Balsamic Chicken Tenders (with Pantry Vegetable Salad)

Balsamic Chicken Tenders 
(with Pantry Vegetable Salad)

I realize that the majority of my posts are either vegetarian or vegan, so when I decided to cook chicken the other night, I knew I had to post my recipe regardless of how simple it is.  My husband and son love meat (beef, poultry, pork...) and even I sometimes crave it, especially when I have had a tough week at the gym and want to increase my protein consumption.  I try to only buy organic so when I saw these chicken tenderloins at my local grocery store, I knew that I would make my guys happy by serving them up for dinner.  But I had a busy day ahead of me and didn't want to have to do anything complicated with them.  So as soon as I got home from the store, I put the chicken into a sealed plastic bag with a quick balsamic marinade and planned a simple salad to go with it for dinner.

I love to figure out recipes that you can throw together with items from your pantry, especially in the middle of winter when good quality fresh produce can be hard to find.  My son loves pickled carrots and I love red kidney beans, so this dish has both.  The beans add an extra boost of protein and the carbs needed to help round out the meal, and the pickled vegetables provide the vinegar for the salad I threw together with a drizzle of pumpkin seed oil and some toasted pumpkin seeds.  Very simple, but when I sat down after a long day in front of a healthy, beautiful looking salad, I had to smile and be glad that I took the small amount of time necessary to feed my family something truly wholesome.


Balsamic Chicken Tenders

cooked chicken tenders

organic chicken breast tenderloins
3 T. extra virgin olive oil
3 T. aged balsamic vinegar
1 tsp. dried Italian seasoning
1/2 tsp. garlic salt
1/2 tsp. ground black pepper

Combine the chicken, olive oil, vinegar, Italian seasoning, garlic salt and black pepper together in a ziploc bag and let marinate at least 2 hours.  Place on a shallow baking dish (I lined mine with foil to help with the clean up) and bake at 375F for about 20 minutes.

Pantry Vegetable Salad
I served the chicken over a salad made up of organic romaine lettuce, organic dark red kidney beans and chopped giardiniera. I topped that with a drizzle of pumpkin seed oil (could use extra virgin olive oil) and a sprinkling of toasted pumpkin seeds.

"pantry vegetables"

salad ingredients

my delicious dinner