Sweetness Loves Italian Grilled Chicken!

I’ve found that working from home leaves me exhausted by 5 o’clock.  Even though I enjoy creative cooking, I need a set of go-to dinners that come together quickly and that the family loves.

Here are the Friday Meals principles:

1.  Few ingredients: Fast cooking doesn’t help if I have to spend hours with 2 antsy pre-schoolers in Walmart finding stuff.

2.  Prepare dishes that you can start in the morning.

3.  Make it your goal to cook at least 3 meals at once.  Serve one and freeze the other 2 for another night.  Eventually, you will have a freezer stocked full of meals you can pop in the microwave or oven quickly and easily.  Invest in a stand-alone freezer (a huge money-saver) or freeze your meals in freezer bags.  Lay them flat to freeze and then you can stack them upright after they’re frozen.

4.  Easy clean up.  There’s no point to a quick meal if you dirty up a depressing mountain of pots and pans.  My best friends in this are my grill and my crock-pot.  I keep the grill on my (covered) porch so that I can grill year-round.

OK, now that we got the main principles out of the way, here’s my first offering.

Italian Grilled Chicken

Classic but not boring.  Gets a compliment from my family every time.

• 1 packet Italian Dressing Seasoning mix (located with the salad dressings in most stores)
• 1/3 c. (Apple Cider) Vinegar
• 1/3 c. Olive Oil or some other vegetable oil
• Splash of lemon juice (optional)
• Sprinkle of oregano (optional)
• 1-3 lbs Boneless or Bone-In Chicken Breasts, (or other parts!)

First of all, I suggest buying the 6lb. bags of frozen chicken and freezing the leftover breasts individually in freezer bags.  In that case, you’ll double the recipe for the marinade.

Combine all of the ingredients in the morning and marinate the chicken in the fridge until about 20 minutes before you want to eat.  You can marinate these for less time, but I find that the longer the marinade, the better the chicken.  Pre-heat your grill.  Grill chicken over a low flame about 8 minutes on each side or until a safe internal temperature is reached.  My grill is pretty old and pretty simple, so sometimes after I grill the chicken, I put it on a plate and stick it in the microwave for 1-2 minutes to finish it up on the inside.

Last night, I made this with skin-on chicken thighs.  I have to say, I much prefer it with boneless, skinless chicken breasts.