Top 5 Chicken Marinades

This has been on my list of ideas for a while! There are so many wonderful looking recipes for chicken marinades, either for your dinner tonight or placing them in quart freezer bags with chicken breasts, labeled, dated, and tucked away in the freezer for one of those days. Such a great idea - the concept of making one for tonight and one for the freezer makes meal planning easy!

This has taken time though, narrowing down all the ideas to ones that I wanted to try, then testing and tasting and tweaking the recipe to my liking. These recipes have also been adapted to be Whole30 and paleo compliant so you know that the efforts you are putting into your meal planning are healthy ones. The testing and tasting is all done now and from these many attempts I present to you the top 5 chicken marinades!

The best part of this is being able to plan ahead. If you buy the chicken breast in bulk you may find it is affordable to buy organic chicken, watch for those sales! With these meals tucked away nicely in the freezer, you can ease some burden off of those busy days, but still have a “gourmet” chicken entree that is ready to go.

Each recipe contains 2-4 chicken breasts, depending on how many you are serving and/or how many leftovers you like to have 😃. Slice the chicken breast longwise, salt and pepper each side, then place in the bag along with the marinade. Prepping the chicken this way allows the marinade to penetrate the chicken better, cooking time is less and more consistent throughout, and the portions are more reasonable.

On the day of serving, remove the package from the freezer to thaw if you have frozen these ahead, or if you are preparing it that day, allow the chicken to marinade for at least one hour and you are ready to go! You can use your preferred cooking method - stove top, baking, or grilling - whichever you use, ensure the internal temperature reaches 165.

CILANTRO LIME

3 Tbsp olive oil
1 cup cilantro, chopped
4 limes - zest from 1, then juice from 2, and one sliced
1 tsp garlic, minced
salt and pepper on chicken

COCONUT 5 SPICE

1 cup coconut milk
2 Tbsp coconut sugar
2 Tbsp coconut aminos
4 tsp lime juice (1-2 limes)
1/2 tsp Chinese 5 Spice
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
Salt & pepper on chicken

TERIYAKI

2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp coconut sugar
2 Tbsp coconut aminos
1 tsp garlic, minced
1 tsp toasted sesame seeds
Salt & pepper on chicken

PESTO

1/2 cup pesto
4 Tbsp olive oil
- or make your own by blending the following in a small food processor -
1 1/2 cup basil leaves
3/4 cup olive oil
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 lemon, juiced
1 cup walnuts
1/2 tsp sea salt
Salt & pepper on chicken