June 8, 2021

Sous Vide Tomato Pesto Chicken

Tender chicken breasts in a savory sun-dried tomato and pesto sauce. This Sous Vide Tomato Pesto Chicken takes minimal effort to make, and will be sure to impress!

Life Updates

If you are purely here for the chicken recipe, I invite you to keep on scrolling. But if you’re interested in why I haven’t posted much recently, here you go!

Last year I had a realization that medicine, specifically eye care, is changing. More and more small private practices are being purchased by large groups. And those ownership transitions cause change; some good and some not so good. I realized that I love small, independent practices, and that if I want to ensure that I can continue to practice in that model for the rest of my career, I need to own my own practice.

That realization led to a myriad of changes. Bottom line: I left my prior office to start working through my non-compete agreement while I figure out where and what my own practice will look like.

Amazing? Yes. Am I super excited about the future? Absolutely! Do I love where I’m working for the next two years? Adore it. Did it add an extra 2 hours of commuting to my day? Yep, but at least I get lots of audiobook time.

With all the change, I have become a bit scattered, which has included deciding that I needed to work my stress out by painting multiple ceilings and rooms in my house, and accidently deleting the file that kept me organized with my blog posts for the last 3 years.

So, that is why I haven’t been posting much. And although I’m sure I will be posting a bit less for the next couple of weeks, I have all intentions of picking it back up over the summer. I have tons of new recipes that I can’t wait to share!

Sous Vide Tomato Pesto Chicken

Now, I know most of you are here for the recipe, so let’s have some chicken chat.

What is sous vide cooking?

This is using an immersion circulator to cook food that is vacuum sealed in a bag. Bottom line: you get some moving water real warm, vacuum seal some food, but the vacuum sealed food in the water, and let it stay there until it’s cooked. I explained sous vide cooking more in my Sous Vide Greek Chicken post.

Sous vide cooking lets you cook meat to an exact temperature ensuring that it’s tender and your version of perfection.

Sauce Ingredients

The sauce for this chicken is divine. And best part, it couldn’t be simpler to make. You stir together the following ingredients:

Pesto
- I use premade, jarred pesto, but you could certainly make your own.
Sour Cream
Sun-Dried Tomatoes
- The ones packed in oil, not the dry ones.
Lemon Juice
Salt
Pepper
Dried Bail
Dried Thyme
Onion Powder
Garlic Powder

After that, you stir in the chicken and divide the chicken/sauce among bags to be sealed.

Cooking

Step 1

Using an immersion circulator, heat water to 145 degrees Fahrenheit. Add the bags of chicken and sauce. Let them cook for two hours.

Step 2

Remove the bags from the water. Heat 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet over medium-heat.

Step 3

Open each of the bags of chicken. Pull each piece of chicken out of the bag and place it in the skillet. Pour the extra sauce from the bags into a bowl. Make sure you don’t throw it away!!!

Cook the chicken until browned on each side, about 2-3 minutes per side. Remove the chicken from the skillet and set aside.

Step 4

Reduce the heat to medium-low and pour the reserved sauce from the bags into the skillet. Whisk in 1 teaspoon of cornstarch. Simmer until thickened, about 1-2 minutes.

Step 5

Return the chicken, along with any juices from the plate, to the skillet. Cover the chicken breasts with the sauce.

Serving

This chicken is excellent served just on it’s own, but also tastes wonderful over pasta or alongside vegetables. In my house we usually have it with asparagus, but you can certainly change things up as you see fit!

This Sous Vide Tomato Pesto Chicken will have your family asking for seconds and thirds!

Sous Vide Tomato Pesto Chicken

Tender chicken breasts in a savory sun-dried tomato and pesto sauce. This Sous Vide Tomato Pesto Chicken takes minimal effort to make, and will be sure to impress!

4.50 from 2 votes

Course: Dinner

Prep Time: 10

Cook Time: 2 6

Servings: servings

Calories: 272

Pin Recipe for Later

Ingredients

4 chicken breasts
1/2 cup pesto
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes, chopped packed in oil, not the bagged variety
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon cornstarch

Instructions

Use immersion circulator to heat water to 145 degrees.
In a small bowl, stir together pesto, sour cream, sun-dried tomatoes, lemon juice, salt, pepper, basil, thyme, onion, and garlic. Add chicken and stir so that chicken is well coated.
Divide chicken and sauce evenly among 4 bags which are safe for sous vide cooking (I prefer to vacuum seal bags).
Cook at 145 degrees for 2 hours.
Remove bags from water and then remove chicken from bags. Pour liquid from bags into a bowl and set bowl aside (you will use this for the sauce).
Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add chicken to skillet and cook until browned on each side, about 2-3 minutes per side.
Remove chicken from skillet. Reduce heat to medium-low.
Pour reserved liquid into pan. Whisk cornstarch into pan. Continue whisking until mixture has thickened, about 1-2 minutes.
Return chicken to pan and coat with sauce. Serve chicken with sauce.