Healthy dinner recipe Archives

Tropical Teriyaki Chicken Breasts with Grilled Pineapple

February 28, 2023 by Lee Hersh Leave a Comment

Tropical Teriyaki Chicken Breasts with Grilled Pineapple

This post is sponsored by Gold’n Plump Chicken. I was compensated and all opinions are my own.

I am so excited to introduce a new Fit Foodie Finds partnership with a brand oh so close to home…Gold’n Plump Chicken! I’m sure you’ve seen this brand’s chicken at your local grocery store or large retailer because they are all over the United States. They are an all natural chicken brand based just north of the Twin Cities in St. Cloud, MN. Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast Portions (the product I’m featuring in today’s recipe) carry the Gold’n Plump “all natural” label and contain no artificial ingredients, preservatives or added hormones. Can I get a whoop whoop!?

Tropical Teriyaki Chicken Breast with Grilled Pineapple, made with Gold n' Plump Chicken. Pure summer bliss. #healthy

Did you face plant into the screen too?!

These were the juiciest, most tender, most flavorful grilled chicken breasts I’ve ever made! I love that they are cut into smaller portions because I am the type that likes to eat lots of different things for dinner and usually don’t end up eating an entire chicken breast.

And this pineapple. YOU GUYS. This pineapple.

The marinade I made calls for super simple ingredients that you most likely already have at home!

My secret ingredient is a splash of pineapple juice. Can’t go wrong!

I used 2 packages of Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast Portions. Love that there are no added hormones in these guys. The chicken breasts next to these at the store were like 4 times the size, but that’s because they are pumped with who knows what.

Read more about how amazing Gold’n Plump and their initiatives are here —> Chicken Difference.

Back to the marinade.

You’ll need for Tropical Teriyaki Chicken Breasts with Grilled Pineapple:

Teriyaki sauce/marinade
EVOO
Lime juice
Garlic
Pineapple juice
A little brown sugar

I let things sit for about 4-5 hours. My secret is to take a fork and poke each piece a few times so the marinade really soaks in!

Now the fun part.

GRILL TIME!

To get amazing grill marks, you’ll want to heat your grill to about 375°F. I let the chicken cook on each side for about 7 minutes, watching verrrry closely.

I do want to note that this grilling was ALL ME. Usually I make Blakester do all of the grilling for the blog because, well, he’s the grill master. This time- I did it…under his supervision of course.

I put the pineapple on about half way through. Those took about 2-3 minutes on each side.

I also cut up some mango and avocado for a little side dish. I put it right on top of my chicken and it was divine.

All of these tropical flavors made me feel like I was in the Caribbean!

Kinda sorta, minus the fact that it was like 55 degrees out as I was photographing.

Would you rather eat- small amounts of lots of things or large amounts of a few things?

Favorite way to cook chicken breasts?

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Tropical Teriyaki Chicken Breasts with Grilled Pineapple

Author: Sandra
Total Time: 20 minutes

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Ingredients

Scale

2 packages of Gold n’ Plump Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast Portions

½ cup teriyaki sauce/marinade

2 tablespoons light brown sugar

1 tablespoon garlic, minced

2 tablespoons EVOO

2 Tablespoons pineapple juice

½ lime, juiced

1 pineapple, cored and sliced

Instructions

Begin by prepping marinade. Mix together teriyaki sauce, brown sugar, garlic, EVOO, pineapple juice, and lime juice. Then, place chicken portions in a large tupperware or glass bowl and pour marinade on top. Pierce chicken breasts with a fork a few times so that the marinade really soaks in. Place in refrigerator, covered, for 4-5 hours.
Once the chicken breasts are marinaded, preheat grill to about 375F. Spray grill with nonstick cooking spray, and place chicken breasts on top.
Let cook for 5-7 minutes on each side, watching closely.
To grill pineapple, place on preheated grill (375F) and cook for about 2-3 minutes on each side.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

2-Ingredient Pesto Chicken Skewers

February 28, 2023 by Lee Hersh Leave a Comment

2-Ingredient Pesto Chicken Skewers

Sunday night dinner never felt so easy!

For this magnificent show stoppin’ recipe, all you need are 2 ingredients: chicken breast and homemade pesto!

Member the delicious 5-minute homemade pesto I shared this past week?

Whip up a big batch of that and you are on your way to a delicious meal!

I cut up my chicken breasts, threw them in a gallon size bag, poured on my pesto and mixed it all together. The pesto marinade stuck quite nicely. If you’re really feeling crazy, you can add some garlic powder for some extra flavor.

Stick your chicken on metal skewers, throw them on a foil covered baking dish and you’re good to go.

What you need for Pesto Chicken Skewers

Homemade Pesto
chicken breasts

You’ll want to make sure you cut your chicken pieces all relatively the same size so that they cook evenly. Mine took about 30 minutes to fully cook.

I served the skewers on top of a bed of red quinoa with some sliced avocado.

An avocado a day…keeps the doctor away.

But seriously- I think I eat at least half an avocado a day!

These skewers make for a great dinner or snack!

For some reason, lately I’ve been craving meat as my snack instead of my usual sweet craving. Having these on hand during the week was really nice for a quick bite.

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2-Ingredient Pesto Chicken Skewers

Author: Sandra
Yield: 5–6 skewers 1x

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Ingredients

Scale

½ cup 5 Minute Homemade Pesto
3 large chicken breasts

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350F. Then, line a baking sheet with foil.
Next, prep chicken by slicing into 1 to 1 and ½ inch chunks. Transfer diced chicken into a gallon size bag and pour in pesto. Shake, coating the chicken breast completely with pesto.
Slide chicken breast onto metal skewers. You’ll be able to make 5-6 skewers. Place skewers onto baking sheet.
Bake for about 30 minutes, or until chicken is fully cooked.

Roasted Butternut Squash and Goat Cheese Farro Salad

February 28, 2023 by Lee Hersh Leave a Comment

Roasted Butternut Squash and Goat Cheese Farro Salad

Make this Roasted Butternut Squash and Goat Cheese Farro Salad for a healthy, delicious dinner that’s made with whole grains and tons of veggies!

Confession- this is the FIRST TIME I have EVER cooked with butternut squash. I KNOW I KNOW, you probably think I’m crazy, but it’s one of those foods (like mushrooms!) where I had a terrible first experience. After trying a delicious butternut squash soup in Israel, I decided to give it a second chance. In Israel, they pretty much called all squash pumpkin, which I found interesting

Farro is a grain I’ve been wanting to cook with ever since I saw it on Edible Perspective (one of the first blogs I ever started reading in college!) years ago. For you gluten-free eaters…farro is not technically gluten-free, but it is relatively low in gluten. Just an FYI.

So this farro salad is super delish! It’s made with…

butternut squash
onion
kale
garbanzo beans

It has simple flavors, but is a delicious, detoxifying dinner after the holiday weekend!

Can I just note that I thought peeling this was going to be a lot harder than it was. I had a blonde moment because I started off by using a knife to peel it not thinking a potato peeler would work. It was my first time okay….

Then I said screw this and tried the potato peeler. Worked like a charm!

It was easy to slice and dice into bite size pieces, which is just the way I like my sweet potato!

The goat cheese is a MUST in this recipe.

I didn’t want to over flavor the salad with spices because I LOVE goat cheese. You best make sure you use a lot because you’ll want a taste in every bite.

You can eat this salad plain (for all you vegetarians out there!), or serve it with some baked chicken, which is what I did. Gotta get Blakester to eat some how

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Sun Dried Tomato Kale and Chicken Sausage Quinoa Bake

February 27, 2023 by Lee Hersh Leave a Comment

Sun Dried Tomato Kale and Chicken Sausage Quinoa Bake

This healthy, superfood-packed dinner only requires 1 dish and 60 minutes of your time. No need to pre-cook the quinoa or sauté any veggies!

Have you ever randomly stumbled upon a blog via Pinterest and found yourself completely consumed in everything it has to offer? I officially have a blog crush on Kristina from Love and Zest. Major swoon. I think I went through at least a years worth of recipes and pinned them all #oops

L&Z is actually who inspired me to make this dish. She made a Sun-Dried Tomato, Kale, and Chicken Sausage Pasta Bake and I knew that’s what I wanted for dinner. I made a bunch of substitutions like quinoa instead of pasta, no cheese or mushrooms, and a different kind of sauce. She still deserves the credit for sparking my interest in these flavor combos.

FREAKING DELISH.

Since I’ve been a full-time food blogger for almost a year now, I do everything in my power to dirty one less dish. Let me tell you, the dishes can PILE UP QUICKLY.

My favorite kind of recipes are those that only use 1 pot/dish. This recipe for instance, literally uses 1 dish. No pot or pans involved. All you do, is throw everything into a casserole dish, stick it in the oven, and cross your fingers things taste good.

I did go back and forth if I should use precooked chicken sausages or uncooked. I went precooked because that’s what’s most readily available and convenient. I used the Target Archer Farm’s Brand, but I know Gold n’ Plump makes some stellar ones as well (I believe those are uncooked).

Here’s what the bake looked like uncooked (on the left) and cooked (on the right).

Ingredients for Sun Dried Tomato Kale and Chicken Sausage Quinoa Bake

quinoa
chicken broth
sun-dried tomatoes
olive oil
kale, de-stalked and chopped into bite-sized pieces
chicken sausages
red onion, diced
salt and pepper to taste
garlic salt
fresh basil, to taste

I was a little worried the kale was going to turn into kale chips, but they wilted down nicely. Also- if you know me, you know I HATE COOKED GREENS. I actually didn’t mind this AT ALL. #imabigkidnow

If you are a cheese lover, I suggest mozzarella. I opted no cheese because I love how the colors look in this bake and I didn’t want to hide them under a mound of cheese.

Seriously, I could eat this all day erry day. These flavors are my jam. I especially loved the sun-dried tomatoes. It was my first time making anything with them and Mmmmm did they add some fabulous flavor. If you are having a hard time finding sun-dried tomatoes, you can usually find them in the produce section. I purchased my julienne sliced and jarred in olive oil.

Hubba hubba.

Who are your major blog crushes as of late?

Where do you get most of your recipe inspiration from? Blogs? Magazines? Pinterest?

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Southwestern Black Bean Couscous Salad

February 25, 2023 by Lee Hersh Leave a Comment

Make this Southwestern Black Bean Couscous Salad in under 20 minutes. It’s packed with pulses, veggies, and healthy fats!

Linley picked me up from the airport last Monday at 11AM after my b-day trip to Milwaukee to see Man Candy and the first thing we did was go straight to Whole Foods for lunch. I love love love their selection of cold salads and the fact that you can get a little bit of everything. One of my favorite salads at WFHB (Whole Foods Hot Bar) has Israeli Couscous in it and I am obsessed. I’d never made Israeli Couscous until a few months ago and it’s SO EASY! Boil water, add couscous, and POOF.

There are so many great flavor combinations that you can mix in with Israeli Couscous and we decided on a southwestern style.

The cool thing about this recipe is that you can have it complete in under 20 AND it makes for an amazing meal-prep recipe. You can eat it on it’s own or as a side. You’ve got your grain (cous cous), your pulse/protein (black beans), and tons of veggies! I also think this is an excellent meatless Monday recipe, as well. The black beans do a whole lot for the protein/fiber content. Pulses in general can really amp up the nutrition of any recipe. FUN FACT- did you know that pulses are actually considered both a protein and a vegetable. MIND BLOWING. Let’s check out the chunky line-up:

Israeli Couscous
Black Beans (either canned or cooked from dried form)
Cherry Tomatoes
Sweet Corn
Red Onion

The dressing is SUPER simple and so refreshing. It’s an olive oil base with lime juice, jalapeño, cilantro, cumin, and sea salt.

YASSSSSSS. So good.

All you need to do is pop those ingredients into your food processor and whirl until combined. Then, you simply pour it on top of your Couscous salad and mix.

Depending on how much you like lime, start with the juice from 1 and then go up from there. We used the juice from 2!

PS: we got a little creative with our leftovers…hard boiled egg, arugula, and balsamic. FINGER LICKIN’ GOOD and Linley’s favorite.

If you are looking for more pulse inspiration,you should check out PulsePledge.com and sign-up to take the Pulse Pledge with me – a commitment to eating more pulses this year. If you haven’t yet heard, the UN named 2016 the International Year of Pulses, to bring awareness to this nutritious, sustainable, affordable and delicious superfood!

This post is sponsored by USA Pulses & Pulse Canada as 2016 is the Year of the Pulses! I was compensated and all opinions are my own. Thank you for supporting Fit Foodie Finds.

Stuffed Mini Bell Peppers: 2 Way

February 25, 2023 by Lee Hersh Leave a Comment

Stuffed Mini Bell Peppers: 2 Way

I love any food that comes in miniature form. Mini cucumbers, mini bananas, mini peppers. Heck, raisins are like mini grapes, a gift from the gods.

The mini-ier it is, the more you can eat!

Like these little stuffed bell peppers we got from the Farmer’s Market. You can eat like 10 of em before you get filled up!

Blake and I were excited when we picked these guys up from the FM. At Target right now, you can get the same amount for $4.99. We got these as part of the 3 for 5! Look how cute they are in a Mason Jar…

After doing a little bit of recipe research and asking Twitter for a good GF stuffed pepper recipe, I stumbled upon one from Martha Stewart using chicken sausage and cous cous. Coincidentally, Gold n’ Plump Chicken had just sent me a big box of chicken sausage to try. PERFECTION!

We used the Hot Italian Chicken Sausage version and substituted the cous cous for quinoa to make it gluten free. I also added a can of stewed tomatoes for some extra flavor. You really don’t need to add much more because the chicken sausage already has so much flavor.

On top of the Chicken Sausage Quinoa Stuffed Mini Bell Peppers, we made a vegetarian friendly version as well using mashed sweet potato and quinoa. This one called for a few extra spices such as salt, pepper, and garlic salt.

Vegetarian Sweet Potato Quinoa Stuffed Mini Bell Peppers

Chicken Sausage & Quinoa Stuffed Mini Bell Peppers

Having a boyfriend who has his Masters in Grilling pays off. Not sure if that actually exists, but if it did…Blake would own that exam.

He’s pretty proud of his Thermos Grill. He recently revamped it and just bought all new parts plus a bunch of grill gadgets, including beer butt chicken spigots.

The peppers were cooked at 350, for about 8 minutes a side, roughly 15-20 minutes total. Check out these grill marks!

One thing you need to make sure you do, is poke 2 or 3 holes in the bottom of each pepper. This helps let the air escape, which builds up during the cooking process. If you poke the holes while you’re stuffing, it’s actually easier. Master Grill Chef Blake told me that one!

Do you see the hole?

Along with our mini bell peps, we cooked up the rest of the chicken sausages to get the true taste of Gold n’ Plump. NUMMY! Whatever spices are in the Hot Italian version is delicious.

Stuffed Mini Bell Peppers

For both versions, I used the same quinoa mixture: 1 C quinoa + 2C water. I brought that to a boil, and reduced until the quinoa was light and fluffy. Then I added a can of stewed tomatoes and mixed that up until the tomatoes were broken up. From there I made the 2 versions…

1C quinoa
2C water
1 can stewed tomatoes

Chicken Sausage & Quinoa Stuffed Mini Bell Peppers

*Makes 12-15 mini stuffed peppers

Ingredients
-1/2 of the quinoa mixture or 1/2C quinoa, 1C water ~1/2 can stewed bell peppers)
-3 Gold n’ Plump Chicken Sausages
Method
1. Begin by prepping peppers, thoroughly wash. Then, cut the tops off and scrape out the innards.
2. Using a skewer, poke 2 to 3 holes on the bottom of the peppers. This allows the air to escape during the grilling process and helps you pack the most amount of stuffing in the peppers.
3. Squeeze the meat out of the casing of 3 chicken sausages. Then sautee them on medium/high heat for about 5-8 minutes. Then, add in your quinoa mixture.
4. Using a small spoon, stuff each pepper all the way to the top.
5. Grill the bell peppers at 35 for 15-20 minutes. For easy clean up, use tin foil

Sweet Potato Quinoa Stuffed Mini Bell Peppers

*Makes 12-15 mini stuffed peppers

Ingredients
-1/2 of the quinoa mixture or 1/2C quinoa, 1C water ~1/2 can stewed bell peppers)
-1 C mashed sweet potato
-salt, pepper, garlic salt
Method

1. Begin by prepping peppers, thoroughly wash. Then, cut the tops off and scrape out the innards.
2. Using a skewer, poke 2 to 3 holes on the bottom of the peppers. This allows the air to escape during the grilling process and helps you pack the most amount of stuffing in the peppers.
3. Mix 1C mashed sweet potato into the quinoa mixture. Then add spices.

4. Using a small spoon, stuff each pepper all the way to the top.
5. Grill the bell peppers at 35 for 15-20 minutes. For easy clean up, use tin foil

We actually had some extra stuffing from each, so we made some patties for grilling later in the week. Stay tuned for that post!

What is your favorite mini food to eat?

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