I’ve been having chicken breast for lunch a lot lately (I chop it up and mix with steamed veggies).
To cook, I put the chicken in the oven for 25 minutes at 365 and that’s it. I don’t add spice or anything.
If I slit the chicken open, like an envelope, and put slices of onion and pepper in it, would it make any difference? Would either just burn up long before the chicken is cooked?
I’m trying to think of easy ways to add a little more pep to the meal (not too much, as the veggies are mixed with a butter sauce).
I dunno, I’m cheap and don’t like to waste time with a lot of oven cooking, so I buy the boneless, skinless chicken breasts and microwave them. Either with a very small amount of butter and some pepper, or with barebeque sauce, or I throw some shredded cheese over them after chopping them up. I used to get fancier, but my spice cabinet is a little bare.
I’m in awe at your lack of imagination. There are literally hundreds of bottled marinade mixes you could use instead of your unforgivably bland method. If you like Mexican food, I recommend Frontera brand salsas. They can be used as marinades or just add it after cooking.
Do you have a gas grill? I get raves for my simple grilled chicken breast. olive oil, salt, pepper. medium flame, 3 minutes, turn 90 degrees, 3 minutes, flip over, 3 minutes, turn 90 degrees, 3 minutes, done!
If the vegetables are fully enclosed inside the chicken, the problem will not be that the veggies are burned, it will be that they are still raw. They will not even begin cooking until the heat has cooked the chicken through (think about it, the heat has to permeate the entire piece before it touches the “inserts” in the center)
Also stuffing chicken is a somewhat hazardous proposition for the beginner cook – if whatever you stuffed in there doesn’t reach the temperature to kill salmonella, you could get some food poisoning even if the chicken itself is cooked through.
I’m not exactly sure how to give you a different suggestion. You don’t want spices and marinades, and say that plain chicken is all that is required. So… keep doing what you’re doing.
The OP isn’t against marinades, as I see it. They just don’t have any experience with them. This is a chance to educate and pimp your best simple recipes.
Try a saute instead of baking. Basically, heat the pan over medium-high heat, add oil (olive oil is good), salt and pepper the chicken breasts, and cook them 5-6 minutes per side.
A little salt and pepper will help your bake immensely, too.
The single best thing you can do to improve the flavor of the chicken breast is to add salt. A little salt won’t make it taste salty, instead it will just make it taste more meaty. The single best thing you can do to improve the texture of the chicken breast is to pound it out to an even thickness using either a meat mallet or a rolling pin. The beating breaks it down a bit and makes it much more tender. Different spices and marinades take these improvements even further!
I occasionally will do what you ask in the OP and stuff the chicken with sliced tomato (or sun dried tomatoes), spinach, and fresh mozarella cheese. They add flavor but don’t significantly add a lot of time to cooking.
Stuffed chicken breasts have a long culinary history. Chicken cordon bleu is a chicken breast stuffed with ham and swiss cheese. Chicken Kiev is stuffed with garlic butter. There are a million easy ways to dress up a chicken breast. It’s about the most versitile protien there is.
Stab it in a few places and marinate it in some Italian-type dressing (like vinaigrette).
As Lamar Mundane described: To stuff it, you usually pound it to a flatter even thickness first, then roll it up around some sliced cheese and ham (or Canadian bacon), or some chilled-solid garlic butter. Both of these stuffings are already cooked, so they only need to get hot as the chicken cooks. Traditionally you would roll it in flavored bread crumbs before cooking it, but you don’t need to.
This is what I came to say. Vinaigrette dressings make excellent marinades for chicken breast, and they are cheap, too (if you just get a simple store-brand, its all you need for this purpose). I usually score the chicken, marinate it for a day (flipping the breasts over after half a day) then grill it. You can do the same thing with BBQ sauce, lemon-pepper marinades, etc all of which are super cheap.
Cover the chicken with a piece of foil if the peppers and onions get burnt. Not sure if they will, I suppose it depends on the oven. Some heat sources are much closer and therefore will burn things faster than other ovens.
As for a little more pep, just rub it down with some salt and pepper or garlic. There are also plenty of sauces you can marinade the chicken in for a few hours before cooking it as well
