Summer barbeques are a great way to have delicious and easy healthy meals. Yesterday we had our entire meal on the grill. Here is my favorite recipe for barbeque chicken. Healthy eating was never so easy!
Sesame Barbeque Chicken
Chicken*
Marinade:
¼ low sodium soy sauce
3 tablespoons dry sherry
1 tablespoon sesame seed oil
2 tablespoons orange marmalade (I’ve also used jalapeño jelly, honey or agave nectar)
2 cloves garlic
Hot peppers of some sort: ie ¼ teaspoon Tabasco, 1 tsp chili paste or dried red chilis
Mix the marinade ingredients in a container about the size of the chicken. Add the skinned chicken to the marinade and refrigerate. Allow at least 4 hours for marinating, but when possible start early in the morning or even the night before. Grill over low-medium heat.
*This Sunday we used whole bone-in chicken breasts. They cooked for a long time, but were really moist. We served them sliced, rather than with the bones. You can also use skinless, boneless breasts or thighs. It is all good.
What I like about this approach is that you never spend more than 15 minutes in the kitchen at a time and yet the result is a delicious meal! Make extra and you have dinner for a second night.
The original recipe that I adapted this from suggested marinating the chicken in strips and cooking it on skewers. That makes a great picnic dish, but is too much work to do often.
Yesterday I served the chicken with Yukon gold potatoes, summer squash, red torpedo onion and eggplant. I precooked the potatoes a little in the microwave, but the rest we just put directly on the grill. We used olive oil and balsamic vinegar to brush the veggies while cooking slowly over low heat. My goodness it was good! The Yukon potatoes were so moist that no topping was necessary.
Note: it always bothers me to pour so much soy sauce into the marinade. Even the low sodium variety has about 2,000 mg of sodium in 1/4 cup. I have used less and it still tastes good (maybe because I usually never salt my food!)
We got multiple servings from the recipe, and I figure that with a marinade not all the salt gets absorbed. I think it must be the salt in the soy sauce that makes foods marinated in it so tender.
Does anyone know more about this? How much of the sodium in soy sauce is actually absorbed into the meat?
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Eat well!
