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Chicken Pesto Bites

Great for the lunchbox or served with a tomato pasta sauce and spaghetti.

Ingredients (makes 30 bites)

  • 500g skinless, boneless chicken breast
  • ½ capsicum (colour of your choice)
  • 1 large – carrot
  • 1 large or 2 small courgettes (enough to make 1 cup when grated)
  • ¼ cup raw unsalted almonds
  • 1 large egg, beaten
  • 2 tablespoons pesto
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil (optional)

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Firstly put the almonds in the food processor (I use Kenwood Multipro Excel) and blend until they resemble breadcrumbs, pour into a bowl and set aside.

Second, blitz the capsicum in the food processor, then remove from the food processor and add to the almonds.

Next, using the fine grating attachment, grate the courgettes. Remove from the food processor and spread onto kitchen paper or a clean tea towel to remove as much moisture as possible from them. Add them to the almonds and capsicum.

Now, finely grate the carrot and add to the bowl with courgettes, almonds and capsicum.

Remove the grating blade and put the normal blade back into the food processor. Put the chicken breast into the food processor and blend until it resembles mince (avoid over blending as you don’t want make paste).

Add the grated vegetables, almonds, pesto and the beaten egg back into the food processor and very quickly blitz to combine. Avoid over blitzing.

With clean, damp hands, take tablespoons of the mixture and roll into balls then flatten slightly and place onto a baking tray lined with baking paper.

Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes or until cooked through.

Adapt it:

  • You can replace the pesto with 1 tsp of Thai green or red curry paste
  • To make nut free, replace nuts with breadcrumbs