July 1, 2016
This week I decided that I needed to branch out in my weeknight meals. I’ve been defaulted to either bulk food in the slow cooker (resulting in our freezer filling up very quickly) or grilled chicken. I’ve come to realise that one can only have so much grilled chicken with lemon, it gets old very quickly. I don’t know how body builders can eat grilled chicken and broccoli for every meal, it’s just not a direction I could ever see my life going.
So I looked for a bit of inspiration, and came across an idea for chicken parcels. My mum used to do this a lot at home, because you can put whatever ingredients you want in the parcel, put it in the oven, and the juices and flavours come together for a perfectly delicious chicken dish. It’s really easy, doesn’t really require much preparation, and is a really quick way to cook chicken. It also results in perfectly cooked chicken as it doesn’t have the direct heat from the oven. I tend to accidentally blast my chicken, so this is a great option for me!
There are so many flavour options to go with for this type of cooking, but I saw some beautiful, fresh basil at the store and thought it would be worth trying out an Italian spin on this dish. Basil is something I don’t really use much, but after cooking these I think I need to use it more, because the resulting flavours in the dish were absolutely delicious.
This dish can be altered based on whatever you have in your fridge, but I found the vegetables I put in really complemented the marinade on the chicken. It also is a great way to get more vegetables into your cooking, and perfect fresh out of the oven when the steam is rising from the parcel on a cold winter night! Turns out you can have comfort food and eat healthy at the same time!
- 2 skinless chicken breasts divided into halves
- 1 teaspoon of dried thyme
- 1 teaspoon of dried oregano
- 3 cloves of garlic
- 1 teaspoon of dried chilli flakes
- ½ teaspoon of salt
- ½ teaspoon of pepper
- 2 teaspoons of olive oil
- 1 handful of fresh basil leaves
- 1 cup of brown mushrooms sliced
- 1 punnet of grape tomatoes sliced into halves
- 1 handful of baby spinach leaves
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Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius (300 degrees Fahrenheit).
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In a medium sized bowl, mix together the thyme, oregano, garlic, chilli flakes, salt, pepper and olive oil. Add the chicken and mix to ensure it completely coats the chicken. Set aside to marinade for at least 2 hours, if you can, covered in the fridge.
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When the chicken is ready, get 4 sheets of aluminum foil and place on your bench. Roll the sides up slightly to avoid any juice flowing out.
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Place one piece of chicken in the middle of each piece of foil. On top of this layer two basil leaves, a couple of tomatoes, some of the mushrooms, and some baby spinach. In terms of volume per parcel, this can be up to you and how much you can fit in each packet. Top the veggies with an additional two basil leaves and a sprinkling of pepper.
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Wrap the chicken completely in the aluminum foil, ensuring it is completely enclosed. Place the parcels on an oven tray and put in the oven for 20-30 minutes. Check the chicken after 20 minutes to see if it is completely cooked through, and if it is, remove from the oven.
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Serve with salad or steamed vegetables for a healthy weeknight meal.
So there you have it. Not only is it a super quick meal to make, it involves minimal effort. Once you have the chicken marinated, you literally just need to chuck it in the oven with the vegetables and then in 30 minutes you’ll have a delicious meal. How easy is that? Also, it involves minimal washing up, which is always a plus.
The flavours in these parcels was so delicious, and authentically Italian. I loved how moist the chicken stayed cooking in the juices from the vegetables, and all the spices and vegetables came together for a perfect little parcel of happiness. The smell was amazing when I got the parcels out of the oven, and when you open the parcels you get this amazing aroma throughout the kitchen.
For a dish that was so simple to make, this was such a delicious weeknight meal! You could really test your own combinations of flavours, along with putting any vegetables in that you have on hand. It’s really up to you based on what you feel like! All you need to do is follow the same cooking method and it should still work, as long as the vegetables don’t need too much cooking (I don’t think something like carrots would work – but by all means try it and let me know if it does!)
Until next time, happy eating!
Ella xx
