Chicken breast has incredibly bad press! Some say it’s dry and gross, others say eating it is akin to chewing on paper. Here’s my thought: why eat chicken breast that’s cooked badly? When cooked well and treated (marinated) right, chicken breast can be the most versatile part of the chicken, not to mention delicious and healthy. Here are 7 freezer ready recipes for chicken breast. Oh, and if you’re still not convinced that chicken breast is the way to go, these marinades work great for thigh meat, too.
Method
I’m writing the method here because it’s really that straightforward. You simply combine all the ingredients together in a ziplock bag and freeze it. If you’d like to have it within the day, store the marinated chicken in the chiller section of your refrigerator for 2 hours before cooking with it. All the recipes provided are for one chicken breast or 2 thighs, purchased from the heartland wet market (doesn’t quite get more local than that, right?)
Monday
3 Tbsp Coconut Cream
2 Tbsp Pineapple Juice
2 Tsp Fish Sauce
Tuesday
3 Tbsp Olive Oil
2 Tbsp Yogurt
1 Tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
1 Tsp Sugar
3 Cloves of grated garlic
Wednesday
3 Tbsp Canola Oil
2 Tbsp Orange Juice
2 Tsp Soy Sauce
2 Tsp Grated Ginger
Tip: Grate in the zest of the orange before juicing, for maximum flavour. You can use ginger powder instead of the fresh ginger, if that’s all you have at home.
Thursday
3 Tbsp Canola Oil
2 Tbsp Lemon Juice
1 Tsp Salt
1 Tbsp Honey
Friday
3 Tbsp Yogurt
2 Tbsp Sumac
1 Tsp Salt
Grated zest of 1 Lemon
Saturday
3 Tbsp Canola Oil
2 Tbsp Lime Juice
2 Tsp Fish Sauce
1 Tsp Sugar
2 Dried Bird eye Chillies, crushed
Sunday
3 Tbsp Olive Oil
2 Tbsp Chicken/Meat Masala (I use Babas)
1 Tbsp Lemon Juice
1 Tbsp Yogurt
1 Tsp Salt
Cooking the marinated chicken
Chicken is pretty easy to cook, especially chicken breast. I normally roast the breast in a preheated moderate oven (170 to 180 degrees) for 25 to 30 minutes, before pulling the chicken breast apart with a couple of forks. Then, I put the shredded chicken in salads, pasta, fried rice or burgers, depending on my mood and the type of carbohydrate I have at my disposal.
While I wouldn’t advice boiling the marinated chicken breast, you can grill them. But roasting them in a pan (with or without vegetables) goes a long way in sealing in the flavour of your marinade. If you get lazy to operate heavy machinery (such as the oven) on a weeknight, you can also pan fry the chicken breasts with a little extra canola oil – this sears the outside of the meat really well and gives it an additional edge of flavour that only frying can provide. Though, if you’re adopting this method, be prepared for plenty of spluttering (I’d keep the pan cover handy).
Try out these 7 recipes (or just one, if you like) and tell me how you how they worked for you!