We all know the delicious grilled chicken strips you find on a restaurant salad or buy frozen at the grocery store are pumped full of saline, spices, starches, MSG, and a dozen difficult-to-pronounce ingredients, not to mention wicked expensive.
And we've all tried to make our own without success - they're dry, flavorless, or undercooked almost every time we try to make them. What's the secret? How can we get juicy, succulent, and incredibly delicious chicken strips for our salads without having to buy it premade?
 |
| Chicken strips make the perfect salad topping |
Well friends, although it took several weeks of trial and error, I've finally found a straightforward means of making chicken strips that rival or even those one even your favorite pre-op Chicken Cesar Salad. Make up a large batch and freeze them, they reheat beautifully.
Counter to my intuition, it turns out these are simple, easy to make, and contain only a handful of ingredients. The recipe below is for a large enough batch to slice, freeze and store indefinitely so as to last you for weeks or months. If you want to make a smaller batch, make up the same spice mixture and store in an airtight container for later use and simply coat a smaller amount of chicken.
These strips can be baked in the oven or cooked in a skillet. The skillet option is more moist and has better flavor but baking your strips is easier and omits the oil for those of you who believe fat is a sin (it isn't, but more power to you).
Ingredients:
Chicken breast, boneless skinless, raw - 5 lb
Salt - 1 Tbsp
Pepper - 1 Tbsp
Parsley - 2 Tbsp dried or 1/4 cup minced fresh
Onion Powder - 1/4 cup
Garlic Powder - 1/8 cup
Olive oil - 2 Tbsp (omit if baking)
Preparation:
Thoroughly mix your spice-mixture in an airtight container, you'll want to save any remaining mix for later use.
Slice chicken breasts into 4 even strips, slicing with the grain. It goes against everything you've ever learned, but trust me here. We'll rectify the situation soon enough.
Rinse and pat dry your chicken. Spread in a single layer and heavily sprinkle with the spice mixture.
If baking spread a second layer on a foil/silicone covered baking sheet and preheat your oven to 400 F.
 |
| About half the amount you actually want |
When you see white just showing through the pink of the top of the chicken strips (5-10 minutes depending on your stovetop, carefully turn each over and continue to cook for another 5 minutes. Remove from the pan and tent with foil for 20 minutes.
If baking, place the strips into a preheated oven at 400 F for 25 minutes. Tent immediately upon removal for 20 minutes.
Once the 'tenting' phase is past, now slice your chicken strips against the grain. To store, spread in a single layer on a baking sheet and freeze. Once frozen, place into a gallon Ziploc and return to the freezer.
To reheat, place desired amount of strips into the microwave for 1-3 minutes and voila, delicious, moist, tender salad friendly, grilled chicken strips.
These are excellent on salads, pasta, cauliflower stir-fries, sandwiches, or just about anything really.
 |
| These are the baked ones, the skillet-cooked are MUCH better, but these are great themselves |
Calories: 102
Fat - 9 g
Carbs - 2 g
Protein - 4 g
Sodium - 365 mg
No comments:
Post a Comment