Sweet and Spicy Bacon Wrapped Chicken

So, I was staring into my refrigerator the other day, hungry as usual.  My stomach and my brain had this interesting conversation (as they often do;  I should charge admission, those conversations get pretty weird).  Here are some snippets that I managed to remember:  "Chicken!  Is that thawed?  Wait... Spicy chicken, that sounds good.. What's this leftover bacon doing in here?  OOOH, Sriracha!  I should probably use these green beans before they get soft, and that spinach has been in there awhile..."  Viola:

While this dish was inspired from a random refrigerator "pull," there's no reason you couldn't cook it yourself!  Delicious, super simple, let's go!

You Will Need:

• 2 Large Skinless Boneless Chicken Breasts
• 1 lb Thinly Sliced Bacon
• 1 Cup Brown Sugar
• 1 Tsp Salt
• 1 Tsp Pepper
• 1 Generous handful of fresh green beans
• 2 Generous handfuls of fresh spinach
• 1 Healthy Squirt of Sriracha hot sauce

Preheat your oven, BBQ, Grill, or Smoker to 375 degrees!

Start with a 13x9" casserole dish.  Wash and trim your green beans to your liking (I like them long) and dump them into the casserole.

Wash your spinach and dry it as best as you can.  Pile it up on top of the green beans.  Don't worry if the pile looks huge, it should!  Spinach is very sneaky and will shrink to almost nothing when it cooks.  So, fear not!  Build yourself a big mountain of spinach greens!

To get the chicken ready, dump the brown sugar, salt, pepper, and Sriracha in a bowl.  Use your fingers, use a fork, whatever... just mix until it's all a nice smooth crumbly mixture.

Now, let's turn our attention to the chicken.  Wash your hands, grab your knife in your dominant hand, and spin the breast around with your other hand as shown.  Cut it, with the grain, into 3 or 4 equal strips.

These were large breasts, so I got four strips out of them.  Yes, I used the words, strip, large, and breasts in one sentence!  Let's all have a chuckle... now, grow up and let's get back to the kitchen!

Take each chicken tender and coat it with the sugar mix.  You can try to use a fork, like I did here, but you'll eventually get frustrated and abandon it so... just accept that you're gonna get sticky and roll and press each breast in the spicy sugar, then wrap it in a strand of thin bacon.

The world loves thick bacon, so; why thin bacon? Well, thin bacon stretches and wraps so much better than thick bacon.  It also crisps up more quickly and requires less cooking time.  The chicken will be done in a relatively short amount of time, and we don't want the chicken in the oven for even a minute longer than necessary so... Thin bacon is the ticket.

Pile all of your wrapped tenders on top of your spinach, pressing down when you have to.  Sprinkle the tops with your favorite BBQ seasoning if you like.  Insert a remote temperature probe into your largest tender, and slide them into the oven.

When your chicken touches 165F, pull the dish out and have a look.  The kitchen should smell interesting... a delicious mix of sweet, spice, bacon, veggies, YUM! 

You can cut into a "test" tender if you want, the juices should run clear, and since we cut them WITH the grain to start with, each tender bite should now go against the grain for a super easy "chew" and easy cutting!

Serve the chicken over a mound of your veggies and dinner is DONE!