wanted to share with you a delicious + easy way to stretch out a chicken dinner. this is great for:
- joyful empty nesters
- fabulous singles
- families sans children
- families with hungry, growing teens
- really anyone
it’s too easy to get into a habit of ordering take out or running through whole foods to get something quick and somewhat healthy to eat. but why? i’ve got something more delicious and quick and easy for you.
so… meal #1. go to a specialty grocery store on a sat or sun morning and get a couple of marinated chicken breasts. you’re going to get 2-3 meals out of this so buy accordingly.
you could marinate it yourself and if you do there are some good marinades here and here. but if you’re busy – why? if you live in texas, go to central market where they have a lovely choice of millions of kinds of marinated chicken breasts. maybe not millions. In Detroit area go to papa joe’s or here in Madison, go to metcalfs. you know what i’m saying…
meal #1 -DINNER – grill or bake those chicken breasts, add rice and simple roasted vegetable. done. easy.
(SIDENOTE: to roast your vegetables just heat oven to 400 degrees, wrap a cookie sheet with tinfoil, throw some cut up brussel sprouts or broc or cauliflower (um yum!) a drizzle of olive oil, some kosher salt and sprinkle of pepper, toss, throw in oven. watch them after about 15 minutes and take out when crispy with blackened edges. if you want to get fancy, throw some of this on the veg before roasting. i’m always fancy and i love this spice!)
ok that wasn’t the fun part. big whip, you’re thinking.
so now, you should have some extra cooked chicken breast. cut them up into tiny bite size pieces. put them in a airtight container. i start my year with tons of these.
meal #2 – LUNCH THE NEXT DAY – Chicken and cheese quesadillas! oh, these are so good and actually kind of fun to make. buy flour tortillas and keep them for exactly this purpose. these can be as healthy or fat-laden as you want them to be. the technique is the same. the tortilla has to be big enough to fold in half.
here is the step by step:
- get a big fry pan – i use a cast iron skillet
- spray it with PAM and also drop a pat of butter in there. get it nice and hot!
- take your tortilla, and put a thin layer of cheddar cheese on half
- top with your leftover chicken
- cut up some green onion and sprinkle on top of that
- finish with a little more cheese. this is key – there must be cheese on the top and bottom – that’s the glue that holds everything together.
- Fold it in half and put in the pan.
- VARIATION: you can also use two tortillas like i show above. as your butter melts, swirl one tortilla around in the butter and pull it out and place butter side up on a plate. put another tortilla down and fill cheese- chicken-onion-cheese and place the other tortilla butter side up on top.
- let the tortilla cook for quite a while. i wait until i smell slight burning… but you don’t have to do that. then flip! take a big spatula and flip quickly using your hand as a guide.
meal #3 breakfast
use that small amount of chicken breast you cut up to throw in scrambled eggs. chicken and scrambled eggs? yes, you heard me correctly. lots of protein in the morning is super good for you and keeps you less hungry throughout the day, says this.
let me know if you try the quesadillas! i adapted my technique from the one and only pioneer woman here. she rocks. i’m making shrimp ones later today!