Quick Pesto Chicken And Veggies
We enjoy making and indulging this quick pesto chicken with seasonal veggies. It is delicious, and light, ready within 30-minute and a dish that everyone will love!
The highlight of the dish is, pesto. And we love pesto sauce. Whether you make from basil, kale, parsley, mint, arugula or cilantro. It would be delicious and fresh. As usual, with few ingredients and simple steps you would have an outstanding, fresh sauce full of flavourful that you could eat it with everything! Of course, I mean the real, homemade stuff. After all, nothing like home cooking.
Here we are using boneless, skinless chicken thighs is this recipe, because we love how juicy they are. It is the red meat of the chicken, on the bone that why it is full of flavour. Using the white meat or chicken breast is a good and healthier option as well. PLEASE don’t use the pre-made pesto from store. You don’t know how it was made, how long it has been setting on shelf waiting to be rescue after it lost its soul and nutrition. Making pesto from scratch is absolutely easy and taste far better than the pre-made stuff. One you make it, you will love it and make more often than you think. Gather your ingredients and give it a go 😀👍🏼
Before we cook, let’s see how healthy this simple dish for you and easy to make.
Summery
Good Source of: Protein, Magnesium, Potassium, Phosphorus, Niacin, Selenium, Vitamin A, Vitamin B1, Vitamin B6, Vitamin B2, and Calcium.
Allergens: Almonds
Servings: 4
Cook time: 30 minutes
Cooking Skill level: Easy
Protein Category: Chicken
As always, use ingredients as a guidance, not a rule. Remember, cooking is instinct not following a recipe.
Ingredients
450 grams diced skinless chicken thighs
2 tbsp(30 ml) olive oil
1 Medium diced zucchini
2 Bell diced peppers
2 tbsp(30 ml) homemade Cilantro Pesto sauce
Salt and pepper to taste
Chopped parsley to garnish
Utensils
Instructions - step by step
1. Sear the Chicken
Heat the olive oil in a large skillet on medium-high heat. Heat it to a point where your pan is hot to cook your meat evenly but not burn it. Remember, the smoke point of oil varies with its quality. High quality extra virgin olive oils (with low free fatty acids, ) have a high smoke point. They are an excellent choice, but an expensive one. Mass produced, low quality olive oils have a much lower smoke point. Please note that we are talking about virgin oils, here, not chemically refined oils. Extra virgin olive oil smokes roughly between 204 and 185ºC (400 and 365ºF) depending on its free fatty acid content. Here is what the International Olive Oil Council (IOOC) has to say about frying food with olive oil:
When heated, olive oil is the most stable fat, which means it stands up well to high frying temperatures. Its high smoke point (410ºF or 210ºC) is well above the ideal temperature for frying food (356ºF or 180ºC). The digestibility of olive oil is not affected when it is heated, even when it is re-used several times for frying.
When your pan is ready, add the chicken and fry it for about 5-7 minutes, until golden and cooked through. Season with salt and pepper.
2. Sear the Veggies
The key for even cooking for each vegetable is, dice it evenly. Same size. After you do so, remove the chicken from the skillet and set aside. In the same pan, add the zucchini and peppers and fry for another 5 minutes. You would notice zucchini start caramelize and gets golden colour and pepper gets softer, less shiny and any white bits turns yellowish colour. You might need to add a bit of oil if the pan gets dry.
3. Mix all together
It is time to add our gorgeous pesto while our our veggies are almost done. Add 1 tbsp. of pesto to the veggies and mix well. Move the veggies to the side, and bring the chicken back to the pan. Add the remaining 1 tbsp. of pesto to the chicken and mix all well.
4. Bon Appétit
Garnish your dish with chopped parsley. You could serve this dish with some rice, pasta or mashed potatoes. Feel free to add more pesto sauce if you’d like.
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