Remove lemon slices and disgard and either move chicken/bacon to the very 'edges' of your skillet for a minute so that the stock in the middle or if you do not mind a second dirty dish temporarily remove from chicken from the pan and slowly stir in the cream into the thickened stock to form your cream base. Bring sauce to a boil and than reduce heat and return chicken along with peas to your skillet.
• Cover and let simmer for another 5-10 minutes to cook the peas in the cream sauce and ensure that the meat has reached the proper internal temperature. 

 Nutritional Breakdown

If you are doing the #21DayFix you would count 1/4 of this recipe as is ~  1.25 red for chicken and bacon, 1/2 a yellow for the peas, 1/4 green for the onion, 1 tsp for the coconut oil and if you use the coconut milk option than 1 blue. 

The following is the nutritional facts of just the above using heavy cream or coconut milk options does not really change the calories but the coconut milk option appears to change the 'high in cholesterol' warning to 'high in saturate fat'  ~ depending on what you serve it 'over' will change the totals below.

We had it served tossed with spaghetti squash for a grain free version as well as so that it used a 'green container' for myself ... it would taste lovely over a pasta or rice of your choice if you can par take in those options . 

Have an amazing day!

Margaret
Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much
Totallyawake4-life