Chicken Cordon Bleu (Easy Oven Baked Recipe) - Fifteen Spatulas (2024)

For this east Chicken Cordon Bleu, lean chicken breast is stuffed with black forest ham and swiss cheese, then rolled in crunchy panko bread crumbs. It’s an easy and delicious oven baked dinner that only takes 45 minutes to make.

I ate chicken cordon bleu all. the. time. when I was a kid.

However, this chicken cordon bleu came in a box.Frozen. The quality was questionable. But oh boy, did I love the flavors.

Fortunately, this is a recipe that’s pretty simple to put together yourself using scratch ingredients. And of course, this homemade version is far better than any frozen option you can buy. It’s a perfect dinner for busy weeknights!

Classic chicken cordon bleu is typically deep-fried or pan fried, but here we simply bake it in the oven. It’s much healthier and also much less of a pain.

Every once in a while I will set up my deep fryer for Homemade Mozzarella Sticks or Homemade French Fries, but I generally dread setting up the deep fryer, and will only do so when there’s not a good alternative.

Once you’ve made this classic dish once, know that you can play with the fillings a bit.

I use a modest amount of ham and cheese in the middle, but you could add a few extra slices of cheese to make it extra gooey and delicious. You can also turn it into a sandwich and make this Chicken Cordon Bleu Panininext time! These ingredients make for such great comfort food.

Step by Step Overview:

Start by mixing together a simple spice mixture of garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, and dried thyme in a small bowl:

This isn’t necessarily traditional for chicken cordon bleu, but I really prefer my food to be well-seasoned and the flavors go great here, without overpowering the dish.

Sprinkle this spice mixture all over the thin cutlets, along with salt and pepper, then lay them out on a flat surface or cutting board. I like to add the spices directly to the meat instead of into the flour mixture during breading.

Add a slice of ham (I like black forest, but any smoky ham or honey ham will do!) and two slices of swiss cheese onto each cutlet, so that each piece is generously covered.

Roll the chicken tightly lengthwise, and secure with a few toothpicks. You really don’t need more than three toothpicks per piece to keep everything in place:

The chicken rolls are going to look hideous but trust me, it will all turn out okay when you slice and serve it later.

Set up a breading station with all-purpose flour, egg wash (simply an egg mixture made with beaten egg and water), and panko breadcrumbs, each in a shallow bowl. Feel free to add parmesan cheese to the breadcrumbs, if you want more cheese.

Bread each rolled cutlet in that order, making sure to shake off the excess each step of the way. That prevents the breading from falling off.

Once you’ve breaded each piece, line the prepared chicken bundles up on a sheet pan or baking sheet:

If you have some handy, spray the tops of each roll with cooking spray to encourage browning, but know that it’s not necessary. I’m not using any here. I don’t recommend attempting to brush on any oils, because it will remove the bread crumbs.

Bake for about 25 minutes in an oven set to 350 degrees F, until the cheese is gooey and the meat is cooked through:

Because the thickness of the rolled chicken varies depending on the size of your cutlets, I find it important to use an instant-read thermometer here (affiliate).

Cooking to an internal temperature of 160F is sufficient, as it will rise another 5 degrees from carryover cooking after it’s removed from the oven.

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