Curried Peanut Chicken
A panini press recently landed its way into my life and I feel like I'm a changed woman. While we have been whipping up our share of delicious pressed sandwiches, I'm finding the real benefit of the panini press has been all of the other genius things I can create with it. Did you know you can reheat cold pizza with a panini press? Life changing, I'm telling you.
Another favorite use for the panini press is turning it into a "lazy grill." It's perfect for weeknights when we just don't feel like taking the extra 10 minutes to heat up the grill. I know. Life is really rough. But, you know, we now have a panini press, so there's that!
Since I often have boneless skinless chicken breasts on hand, I'm grilling up chicken breasts left and right. And because chicken breasts can be so blah 90% of the time, I'm starting to think of new ways to jazz up plain ol' chicken with simple, quick marinades. This curried peanut chicken marinade does just that and then some.
The beauty of this recipe is that you can make it on the spot and let the marinade flavor your chicken breasts for as little as twenty minutes for a really speedy meal, or you can even make the marinade in advance the night before. The best part is putting them on a hot sizzling grill or panini press and watching these babies cook up in about five minutes. You will literally have dinner on the table in less than thirty minutes (just call me Rachel Ray!)
Serve these moist, juicy chicken breasts up with a side salad, my favorite of the moment being the Asian chopped salads that you can find in your grocery store, and voila you have a complete, healthy and delicious meal!
Curried Peanut Chicken
Ingredients
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup soy sauce
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon curry powder
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons Sambal chili paste
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (chicken thighs would be awesome too!)
Directions
Whisk together peanut butter, honey, soy sauce and vegetable oil. Add minced garlic, curry powder and sambal chili paste. Pour sauce over chicken in large ziplock bag. Using a meat tenderizer, or heavy bottle (I used a bottle of balsamic vinegar), pound chicken breasts until about 1/2 inch thick and until all meat is the same thickness. Refrigerate in marinade for at least an hour.
Cook chicken for 5 minutes a side or 5-8 minutes on a panini press/counter top grill. Remove chicken from grill and let rest for 5 minutes. Slice into strips and serve.
