While digging through the bottom of my freezer, I found a package of unused puff pastry dough. I wasn’t exactly sure how long the dough had been in there, but we’ll just pretend that it had only been a few weeks. I pulled the dough out to thaw in the refrigerator while I sat down to create a recipe. My mind immediately went back to some Individual Beef Wellingtons that I made a few years ago, but I knew that I wanted to put a new (and budget-friendly) spin on the recipe.
Since I had a couple of chicken breasts leftover from my Super-Crunchy Korean Chicken recipe, it made my decision pretty simple.
Chicken Wellington.
Chicken Wellington can be a little more tricky than beef Wellington, since it’s important for poultry to reach a specific internal temperature in order to be considered safe to eat. With beef Wellington, rare or medium-rare is totally okay, giving you a little more leeway with cooking times.
I needed to make sure that the chicken reached a safe temperature, without overcooking or burning the puff pastry dough. Pre-cooking and chilling the chicken before wrapping it in dough ensures that the chicken is fully cooked. This is probably the most crucial step in this recipe and you’ll end up overcooking the chicken if you pull it out of the fridge before it’s cold throughout. By chilling the chicken, you’ll only need to worry about reheating it while cooking the puff pastry dough.
Plus, you can actually cook the chicken the day before to cut down on prep time!
Since chicken breasts are not uniformly shaped, the first step is to use a little kitchen twine to shape the chicken breasts into logs. Just don’t forget to remove the string, or you’ll get a surprise when you cut into the Wellington!
You can either sous vide the chicken or bake it in the oven. If you have a sous vide machine, I would definitely recommend using it for this recipe (you can also use the sous vide cooler method). It ensures that the chicken stays juicy and prevents it from becoming overcooked.
I served this chicken Wellington with a few spoonfuls of a Mushroom Cream Sauce. The sauce is simple to throw together while the puff pastry is turning a beautiful golden brown in the oven. It’s a rich sauce and definitely one that I can eat by the spoonful!
