I’m a (semi-retired) administrator here, and I don’t consider that to be spam. You didn’t register just to post the link, and the link is relevant. You’re directing people to a blog, but that’s not the only reason you’ve posted at the SDMB. So in my opinion, it’s OK.
Marinades, baby. Lawry’s has a great-tasting line of bottled marinades. Our favorites are Teriyaki and Hawaiian. Put your chicken in a Ziploc bag, and you can get away with a surprisingly small amount of the marinade.
McCormick also makes some great marinades that come as a dry mix in a little pouch. You add a couple of ingredients, and you’re set. Our favorite is the Baja Citrus, which you mix with some olive oil, vinegar, and water. Extra-delicious on the grill.
Look in the spice aisle for chicken blends. We found one years ago called “Rotisserie Chicken” that was phenomenal. Sprinkle and bake, doesn’t get much easier.
My wife has made some kind of “Russian chicken” that’s quite good, but I don’t know the recipe offhand; I believe it includes Russian salad dressing and apricot jam.
On fish: my mom made some fish recently that was great. I think it was a few dots of butter, lemon juice, Old Bay, and “Smoky Mesquite” grilling spice blend.
I usually trim the fat off a few raw chicken breasts then cut them up into chunks and throw them in a tupperware with some teriyaki marinade overnight.
Then I mix them in a skillet with some fresh prepackaged stir-fry vegetables (in the produce department) and toss in some seasame seeds and serve over brown rice.
One suggestion is to move away from baking, and cook your chicken breasts in a skillet. I find that those turn out juicier and tastier than baked, unless you’re using bone-in, skin-on breasts.
One of my favorite short cuts for chicken is to grill a bunch of chicken breasts, cut them into strips and freeze in meal size packages. You can either toss them on top of a salad cold or warm for chicken taco’s, mixed with any pasta sauce, or as part of a stirfry or scrambled egg dish.
I don’t season them when I grill them since I use them in such a wide variety of dishes.
Five spice and soy sauce, with a dash of oil and sherry.
Coat chicken tenders lightly with mayo and press on crushed almonds. 350 on lightly sprayed foil till almonds start turning GBD* and enjoy your grown-up chicken fingers!
- golden brown and delicious
This recipe also works very well on flat fish fillets such as tilapia.
I do a marinade with the following:
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp ground tumeric
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
Toss in about 2-4 chicken breasts, and let marinate for at least an hour. If you want more heat you can always add some cayanne or chili powder, sometimes I add a dash of curry powder. So good, and full of flavor!
This. Baking is the worst.
Also, I don’t think it’s been mentioned, but OP why are you splitting a chicken breast? That’s less than one serving size. One chicken breast is 4 ounces cooked, so a normal portion for one person is the breast minus the tender, which is 3oz.
One tender is one ounce, so 6 chicken breasts yields 8 normal portions (6 breasts = 6 tenders, with 3 tenders in one portion). So 6 breasts it sounds like should yield 4 dinners for you guys.
Also, you should really try some boneless skinless chicken thighs. A few more calories and fat but much tastier and far less dry than breasts.
Does anyone else love sumac chicken? Mmm… I usually bake the chicken with thin slices of lemon on top. (Google for about 9 million variations - it seems pretty much endless!) I shove it in a pita and top with yogurt. Many of the variations include the pita being cooked with the chicken (I suppose this is actually the original method!)
Brine. The secret to awesome poultry and pork.
Basic brine is:
1 cup kosher salt
1 gallon water
This recipe is totally scalable. The above is good for a whole chicken. For a turkey double it, for a couple of chicken boobs divide by 4.
Heat up about 1/4 of the total water and dissolve the salt in it. Remove from heat Add the rest of the water as a mixture of ice and water.
Now don’t stop there. Sub in veggie stock for 1/2 the water.
Or
Add 1/2 cup brown sugar/ gallon of water.
Or
Use 1/4 orange juice
Or
Add some chicken stock instead of water
Throw in some cracked pepper.
Experiment. Have fun
Oh cook the chicken on a grill. Food cooked outside always tastes better.
Shit doing this on my iPhone and I can’t edit.
After making the brine soak the chicken in it for 1-2 hours ( or longer I do turkeys for 24 hours or more)
Then pull the meat out rinse season with a non salty seasoning and cook as normal.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but my husband and I have found that our appetites have really decreased as we’ve gotten older. There are many nights when we only want a couple of ounces of meat. When we were younger, it was cost effective for us to go to all-you-can-eat buffets, especially when we lived in Las Vegas. Nowadays, we both order off the senior menu when we eat out, if we can get away with it. Or we’ll get one entree and one appetizer, or one meal and a side veggie. And that’s plenty for both of us, we might even have to get a doggy bag.
Chicken breasts come in a range of sizes, too. I mean, yeah, you get the A cup, which is two or three ounces, but then you can also find the hen who had to wear a DD cup, which might be six or eight ounces in weight.