Best Chicken Marinade
Calories: 224kcal
Ingredients
- 2 lbs Chicken Breasts Tenders
- ⅓-½ cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- 3 Tbs Fresh Lemon Juice
- 3 Tbs Soy Sauce
- 2 Tbs Balsamic Vinegar
- ¼ cup Brown Sugar
- 1 Tbs Worcestershire Sauce
- 3 cloves Garlic minced
- 1½ tsp Salt
- 1 tsp Pepper
Garnish
- Fresh Parsley
Instructions
- In a bowl, stir together oil, lemon juice, soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, salt, and pepper.
- Pierce chicken breasts with a fork all over. Place in a large Ziploc bag. Pour marinade over chicken.
- Let marinate for at least 30 minutes. 4 – 5 hours is ideal.
- Preheat grill to medium heat. Brush grill with oil to prevent sticking.
- Place chicken on the grill. Cook for approximately 5 – 6 minutes per side, depending on the thickness of chicken. The internal temperature of the chicken should reach 165 degrees.
- Remove chicken from grill and let rest for 5 minutes.
Notes
March 2021
Spinach and Feta Stuffed Chicken Breasts
Servings: 4
Calories: 200kcal
Ingredients
- 10 oz package frozen chopped spinach thawed and juice squeezed out
- 1 tsp oil
- 1/2 cup 2.5 oz of fat free Feta cheese
- 1/3 cup fat free ricotta
- 1/4 cup chopped parsley
- 1/4 cup chopped scallions
- 1/2 onion chopped
- 2 cloves garlic
- salt and pepper
- 3 1.25 lbs chicken breast halves
- 1 egg
- 1 tbsp water
- 1/2 cup whole wheat seasoned breadcrumbs
- spray oil
- toothpicks
Instructions
- In a small sauté pan, heat oil. Add onions, garlic and scallions and sauté about 1 minute. Add spinach and parsley, salt and pepper and cook another minute. Remove from heat, add feta and ricotta cheese.
- Preheat oven to 350°.
- Slice chicken breast halves into 3 thin cutlets. Pound them to make them thinner. This helps when you wrap the cutlets. Season chicken with salt and pepper.
- Place just under 1/4 cup of spinach mixture in the center of the chicken. Roll it and secure the ends with toothpicks to prevent filling from coming out. It’s ok if it’s not perfect. The egg wash and breadcrumbs keep everything in place.
- Dip chicken into egg wash, then breadcrumbs.
- Spray cookie sheet with oil and place chicken on cookie sheet. Lightly spray chicken with oil and bake about 25 minutes, until cooked through. Remove toothpicks and serve.
Chicken Fajitas
Ingredients
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 pounds skinless boneless chicken breasts
- Salt
- 2 Tbsp canola a high smoke point oil, safflower, peanut or grapeseed oil
- 1 large onion sliced lengthwise (root to tiinto 1/4-inch strips
- 3 bell peppers of various colors sliced into 1/4-inch strips
Marinade
- 2 Tbsp lime juice
- 3 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 garlic clove minced
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
- 1/2 jalapeno seeded and minced
- 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
Extras
- 8-12 flour tortillas
- Salsa
- Sour cream
Instructions
- Chicken breasts come in different sizes. If you have chicken breasts that are around a half pound each or more, you will want to slice them in half horizontally, so that the center thickness is around 1/2-inch to 3/4-inch thick. (We do not recommend pounding the chicken breasts, doing so will not result in the right texture/consistency for fajitas.)
- Mix all the marinade ingredients together in a glass or plastic container. Add the chicken, mix well, cover and let marinate at room temperature for 1 hour. (You can marinate them in the refrigerator for up to 8 hours, but remove them an hour before cooking so that they can come closer to room temp.)
- Remove the chicken from the marinade. Wipe off most of the marinade and sprinkle the chicken pieces with salt.
- Heat a large cast iron frying pan on high heat for 1 to 2 minutes. Add a tablespoon of canola oil (or other high smoke point oil) to the pan. As soon as the oil begins to smoke, lay the chicken breast pieces in the pan. Depending on the size of the pan, and if you have had to cut the chicken breasts, you may have to work in batches. Let the chicken cook undisturbed for 2-3 minutes, until you have a good sear. Once seared well on one side, turn the pieces over and cook for another 2-3 minutes until well seared on the second side.
- Once seared on the second side, remove to a cutting board and cover with aluminum foil to rest for 5 minutes. Here’s a tip. Stack the seared chicken breasts and then cover them in foil. Together they will retain heat better as you cook the peppers and onions. If you want to test for doneness, cut into one piece with the tip of a sharp knife. It should be just done, if not, you can put it back in the hot pan for a minute or two.
- While the chicken is resting, cook the onions and peppers. Add another tablespoon of oil to the frying pan. Heat on high. As soon as the oil is hot, add the onions and peppers to the pan. Use a metal spatula to scrape up some of the browned bits from the chicken and stir to coat the onions and peppers with the oil and brown bits. Spread the onions and peppers in an even layer in the pan. Let them cook undisturbed for 2 minutes. You want them to sear with some blackening. Stir the vegetables and continue to cook for another 2 minutes.
- Slice the chicken against the grain into strips. Serve at once with the peppers and onions, some warm tortillas, and sides of shredded cheese.
Basic Sauteed Chicken
Properly sauteéd chicken breasts are completely excellent, and I’m going to offer you a tutorial here for just that. You can do what you like with them when they’re done: make the simple pan sauce and eat them as is, or slice them up to top a salad or pasta or to fill sandwiches or burritos. Try combining this recipe with a side of easy sauteéd mushrooms as they go very well with chicken. Buttered egg noodles make a great accompaniment, since the delicious juices seep over on the plate and season them perfectly.
Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 1-1½ pounds small boneless skinless chicken breasts 4 or 5
- kosher salt
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1/2 cup dry white wine and 1/2 cup chicken broth or just use 1 cup chicken broth or another tasty liquid of your choosing if the wine is going to be too wine-y for your kids
- a bit of chopped parsley
Instructions
- Begin by trimming the chicken breasts if they need trimming. I use my beloved kitchen scissors and snip off any shaggy bits of fat or gristle.
- Pat them dry with paper towels (to helps them browand sprinkle them with some kosher salt.
- Heat a very large pan over medium-high heat and add the butter, which should melt and foam, and the olive oil, which should stop the butter from burning. When the fat is all very hot but not turning black (recipes say “when the foam subsides”), add the chicken breasts in one layer. Now leave them alone for 5 or so minutes while the bottom gets nice and crusty and brown.
- Use tongs or a spatula to flip them over as they brown, and then cook another 4 or so minutes until the bottom is very brown and the chicken is cooked through. You may want to cut a piece open to check, but pressing a cooked breast with your fingertip will give you a feel for its doneness, which will develop over time into the skill of knowing when it’s done without cutting it.
- Pile the chicken on a heat-proof plate and pop it into a 200ºF heated oven while you “deglaze” the pan. Pour the wine in and scrape with a spatula to dissolve all the yummy browned bits while the wine bubbles and boils furiously in the hot pan.
- When the wine has cooked down about halfway, add the broth, turn the heat to high, and cook until the sauce seems syrupy and delicious. Taste it for salt, then drizzle it over the chicken, sprinkle with parsley, and serve. Sometimes, if the chicken has browned but doesn’t seem quite cooked through, I leave it in the pan while I make the sauce so that it can simmer in there a bit longer.
Notes
A few tips on sautéing chicken:
Thick breasts take too long to cook, and the middle insists on remaining bland. Use very small chicken breasts, cut each one in half to make 2 skinnier breasts, or pound them using a meat tenderizer.
- In a non-stick pan, the chicken may be disinclined to brown correctly, and the brown is where the flavor is here. Try to use a non-non-stick pan.
- Don’t be afraid of heat. You want to brown the chicken very well, and you want to do this before the inside turns to quilt batting. The chicken will seem, at first, like it’s sticking, but once it’s properly browned it will loosen itself as if by magic.
- Slice each breast up crosswise before serving: this allows the sauce to get inside, making it more appealing to eat.