Lemon Garlic Dump Chicken

Life has been a bit out of control recently. I have had way too much going on. And as a result my food choices have not always been fabulous and I have been baking things like these cinnamon rolls as I find baking relaxing. Not to mention the delicious results that pop out of my oven – assuming of course the batter and cake mixes actually make it in to the oven…

But one thing I have gotten better at is listening to my body and the little messages it is sending me, in this case, what the hell are you doing crazy woman. When that happens, it is one of the few times I contemplate eating salad. Because life has been a bit hectic, I was also looking for something that didn’t require much time to cook.

This lemon garlic dump chicken recipe with baby spinach and beetroot leaves and cherry tomatoes was perfect for this. Ok so the word dump is not exactly enticing but it does some up nicely what you need to do to make this recipe. Dump all the ingredients in a Ziploc bag, make sure they are all mixed up and the chicken evenly coated, leave it overnight to marinate and then grill the chicken. The original recipe suggested freezing some for cooking on busy days and I had planned to do this. However, as I was marinating my chicken it clicked that I had taken the chicken out of the freezer to marinate it and if there is one thing you shouldn’t do it is refreezing meat. An easy road to food poisoning. Next time I need to make this recipe before I freeze my chicken. It is very easy to make this in single serve sizes which are then easy to whip out when necessary.

The combination of lemon and garlic is a simple but classic flavor combination. Classic because it works in its simplicity. Mind you I love the citrusy flavours that lemon gives so I might be a bit biased.

To make this for one I used the following ingredients:

• 130g of skinless chicken breast – if you only have chicken stir fry pieces this would work just as well and would be quicker to cook if you are in a super big rush
• ½ tsp of minced garlic (equal to half a clove)
• 1 tbs of olive oil
• 1 tsp of parsley, chopped
• ½ tbs of freshly squeezed lemon juice

What I love about this recipe is how quick it is to make. Preparation time is 5 minutes and then you marinate overnight and it takes about 8-10 minutes to grill the chicken depending on how thick the breast is. You could do this with stir fry strips and I reckon you could easily cook this in under 8 minutes. Added bonus is it only has about 330 calories and if you serve it on some baby spinach and beetroot leaf and cherry tomato salad then it is only about 370 calories, a great low calorie but tasty lunch.

It is also a technique that you could use for other flavours. I think this would also taste great with some thyme rather than the parsley. Just use your imagination.