Here’s a simple chicken dinner that’s ready in less than 30 minutes.
Stunningly Simple
If you want a dinner that’s on the table within 30 minutes and one that’s healthy too, then this is it.
I recently took an online course called, “Rediscovering the Lost Art of Cooking.” One of the dishes the chef instructor prepared was this chicken. It looked so good and easy, I just had to do it for myself.
I highly recommend this course. I have been really BLAH about cooking lately and I have to say, this inspired me to get back into the kitchen again and get creative.
Leftover Greens
The chef instructor said to use up any salad greens you have in the fridge, but he demonstrated this with arugula, radicchio and Belgian endive. I love arugula and will look for any excuse to eat it, but I’ve never tried radicchio nor Belgian endive. This was a perfect opportunity to do just that.
Tomatoes are a must in this salad. I used cherry and grape tomatoes and I included orange and yellow varieties so the meal would be more colorful. Now that summer home-grown tomato crops are ready to harvest, these work perfectly here. Home-grown tomatoes have such wonderful flavor, so forgoing color variety for taste is way better.
Tasty Dressing
The vinaigrette dressing is made in the same skillet the chicken was cooked in.
The dressing is simple yet tasty. It gets a lot of flavor from the browned bits (called “fond”) that remain in the skillet after you saute the chicken. All you do is deglaze the pan with a bit of chicken stock then reduce that down till all that’s left is about a tablespoon or two. Then it’s just preparing a standard vinaigrette dressing which is 1 part acid to 2-3 parts oil.
The Recipe
- 2 medium chicken breasts
- 2 tbs olive oil
- ½ small head of radicchio, torn into pieces
- 2 cups arugula1 small Belgian endive, torn into pieces
- 1 cup grape tomatoes of varying colors, cut in half (see NOTES)
- Dressing:
- ½ cup chicken stock
- juice of ½ a large lemon
- 3-4 tbs extra-virgin olive oil
- salt to taste
- pepper to taste
- Using a meat mallet, pound chicken down to a uniform thickness of about ¼-inch. Season each side with a bit of salt and coarsely ground pepper.
- Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the 2 tbs of olive oil and when the oil shimmers, place chicken in the pan.
- Brown well on both sides. Remove chicken and keep warm.
- To make dressing, deglaze the pan with the ½ cup of chicken stock, making sure to scrape up all the browned bits. Turn heat to medium-high and reduce until there's about 2 tbs of liquid in the pan.
- Remove from heat and stir in the lemon juice. Then whisk in the extra-virgin olive oil. Add any additional salt and pepper at this time. Also if you want a tangier dressing, feel free to add a few drops more of lemon juice. If you find the dressing too tart, stir in a pinch or two of sugar.
- In a large bowl, mix the salad ingredients. Add about 2 tbs of the warm dressing and toss to coat.
- Divide salad onto 2 plates and place chicken on top of salad. Drizzle remaining dressing over each plate.
Recipe is easily doubled or tripled.
Yum
