Quick and easy chicken recipies, please!

Cafe Society
1

My wife and I almost never cook.
Lately, though, we’ve been trying to eat healthier as well as save money, so we want to start getting away from take-out and frozen stuff. Plus, I usually have an hour or more in the evening before she gets home, so I might as well make use of this time to get dinner ready at least a couple times a week.

This weekend we bought some boneless skinless chicken breasts. Keeping in mind that I’m starting with a default setting of “clueless,” what should I do with them?

2

Simple Chicken Noodle Soup:

  • About a quart of chicken stock. Swanson’s in the boxes is the best store-bought I’ve found
  • A couple carrots, peeled and sliced
  • A couple stalks of celery, peeled and slices
  • A couple skinless boneless chicken breasts
  • Some egg noodles or rice or whatever starch you want. Maybe a cup cooked, more if you like more noodles/rice.

1 - cook the noodles/rice according to package directions

2 - while the noodles are cooking, heat up the chicken stock to a simmer, add the raw chicken breasts. Cook for 10-15 minutes (depending on how big the breasts are), just until the meat is cooked. Remove the breasts, allow to cool for a few minutes, and tear into bite-sized bits. Alternatively, you can cut the raw chicken breasts into bite-size bits before you cook them. They’ll cook faster, but I like the shape of the shredded whole breasts better.

3 - After you remove the chicken, add the carrots and celery to the stock. Cook until they’re edible.

4 - add the chicken back into the broth, along with the rice/noodles. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

You can use this as a base for lots of chicken soups - lots of different veggies work, and you can use beans or potatoes for the starch. Or throw in frozen spinach for a chicken Florentine kind of thing. Experiment!

Chicken tacos or burritos

2 or 3 Chicken breasts
A can/jar of salsa or enchilada sauce or whatever Mexican saucey-thing you like. You want something not too chunky, as you’re going to cook the chicken in it
Hot sauce, if you like such things
Tortilla shells (corn/flour/whatever you like)
Taco toppings - cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, more salsa, whatever you like

1 - Chop the raw chicken breasts into pieces
2 - put the salsa/sauce in a pan big enough to hold it and the chicken. Heat up to just below a boil. Add in the chicken breast pieces.
3 - cook for 15 min or so until the chicken is done. I sometimes like to mash the chicken up in the sauce for more of a shredded thing.
4 - use the chicken mix to fill the tortilla shells. Yum!

Grilled Chicken Salad

A couple Chicken breasts
Italian dressing
Oil: olive or corn or whatever
Salad mixins: lettuce, tomato, cheese, cucumber, whatever you like in your salad

Pound out the chicken breasts until they’re about uniformly 1/2" flat. If you don’t have a meat pounder, use a small skillet or even a can of something (wrap the can in tinfoil so it doesn’t get yukky from the raw chicken)

Pour some of the Italian dressing on the raw chicken and toss to coat. Allow to sit in the fridge for a half an hour or so to marinate.

In a small skillet, heat a little oil over medium high heat. Add the chicken breasts, cook on one side for 4-5 minutes, then flip. Cook on the other side for another 3-4 minutes until done. (in good weather, you can also do this step outside on the grill if you want)

Cut the chicken breasts into strips. Make your salad, add the chicken breasts on top.

3

Chicken and Rice

2-3 cups of Minute Rice
1 can Cream of Chicken Soup
1 can of Cream of Celery Soup
(or two of the same, it doesn’t matter too much)
Add about a half can of water or chicken stock or more if using 3 cups
4-6 thawed chicken breasts (You can try frozen, but the cooking time will need to be extended)

Mix the above up in a 9x13 baking dish or a bowl and spread it into the dish. Lightly coat pan in cooking spray to prevent baked on rice.

Season your chicken with pepper and salt or whatever you feel like. I usually go heavy on the paprika here, smoked if you have it, but your choice.

Place the chicken on top of the rice and bake at 350 F for about an hour. You can cover it for the first 45 minutes as well and then get a nice crust on the top without drying it out too much.

Make sure you season the rice/soup mixture as well.

Eat.

4

Dice up a chicken breast, put it in a sandwich-sized zip-lock.

Add 2 tablespoons of your favorite marinade. I like Teriyaki-type marinades, but others work just as well. Seal the bag and squish the chicken chunks around to spread the marinade.

Put in fridge for 24 hours.

To cook:

Add 1 tablespoon vegetable oil to skillet (I use Peanut Oil for Asian-style marinades, Olive Oil for other types), preheat to Medium.

Add marinaded chicken, and stir-fry chicken in skillet.

Once done, toss with salad, or serve up on rice or noodles.

Great add-ons: stir-fry veggies of choice and then add chicken to skillet. More oil may be necessary.

You can buy a large pack of chicken breasts, dice them up, and add to their own bags with different marinades/sauces. And I think there’s enough room in one sandwich-sized bag for 2 diced breasts, but you may want to add another tablespoon of marinade.

The reason I “bag it” is so I don’t waste a bunch of marinade like I would if I just dumped it in a bowl on top of a diced breast. The baggies wash out just fine for reuse.

5

I made [Chicken Curry Pot Pies](Chicken Curry Pot Pies) couple weeks ago. Sounds a lot more complex than it was - really, really tasty and very simple to make.

6

Nitpick: a 24-hour marinade is fine if it’s mostly oil and flavorings. If it has a bunch of lemon juice, vinegar, or other sources of acidity, you’ll want to keep it to an hour, tops.

7

You’ll need: 2 chicken breasts
~1/2 pound sliced mushrooms
2 slices Swiss cheese
salt, pepper, and garlic powder.

Pat the breasts dry with a paper towel, then generously salt and pepper both sides.
Put some olive oil and butter in a regular steel pan (not non-stick) and heat up to medium-high.
When it’s hot, place breasts down and cook on one side for 4 minutes (don’t move the chicken unless it’s burning)
Turn breasts over and brown other side for 4 minutes.
after that, turn heat down to low, add sliced mushrooms and sprinkle garlic powder over all of it. Cover and continue to cook until the inside of the thickest part of the chicken reaches 160 degrees Farenheight.

Place chicken breasts on a baking sheet and pour the mushrooms and remaining liquid from the pan over the top. Place a slice of cheese over each breasts, with some mushrooms in between. Put the baking sheet in an oven set to broil until the cheese melts and just barely starts to bubble. This will be about 2 minutes, and keep an eye on it while in the oven.

Remove from oven and transfer to serving plates.

8

The best, healthiest BSB recipe ever: Pan Seared Chicken With Garlic Sauce. It’s a Weight Watchers recipe, but it’s amazingly good, buttery and rich tasting. And you won’t believe how moist it is!

An oldie but a goodie: Hellmann’s Parmesan Crusted Chicken (Low-fat Version)

Another winner from Weight Watchers: Grilled Chicken and Tri-Color Peppers With Chimichurri Sauce

And yet another (if there’s one thing that Weight Watchers has a lot of, it’s boneless skinless chicken breast recipes!): Balsamic Chicken With Mushrooms

9

Get a thing of puff pastry. Cut it into thirds and poke with a fork a couple of times. Put it in a nonstick baking sheet with another making sheet on top. If you have parchment paper or the like, use it as it will make the pastry come off easy peasy. Bake in the oven for like 20 minutes; whatever it takes to get it golden brown.

Take your chicken breast and season it with some salt, pepper and olive oil. Fry it in a skillet. Once the cooked breast has cooled a little bit, slice it lengthwise into sections.

Take a little bit of mayo and mix a teaspoon or so of cayenne pepper into the mayo. Take your puff pastry breads and place a couple pieces of chicken, some spinach leaves, and an avocado slice on the pastry. Smear some mayo on another piece of pastry and place it mayo side down on the avocado. On the new piece of pastry, place more chicken, spinach leaves and avocado and top with another piece of mayo smeared pastry. Yummy.

10

Texano Burritos

4-5 potatos
3 chicken breasts
1 clove of garlic
1 small onion
1 cup of sour cream (or less, it really depends on how much you like sour cream)
1 cup of cheese
Salsa to taste
Tortillas

Dice up the potatoes and nuke them in the microwave (covered) for about 6 minutes. Then put them in a large skillet/frying pan with some oil and the garlic and onion. Cook the chicken in another pan with a cup of broth (covered). Shred the chicken, throw it in the pan with the potatoes. Add the sour cream and cheese, stir until it’s all melted. Add your salsa/hot sauce. Once the filling is done, fold it up into the tortillas.

11

So this isn’t using your chicken breasts, but this is a recipe sequence that I love.

Start with this roast chicken recipe. It’s fairly simple (dry chicken thoroughly; truss, which is fairly easy to learn and takes just a minute or two to do; sprinkle like crazy with salt; roast). With a decent chicken, it’s incredibly flavorful.

Strip the leftover meat, and throw the carcass and bones in a pot with water, a little salt, some celery, and some onions. Simmer until just before you go to bed; strain and refrigerate. This makes a killer stock. Last night I compared this stock to some storebought stock, and while I previously thought the storebought was good, it was almost inedible compared to this stuff.

Next night: saute an onion, a couple carrots, and a couple stalks of celery in oil (or skim the fat from the top of the refrigerated stock for sauteing: that’s what I’ve been doing, and it’s mighty fine). Add some garlic if you want. Last night I threw in some presliced cremini (baby portobello) mushrooms, which came out delicious. When it’s reasonably soft, add the stock and some of the leftover chicken meat. Salt and pepper to taste. Throw in some noodles fifteen minutes before dinner. Crazy-good chicken noodle soup.

Final night: sandwiches, or pasta with chicken and feta and sun-dried tomatoes.

We easily get six-nine meals out of a single chicken, and they’re all pretty wonderful and pretty easy.

12

Yeah - I’d use more of the chicken. I personally do not prefer the chicken breast, which often cooks up flavorless and dry no matter what you try.

The chicken thighs and legs have a lot more flavor, IMHO, and dicing up a whole chicken goes a long way for flavor and economy.

13

Until this recipe, I really didn’t see the point of chicken breasts: they seriously had less flavor than tofu in my experience. But the roast chicken recipe above (coupled with buying organic chickens, FWIW) results in moist, sweet chicken breasts that are very flavorful. I still prefer dark meat, but now at least it’s a contest.

14

Chicken Tacos

OK, this will be very non-specific. As usual, for me - I tend to cook by taste, and measurements are very approximate when I cook. :stuck_out_tongue:
NOT low fat, but quite simple. You can try substituting olive oil and some apple juice in place of the butter, but that’s an experiment I haven’t yet tried. Do so at your own risk. :stuck_out_tongue:

Takes about a half hour.

4 Chicken Breasts, deboned and skinned.
About a cup of finely diced Onion.
About 6oz Butter.
(Olive oil enough to easily cover bottom of the pan when heated should be about right, if you’re swapping out the butter. It will taste different)
About 2 Tablespoons diced Chipotle peppers in Adobo Sauce.
(Be careful here. A mistake with this ingredient will turn your taco meat into HazMat)
About 3 Garlic Cloves, diced or crushed.
1/4 to 1/2 cup Orange Juice.
(This adds both sweetness and acid - you shouldn’t need any other citrus. Pulp or no pulp is up to you) :stuck_out_tongue:
1 to 1 1/2 Tablespoon Worchestershire Sauce.
(This adds the flavor of dark meat)
1 Tablespoon Spicy Mustard.
1/4 cup finely-chopped Cilantro.

Corn Tortillas.
Additional taco garnishes and fixings, as you like. I personally like avacado, fresh onions, corn salsa, and sour cream. YMMV. :wink:

Use a deep frying pan or shallow pot, with a lid.
Start the butter melting, add the onions, chipotle peppers, and garlic. Cook on medium heat until onions are golden brown. Place chicken breasts in pan and cover. Cook about 10 minutes on one side. Flip breasts over, and re-cover. Cook until the meat is white all the way through - internal temp 160ºf or higher.

Remove chicken from pan, and set aside to cool a bit.

Add cilantro, orange juice, worchestershire sauce, and mustard. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the sauce remaining in the pan is reduced to a thick slurry.

Meanwhile, shred the chicken with forks. (You can cube it, too, but shredding works better, IME)

Once the sauce is reduced, add the chicken back into the pan, and stir to pick up and absorb the sauce. Keep stirring until all sauce is taken up, or until you’re bored. :stuck_out_tongue: Reduce heat to keep warm, and re-cover.

Toast the corn tortillas in a dry frying pan or over a low gas flame until firm-but-pliable. Add chicken and garnish as you like.

Notes:
~ Seriously. Be careful with the chipotles - Too much can make something that only a masochist would like. Too little, and there’s no ‘bite.’
~ Follow the chicken cooking steps fairly precisely, and you’ll have nice juicy, moist chicken - no drying out. :slight_smile:
~ The Worchestershire Sauce adds notes of dark meat to the sauce. Adjust as you care - It’s not strictly required, but without it, you get ‘bland.’
~ The Mustard adds a spicy note.
~ The orange juice adds both acid and sweetness - the contrast just works.
~ No additional salt added, other than what’s in the Adobo and Worchestershire Sauces, which is, admittedly, probably plenty enough and then some. No pepper added, no chili powder, no cumino or coriander - Very straight forward.

DO adjust the seasoning amounts - I frankly did NOT follow exact measures. I adjust to taste as I cook - The measures I list above are all approximate, but will put you in the ballpark. After that, you’re on your own - Have fun!

15

An easy comfort casserole:

Cut a pound or two of chicken into bite sizish pieces, cook on stove-top in non-stick pan. Or a teaspoon of oil in a sticky pan. Or boil it with bouillon. Whatever, cook yer pieces.

Layer in 13X9 dish, top with a bag of frozen chopped broccoli, some shredded cheddar if you like, a can of cream of chicken soup thinned with a splash of milk and finish with a layer of stove-top made according to box directions as a crust.

Ten minutes to assemble, fifteen tops. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes or so, enjoy!

16

If desired, preheat oven to 350 and put some washed potatoes in the oven to bake for half an hour or more.

Melt some butter. Season flour with poultry seasoning and seasoned salt. Wash chicken pieces, pat dry, coat with melted butter. Dredge in seasoned flour. Put in a baking pan, and pour a bit of butter over the pieces Bake at 350 until the thermometer says the poultry is done (it’s been a while since I’ve made this). I generally start checking the pieces after half an hour or so. Note that I say pieces…any chicken pieces will do.

17

These all sound good! I’m gonna print this thread out and add these recipes to my collection.

18

I just made these tonight, and they were yummy, moist, and easy. Two breasts in a baking pan, sprinkle chili powder and Montreal Steak Spice on them, slather on some barbecue sauce, and bake at 350ºF for about 30 minutes. I made them with Chef Guy’s Saffron Rice recipe (which is actually Turmeric Rice for me), and supper was dee-licious.

(Since I had the oven hot I made mincemeat tarts for dessert - also delicious. :slight_smile: )

19

My favourite way to cook chicken is this:

Pound the chicken breast fillets. Mix 1/4 cup honey and 2 tbs Dijon mustard and spread over the chicken. Grill or fry for 15-20 minutes.

It’s fast, simple and it tastes delicious, believe it or not. :slight_smile:

20

I am definitely going to use some of these! Thanks!
Last night I decided on a recipe I found online.

Butterfly the breasts and rub with salt and pepper.
Marinate in white wine and garlic powder for an hour.
Top with parmesan cheese and paprika and bake.
Serve on a bed of brown rice.

They came out just a touch dry (I think I’ll cut the baking time down a bit next time) but were very tasty. And we had most of a bottle of wine left to enjoy with it. Even though it was pretty easy, Mrs. Wheelz was duly impressed.