Chicken and Feta Pizza with Pesto
Homemade pizza is a tasty and easy week night family meal. You can use leftovers to make your own creations or recreate some of your favorites from a restaurant. My personal favorite is a flavor combination that I copied from a local pizza restaurant that went out of business several years ago. I was sad to see them go but after a little bit of experimenting I was able to recreate my favorite at home using a pesto base topped with chicken, pine nuts, and feta cheese.
Chicken Dump Freezer Meals
Lately, I’ve really been enjoying freezing meal kits. Basically, I have everything ready in a one gallon freezer bag that I take out of the freezer the night before I want to have it and let it thaw in the refrigerator. The next day, I take it out of the fridge and heat it up. This method is called “dump freezing “ because you just dump everything in the freezer bag. This method can help make meals less expensive since you look for chicken sales and buy more when it’s cheap and store these meals in your freezer. You can use any cut of chicken you want, they just have to be raw when you place then in the bag, then just add your marinade and freeze. It’s easy, cheaper (if you buy meat on sale in bulk) and saves you lots of time in the kitchen!
Chicken Lasagna
This chicken lasagna recipe is one of my favorite comfort foods of all time. Before my grandmother died she put together a cookbook of all her favorite recipes she’d gathered over the years of cooking for a large family and this recipe was one of my favorite ones in the cookbook. This meal does take some extra time to prepare but it can be assembled before hand to save some time in the kitchen. This twist on traditional lasagna reheats well for leftovers and it’s so tasty that you won’t mind eating it the next day.
Pan Fried Rosemary Chicken
I love pan friend chicken. Love it. It always looks like more work than it is and you can make it with an endless variety of flavors so it never gets old. This version uses wonderfully fragrant rosemary and the sweetness of onions and garlic (no arguing with me here – garlic and onions that are cooked slowly are deliciously sweet). Pan fried chicken makes a quick family dinner and even though it may not look like it, it is extremely kid friendly. My kids prefer it without the sauce because they will eat onions only if they can’t see them.
Homemade Chicken Chimichangas
Chicken Chimichangas are a favorite from the frozen food isle but the frozen variety has a lot of extra fat and preservatives that you do not want. These homemade chicken chimichangas are super simple to make and can be created to fit your family’s tastes. This easy mexican recipe can be frozen so you have it on hand for a quick weeknight dinner. While the ingredients in these may be simple but the flavor combination is fantastic. The mouth watering smell alone is enough to bring the whole family to the table.
Chicken and Cream Cheese Pockets
I like to try new recipes but my family has a few favorites that we make on a regular basis because they are either easy or tasty. These chicken and cream cheese pockets are both. This simple recipe can be adapted to fit your family’s food preferences and changed to add variety to your menu plan.
Chicken Marsala
This chicken marsala recipe is the one I’ve been asked for the most and for the longest time, going on nearly a decade. It’s a deceptively easy chicken dish to make, though time consuming, and very much worth the effort. This is not your cafeteria chicken marsala. For starters, marsala sauce isn’t a cream sauce. It’s a wine sauce with butter and mushrooms that elevates meer chicken breast to something absolutely decadent. This makes for a fabulous dish for entertaining but also one that’s easy enough to make that it is a great Sunday dinner dish as well. Serve this on a platter covered in mushrooms and sauce and no one will even remember that it’s a holiday centered around a different bird.
Crock Pot Chicken Paprikash
As the weather cools our tastebuds year for soups and stews and all the warm goodness that they bring. This version of chicken paprikash is super easy, smells wonderful as it cooks and can take advantage of the often very cheap boneless skinless chicken thighs. The darker meat brings an incredible flavor boost to this dish without adding too much heaviness or nutritional tradeoffs as long as you trim it and skim it. The meltingly tender chicken swimming in pink-tinged gravy enriched by sour cream and served on a bed of egg noodles is entirely worth the minimal effort that this meal takes to put together.
Grilled Chicken Fajitas
In my family there are a few dishes we fall back on when nothing else sounds good, it’s hot, or we don’t think my dad would be happy with anything else. Fajitas is one dish that satisfies when little else will and has the added bonus of being adaptable to just about any dietary restrictions that we might be dealing with at the time. There is an alchemy inherent in grilled chicken or beef and vegetables wrapped in a warm tortilla that makes the whole far greater than the sum of its parts and thus generally appealing in nearly any form. This simple marinade takes grilled chicken breast from plain to shining and balances very well with the flavors of the grilled veggies it accompanies.
Chicken and Artichoke Whole Grain Casserole
Casseroles. They very rarely photograph well, but they are the backbone of the comfort food family. Just about everyone I know grew up with some form of a creamy chicken and rice casserole, usually made with canned mushroom soup and covered in cheese or crumbs or both and equally usually devoid of vegetable contributions. There’s nothing wrong with those, and they certainly are good, but this version takes the idea a little further with the inclusion of brown rice, millet and lentils instead of plain white rice, a rich-tasting sauce made of nutrional yeast and artichokes and finished with perfectly cooked chicken and a crispy crumb layer. It’s creamy, crunchy, rich and light at the same time, comforting and easily adapted to several variations depending on what’s available.
