Pesto chicken morsels recipe-Italian recipe-a chicken dish

Pesto chicken morsels recipe-Italian recipe-a chicken dish

Pesto chicken morsels recipe-Italian recipe-a chicken dish

Pan-searing is one of those cooking techniques that takes chicken to a completely different level and with the combination of garlic, basil and olive oil you are in for a sure treat. Today lets make a simple restaurant-style chicken recipe called pesto chicken.

Pesto sauce preparation

The first step is to get our pesto right, which is an Italian sauce made out of basil leaves, some fresh garlic, some pine nuts, parmesan cheese, to bring out the flavours and to season the sauce a little bit of salt, cracked pepper, olive oil and ground traditionally in a mortar & pestle.

Prepping the chicken

Take chicken breast and trim all the fat, retain the shoulder bone and trim all the meat around it. This step is classically known as frenching the bone. However, if you are not comfortable keeping the bone, remove it off near the shoulder or alternatively use boneless chicken breast.

Next step is creating some gashes, instead of creating gashes, you may choose to cut them in a criss-cross pattern, so that eventually it looks nice on the plate, with this our chicken breast is ready. Let’s process the other pieces similarly, all these trimmings can be used for a nice and simple chicken stir fry, so do not discard it. 

Chicken marination with pesto sauce

Take the prepped chicken breasts, add pesto sauce, salt, juice of half a lime and some olive oil.  Coat the chicken in olive oil and pesto sauce by rubbing into each and every gash and crevice, allow the marinated chicken for a minimum of 30 minutes.

Cooking pesto chicken

Now that the chicken has been marinated for 30 minutes, let’s now begin pan-searing. For this, we require an iron pan to which we add very little olive oil, let the oil be minimum as the marination already has olive oil in it. Let’s place the gash side of the chicken in oil and allow it to pan-sear. Increase the flame and allow it to pan-sear on high flame for 2 minutes, time to give this a flip. 

Allow it to pan-sear on the second side as well for 2 minutes and while doing this lets put in the remaining pesto sauce, this step is technically called basting and keeps the meat nice and juicy. At this stage, we need to lower the flame, tilt the pan and throw the oil on the chicken piece for 2 min. Once this is done on low flame itself we need to cover this and allow it to cook for 10 to 12 minutes.

Garnish with some fresh basil leaves and roasted tomatoes. Our Italian style quick and easy basil pesto chicken morsels recipe is ready to serve. Pesto chicken tastes great with grated parmesan and red wine.

In this variation of basil pesto chicken recipe, we do not use tomato sauce.

Is the chicken pesto good for you?

It is nutrient-rich and low in carb, this healthy Italian dish is great especially if you are on a paleo diet.

What do you eat with chicken pesto?

Roasted potatoes topped with a generous amount of pesto, lightly drizzled with olive oil salt and pepper is a great combination for pesto chicken.

Is pesto sauce healthy?

Pesto sauce contains fresh basil, garlic, lemon juice, pine nuts, olive oil and parmesan cheese. If you are on a diet, suggest reducing the quality of olive oil and parmesan cheese.

What does pesto taste like?

Pesto also called pesto all Genovese must taste mostly of basil and garlic.

What do you eat with pesto?

One needs to try different variations with pesto sauce, like replacing pizza sauce with pesto sauce, sandwich spread or a salad dressing.

What compliments pesto?

Cheesy pesto pull-apart bread, ricotta Bruschetta with pesto, chickpea and pesto salad & pesto with grilled cheese are a few classic dishes.

What is healthier pesto or tomato sauce?

Pesto sauces constitute high in fat, they are mainly healthy unsaturated fats from pine nuts.

How much pesto should you add to pasta?

The proportion of adding pesto to a pasta recipe, 1 standard cup measures 236 ml, 2/3rd of a cup of pesto sauce with 1/3rd reserved for water in cooked pasta.

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