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Perk Up Your Chicken with Pantry Staples

No Comments | Written on January 11, 2012 at 9:00 am, by Ann Hodgman

Let’s talk turkey—or chicken, the roast turkey feasts being (I hope) out of the way for awhile. I don’t need to tell you that stashing a few boneless chicken breasts and thighs in the freezer is a smart time-saver. But interesting? Not necessarily. You can’t thaw a chicken breast, pour bottled barbecue sauce over it, and expect your family to explode with joy.

So let’s take three—okay, sixty—seconds to deep-flavor the meat before it goes into the freezer. Adding a marinade to the freezer bag gives chicken a chance to bathe in flavor for weeks instead of hours. The marinade doesn’t have to be a conventional chicken-soak, either. Pesto, pasta sauce, or vinaigrette (any salad dressing, really) will work just as well, especially if you add an intensifier like chopped sun-dried tomatoes, grated lime zest, or half a cup of wine. Plus—duh—two or three cloves of minced garlic. If you keep you always keep your pantry stocked with a jar of pasta sauce, a good bottle of salad dressing, a bottle of inexpensive cooking wine, and some sun-dried tomatoes, you’ll always have a zesty marinade on hand.

Then there’s what my cousin-in-law Lynne bravely calls “dump and do chicken,” which is so easy that I’m almost embarrassed to call Lynne a relative. Here are two of her semi-recipes, which should be served with rice.

Choice 1 : Mix together 1 cup bottled plum sauce, 1/4 cup orange juice, and 1/4 cup soy sauce. Add as much chopped garlic as you want.

Choice 2 (“a 70s favorite!”): Mix together a 1-ounce envelope of onion soup mix, a 12- or 13-ounce jar of apricot jam (I like the Bonne Maman brand), and 1 1/2 cups chili sauce.

Both boneless and bone-in chicken work with these methods, and they can all be mixed ahead and frozen with the chicken. When it’s time to cook dinner, preheat the oven to 350 and line a 9″ by 13″ pan with foil for easy clean-up. Put the chicken into the pan in a single layer; pour the sauce over it; and bake for an hour.

You wouldn’t want company to know about these recipes, but they’re just fine for plain old us.

And here are a few more to keep up your sleeve for busy nights. They’re super-easy, and they all call for ingredients you’ll already have in the pantry.

Balsamic Chicken: That jar of tomato sauce comes in handy for this savory dish.

Lebanese Chicken: Cinnamon, allspice, and honey (along with some orange juice and peel) make for a fragrant and textured chicken dish.

Peanut-Ginger Chicken (pictured above): Got peanut butter and some ginger in the pantry? Then you’ve got a terrific Asian marinade for chicken thighs.