Marinated Grilled Chicken…one of my favs! My dad created this marinate years ago that we use all the time for any meat that is going on the grill. It’s a summer staple. Well since we live in the south, we use the outdoor grill year-round, so I guess for us it is an “All Season Staple.” It is really easy, with only 3 ingredients and works with chicken, steak, pork chops and probably just about anything…I paired it tonight with some of the creamed corn that we put up this summer. If you missed the post on how to cream corn, you can find it here. Then just simple steamed asparagus as our green item.
The trick to cooking cream corn is keeping it low and slow. Cream corn will scorch VERY, VERY easily so you have to be careful. Take one of your packs of put-up corn from the freeze and let it thaw out. You don’t need any butter or cream to have great cream corn…sorry Mom and all my southern friends:) Place your thawed corn in a medium sauce pot and place over low heat. Add just a little bit a olive oil to keep it from sticking and salt and pepper to taste. THAT’S IT!! Stir it every couple of minutes to ensure that it isn’t sticking and 30-45 minutes later, your done. I could probably eat this whole batch myself. I do love my cream corn. I’ll try to control myself:)
For the Marinated Grilled Chicken, marinate your chicken at least 30 minutes before grilling, but the longer the better. We usually aim to marinate for a couple of hours. For the marinate you will need one 6 ounce can of pineapple juice, dump that into the container that you are going to use for marinating. The fill up the pineapple juice can with low sodium soy sauce and dump that in. Finally fill the pineapple juice can half-way with worcestershire sauce and add that to the mix, stir and add your chicken.
Our vegetable tonight is asparagus. I kept the preparation very simple and just steamed the spears. First, we need to prep our asparagus. The trick to trimming asparagus is to hold one spear on each end. Then gently bend the two ends toward each other until the spear breaks in two. Where it breaks separates the woody end from the edible part of the asparagus. Use that one spear as a guide to cut the rest of your asparagus.
Pre-heat your outdoor grill to medium high. When your corn is about 15-20 minutes from being done put your chicken on the grill. You’re going to grill the chicken 5 minutes on each side or until the chicken is cooked through. When the chicken is done, pull it off the grill, let your chicken stand for at least 5 minutes so the juices redistribute. While the chicken is sitting, let’s steam that asparagus.
Ziploc Zip’n Steam bags are a great and easy way to way to get healthy meals in minutes. They are great for fresh or frozen vegetables, seafood, poultry and more. They are quick and easy. There is no clean-up, just toss the bag. They even have convenient cooking times printed right on the bag. They have a ton of great recipes that you can check out here. For my asparagus, just add the asparagus to the bag, add a bit of salt and pepper. If you like some heat as we do, add some crushed red pepper flake. Seal the bag and microwave for the time indicated on the bag, 2.5 minutes for asparagus.
That was easy! Marinated Grilled Chicken, Marinated Grilled Chicken, Cream Corn and Asparagus. Enjoy!
Now it is your turn? What is your favorite marinade for chicken or any other summer grilling tips?