I came up with this recipe after soliciting friends for some ideas of new things to make. One suggested stuffed chicken thighs so I went with it, doing some investigation into what people commonly stuff chicken thighs with. I landed on feta cheese and peach as a creamy/sweet and lightly acidic combo and at the last minute decided it needed some fresh thyme, because why wouldn’t it? Wrap them up in bacon and smoke them hot and it starts to sound pretty good.
Feta and Peach Suffed Chicken Thighs
Creamy feta cheese mixed with sweet, juicy peach stuffed inside rich chicken thighs that are wrapped in bacon and smoked.
Ingredients
- 12 each boneless, skinless chicken thighs
- 8 oz feta cheese crumbles
- 4 oz diced peach
- 2 sprigs fresh thyme leaves stripped from stem
- salt enough to dry brine chicken
- 12 strips bacon
Instructions
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Liberally salt the chicken thighs on both sides and layer in your preferred contained. Cover and refrigerate for a couple of hours.
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Dice your peaches and combine with the feta cheese.
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Lay down a strip of bacon, place a chicken thigh flat on top, and add the stuffing mix. Some might fall out depending on the size of the thigh, and some might need a little more, but it should average out to about 1 oz per thigh.
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Wrap the bacon around the thigh and try to keep as much stuffing inside as you can. Use a skewer to hole it together, piercing one end of the bacon and going diagonally through the thigh so you come out through the other end of the bacon. I was able to fit 2 thighs per skewer.
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Set your smoker up for 300F and add your chicken thighs. Mine cooked about for 1.5 hours.
Recipe Notes
The peach didn't come through as strongly as I had hoped. I was looking for a little acidity and sweetness to balance the salty, meaty, and creamy flavours in the dish. This might have been because I used out of season peaches that weren't all the way ripe.
I think this dish would work well with other things substituted for the peach, like jalapeños or maybe pineapple to really get some acid in there.