Now that summer is in full swing, one thing we’ve started up in the Summers household is using The Grill.
I love the grill because Darrel is in charge of grilling (less work for me) and other than wadding up the foil and throwing it away there are no dishes involved (less work for me). Seeing a theme here?
This isn’t really a new recipe, but more a re-working of an old one. We were already starting to get a little burned out on steaks and hamburgers on the grill, so I thought about doing chicken one day and remembered how much Darrel and Jed liked the Cilantro-Lime Crockpot Chicken.
Why not turn it into a kebob?
So, I did!
It’s really simple, y’all:
Chop up the chicken into slightly larger than bite sized pieces.
Chopped up chicken
Throw them in a Ziploc bag.
Toss in your spices: sea salt, black pepper, and paprika. I know the original recipe calls for cayenne and chili powder, but Darrel and Jed were both complaining that it was too spicy for them the last two times I made it so I decided to downgrade the spicy factor for my family. Feel free to use the original spice mix if you’re like me and enjoy spicy foods!
Everything in the bag, ready to smoosh!
Throw in the marinade: olive oil, lime juice and cilantro. In the crockpot recipe, I blended it all in a food processor to make a nice smooth marinade. Two days ago when I made this I was feeling very tired and therefore very lazy…I just chopped the cilantro into smaller pieces and tossed it all in the bag and smooshed it up.
It worked just fine, so if you’re in need of a short cut, that’ll do it!
After you’ve smooshed the bag around and covered all the chicken pieces, squeeze the air out of the bag, lay it on a plate (to catch any accidental leakage) and put it in the fridge to marinade. Longer is always better with a marinade, but in our case I put the chicken in the fridge at about 10:00 a.m. and used it at about 5:00 p.m. So however long you have will be good enough, I’m sure. (Do try and get at least a few hours of soaking in, though!)
About an hour before you want to make your skewers, take the wooden skewers and put the in a bowl of water to soak. This will keep the sticks from burning too much in the grill.
That’s a good time to also chop up any veggies you plan to use. For this, only your imagination can hold you back! (Well, that and the limitations of what you have in your fridge!)
I had a bell pepper, three whole mushrooms, cauliflower and an onion. So, that’s what went on our skewers.
I chopped things into nice bite sized pieces, then Jed helped me load the skewers. I tried to make sure there was a piece of onion next to every piece of chicken, and at least 4 pieces of chicken on each skewer, but beyond that it was very much “whatever Jed grabbed to stick on the skewer”.
That’s okay, though, because he had a blast helping me in the kitchen, and they turned out really delicious!
Skewers ready to go on the grill…
Darrel fired up the grill, and when it was ready he laid out a piece of foil. We decided to only use the actual grill part for foods that are safe for the whole family, and chicken is not yet on that list. So that explains the foil. These would work just fine directly on the grill itself, though.
Jed overseeing the grilling…he’s a little forlorn looking because he was getting too close to the grill and got chastised. Sucks being three, huh?
When they were done, Darrel loaded them up on a plate while I chopped some roma tomatos.
Cooked and almost ready to eat!
Putting tomatos directly on the skewers would have been delicious, but we try not to cook tomatos in our house because of Jed’s Fructose Malabsorption. Apparently cooking tomatos makes them more “fructose-y”. So we just tossed raw, chopped up tomatos on top and it was gorgeous!
Dinner is served!
The best part? Cleanup involved tossing a plastic bag, a piece of foil, cleaning 1 knife and two plates. Ah…I love summertime grilling!
- 3 chicken breasts
- ½ to ¾ c. cilantro
- ½ c. lime juice
- 1 T. olive oil
- Spices: sea salt, black pepper, and your choice of paprika, cayenne, and/or chili powder
- ½ onion
- 1 bell pepper
- veggies of choice: tomato, mushroom, cauliflower, squash
- 8 bamboo skewers
- Chop your chicken into bite sized pieces.
- Coat your chicken pieces with the spices. It's easiest to do this by throwing the spices in a Ziploc bag and tossing it around, a la shake 'n bake!
- Add the cilantro, lime juice and olive oil to a food processor to make a marinade (or short cut it and just throw it all in the Ziploc bag with the chicken as is!)
- Smoosh the bag around until the chicken pieces are all covered in spices and marinade; put in the fridge for at least 3 hours, preferably longer. Overnight would not be too long.
- Two hours before grilling, place the bamboo skewers in water to soak.
- One hour before grilling, begin cutting your veggies into bite sized pieces.
- Make your skewers: stack the veggies and meat on the skewers in whatever order you would like.
- Heat up your grill, lay the skewers on the grill, and cook about 15 minutes total, turning halfway through cooking.
- Top with chopped up tomatos, if you like, and enjoy a healthy grilled summer dish!
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