Lemon-Garlic Marinated Grilled Chicken

Lemon-Garlic Marinated Grilled Chicken

This is one of those ridicuously easy dishes that always seems to impress.  This is a great summer dish but can also be made year round thanks to one trusty lemon.  This recipe works best if you have a microplane, like a zester.  Trust me; you’re going to love this dish!

Serves 4

The zest of a lemon

The juice of a lemon

4 Cloves garlic, grated on the zester/microplane or crushed

¼ Cup white wine vinegar

¼ Cup extra virgin olive oil

A handful fresh herbs (last time I made this I used 2 sprigs of rosemary and 5 or 6 of thyme).

Salt (About ½ tsp)

Pepper (About ¼ tsp)

4 Skinless, boneless chicken breasts, fat trimmed away

–  In a large deep dished pan, add the lemon zest, lemon juice, the garlic, the vinegar, the oil, fresh herbs, salt and pepper.

–  Mix well.

–  Add the chicken breasts to the pan.

–  Pierce the chicken with a fork, several times per breast.  Flip the chicken breast and pierce the other side.

–  Try to coat the top chicken breasts with the marinade (the side facing up).

–  Let the chicken marinate for 20 minutes to one hour; don’t let it marinate any longer than that otherwise the chicken will breakdown too much.

–  Rotate the chicken once, halfway through the time you will marinate it.

–  Once the chicken has marinated for the allocated time, grill it according to the instructions for “My guide for awesome Grilled Chicken”.

–  As the chicken is grilling, lightly season both sides of the chicken breasts, while there is salt and pepper in the marinade, the chicken still needs to be seasoned as it’s cooking.

Notes:

1. When I make this recipe I change up the herbs all the time, I use: parsley, basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary, and sage; sometimes all at the same time!
2. You could use chicken with the skin on BUT you’re not even supposed to feed your dog chicken skin, why would you eat something that Fido shouldn’t?  Oh and if you’re now thinking about chocolate, did you know the only time a dog shouldn’t eat chocolate is if he/she is allergic to it?  Yup, it’s true, my dog Jager was attrcted to choloclate like a moth to a flame.  Once he ate an entire tobleron, the big ones that are only for sale at christmas time, he ate the foil AND the box.  Man, did he have a stomach ache.
3. I would not recommend using redwine vinegar in place of the white here; I think the chicken would be discoloured and also I find white wine vinegar to be stronger than red.