ESBS: Buffalo Chicken Panini
I have a confession.
I’m obsessed with buffalo sauce. Before you judge me immensely because you think I ate a piece of bread slathered in only buffalo, let me first tell you that the picture above was a part of a sandwich I made. Although I’m not above eating bread with my favorite spreads and sauces (I’m close to spoon-fooding myself this stuff), I am not crazy enough to eat only buffalo alone. I’m not Adam Richmond here, folks.
Because we have a fancy schmancy panini maker, I decided to put my favorite sauce between two pieces of homemade bread with chicken, blue cheese and a bit of fresh red pepper and grill them to perfection.
It was good, but definitely needed a dipping sauce. Like some chunky blue cheese or buttermilk ranch. But this is a healthy food blog, it would make me kind of a hypocrite if I made that and preached healthy living, right? 🙂 So besides amazing and fresh ingriedients, what is my KEY to a perfect restaurant style panini?
Homemade bread, hands down. The crispy crust with the oh-so-soft inside makes for the most incredible tasting sandwich. If you have a bread maker, try this recipe my husband swears by. Your taste buds will be overcome with joy. Now the real challenge is not eating the entire loaf in one sitting. The smell will make that pretty near impossible.
Adapted from My Recipes.
Buffalo Chicken Paninis
What You’ll Need:
- 1/4 cup buffalo sauce, try this kind
- 1 large chicken breast, cooked and sliced
- 1/4 cup crumbled blue cheese
- 3 tablespoons olive oil mayonnaise
- 4 slices of fresh bread
- 1/2 red pepper, sliced
How to Make It:
- Slice bread into 4 semi-thick slices.
- Combine cheese and mayonnaise. Spread cheese mixture on 2 bread slices.
- On the other 2 bread slices, slather on hot sauce (about 1/4 the mixture).
- Mix chicken in remaining sauce and place on bread with slices of fresh red pepper.
- Heat panini maker to the medium heat seating and coat with cooking spray.
- Arrange 2 sandwiches in pan. Place a cast-iron or heavy skillet on top of sandwiches; press gently. Cook for 3 minutes on each side or until bread is toasted (leave skillet on sandwiches while they cook).
The crunchy bread with the delicious gooey cheese and hot, spicy chicken give this sandwich excellent flavor. Plus, instead of having messy chicken wings when you are watching a game, have one of these instead! You’ll save yourself some clean up time!
Nutritional information per panini: 380 calories, 14 grams of fat, 30 grams of carbohydrates and 32 grams of protein.
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