Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Pan Seared Chicken in Balsamic Sauce

This is a really yummy dish using "Left Overs Soup" as a healthy sauce! It's warm and delicious and super healthy! Add some hot pepper flakes for some extra heat. You will need:

Olive Oil
Chicken Breast
Left Over Soup (about 2 cups)
Spinach (one small package baby spinach)

Onion (half medium onion)
Garlic (1-2 cloves)
Dijon Mustard (2-3 teaspoons)
Balsamic Vinegar (maybe 1 tablespoon)
Honey (<1 tablespoon)
Butter (<1 tablespoon)
Basil and Oregano

Heat a generous amount of olive oil in a large pan.  Add chicken to pan and season with salt, pepper, basil, and oregano. Cook for about 7 minutes (depending on thickness of meat), flip, season other side and cook another 7-10 minutes or until cooked through.  If needed add more oil to pan.  Remove chicken from pan and let rest several minutes. Cut into bite sized pieces.
In the same pan, with the same oil, saute about one half of a medium sized onion.  Cook for approximately 5 minutes or until tender.  Add spinach and garlic, and cook until spinach is just wilted, being careful not to burn the garlic.  (2-3 min).  Cover with approximately 2 cups of leftover veggie soup.
Add chicken back to pan and make sure everything is well coated.  It shouldn't be a soup, but there should be plenty of sauce.  Add in a bit of balsamic vinegar (probably 2 tablespoons at most - enough to give flavor, but not overtake the sauce).  Add the mustard, again, enough to give a kick, but not a ton is needed.  Probably 3 parts vinegar to 1 part mustard.  Swirl in a bit of honey to balance the flavor.  (Regular sugar would be good, or agave nectar, but honey is what I had - it just should be sweet!).  And lastly swirl in a bit of butter.  I use Earth Balance dairy free, soy free, gluten free butter.
I wish I had a picture of this dish, but I didn't get one when I made it a little before Christmas. I had some red quinoa around that I added too, and it added some nice color to it.  Yum! This is an awesome one! And just one pan, so easy clean up!

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