December 15, 2016
This week I’ve been in the mood for mexican for some reason. Perhaps it is that summer has finally hit Melbourne (for now) making me crave fresh, salad dishes. Or perhaps it was because my roommate and sister both left this week, also leaving behind avocados for me to eat, which always calls for Mexican! Either way, when I was planning my meals for the week, I decided I was in need of some Mexican flavours to spice up my weeknights!
I love a delicious chicken fajita mix. Not only is it full of spicy flavour, it is actually really healthy! That’s what I love about Mexican food; you can make it heavy by adding delicious things like cheese and sour cream, or keep it without and having something nice and light, depending on what you’re feeling. It is just so versatile! So when I was trying to decide what to make, I decided to give chicken fajita’s a go, but in a new way!
Normally I would cook chicken fajita mix in a fry pan, but I found a recipe that inspired me to try something different. Right now I have so much to do when I get home of an evening, I don’t want to be stuck at the stove stirring. It’s good to be able to prepare your meal, chuck it in the oven, and set and forget until the timer goes off! This is my favourite thing to do mid week when I’m cooking, as it means you can spend the time while you wait for your food to cook doing other chores and then by the time you’re finished, you have an awesome meal ready and waiting!
This recipe is basically the same flavours as you would normally find, minus the capsicum as I didn’t have any, but instead of putting it in the fry pan to fry off, you cook it in foil in the oven. The result is perfectly cooked, succulent chicken that has cooked in its own juices, resulting in a really tasty meal. Although my chicken took a little longer than I originally thought it would, it was absolutely amazing in the end, so well worth the extra cooking time. Although it may not be the quickest way to cook chicken, I felt that it was a lot more full of flavour than when I just fry it, so I’d highly recommend doing this if you have the extra time! Plus, you make up for it by not having to marinade the chicken, so I feel for a weeknight meal it still stacks up overall.
- 1 skinless chicken breast
- 1 brown onion sliced
- 1-2 cloves of garlic minced
- 1 teaspoon of ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon of paprika
- 1 teaspoon of dried chilli flakes
- ½ teaspoon of ground coriander
- 1 teaspoon of ground oregano
- 2 teaspoons of olive oil
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Preheat oven to 200C (400F). Slice the chicken breast into thin pieces and set aside.
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In a medium bowl, mix together the sliced brown onion, garlic, ground cumin, paprika, dried chilli flakes, coriander, oregano and olive oil. Add the chicken and stir to coat evenly.
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Take some aluminium foil and place on a baking tray. Roll the sides of the foil up to create a nest and pour the chicken mixture in. Cover the chicken completely with extra foil and place in the oven.
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Cook for 25 minutes and remove from the oven to stir. Place back in the oven for another 10-15 minutes without the extra foil over the top until the chicken is cooked through and golden.
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Serve with salad, or with tortillas and condiments.
This is a perfect weeknight meal for those nights where you need something made relatively quickly but want to be able to set and forget. The chicken was so delicious when I took it out of the oven, and the best part of all was that I was able to leave it while I did other things around the house! Talk about the perfect simple and easy recipe for your midweek feast!
This recipe is nice and versatile too. You can really add it to anything you want, and keep some left overs for lunches throughout the week. I put it with a nice fresh salad which I put jalapenos through and some hot sauce, so it ended up being quite spicy which I loved. But you can easily use it as the protein for tacos, or serve it with some tortillas if you want something more filling. You could also make a burrito with this as the filling, or a burrito bowl. The options really are endless when it comes to Mexican cooking! I love that it is so quick and easy to make, but the flavours are always so delicious!
This chicken was on the spicy side, so leave out the chilli flakes if spice isn’t your thing. But at long as you have the spices on hand, it’s just a matter of chucking some herbs together, slicing the onion and chicken, mixing and placing in the oven, then you are done! Sometimes I feel that when something is too easy it won’t taste as good, especially when you aren’t marinading the chicken. But this dish definitely proved me wrong, it was absolutely delicious!
I feel like I’m always cooking chicken, I really do need to branch out and bring you some different recipes. But I feel that chicken is a great go to protein because there is so much stuff you can do with it! I love how it really lends itself to so many different cuisines, and is really healthy as well! You could just as easily do this recipe with pork I reckon, I’m sure you would get similar tasty results! You could even use the same spice mix for some chickpeas and vegetables and make a vegetarian version of this recipe! Once you have the spice mix, you can really pick and choose.
What’s your favourite Mexican food? I’d love to get ideas for new, healthy recipes. I feel sometimes Mexican has a bad rap as a fast food, but it can actually be really healthy and fresh. When you leave out all the add ons (which are delicious) you can still eat delicious but healthy Mexican food without feeling like you are missing out too much! And in the lead up to Christmas, this is what I feel I need before the onslaught of delicious Christmas pudding!
Until next time, happy eating!
Ella xx
