Cilantro Lime Chicken

We are absolutely loving our grill with this warm weather.  I am excited to move away our way-too-easy pasta based meals to meat with a side.  Last night  Ben grilled kabobs I’d with a marinade I’d made.  We tried a similar shrimp marinade in the fall, but I found out the hard way that I’m allergic to shrimp, at least I think I am (my dad and brother are and I got sick within an hour of eating the shrimp and Ben was fine)…so I took what I remembered from the recipe and made up my own.  This could definitely work on shrimp as well, in fact I think it’d probably be better, so for me, I’d rather be safe than sorry and put it on chicken.

Cilantro Lime Marinade

Ingredients:

·         ~1.5 lbs chicken breast (or shrimp)

·         ½ cup (or ½ a bunch) chopped cilantro

·         2  tsps minced garlic

·         ½  tsp crushed red pepper flakes

·         ¼ tsp salt

·         ½ cup olive oil

·         1 lime

Directions:

The night before:

·         In a medium size container combine all ingredients but lime and chicken in order listed

·         Cut lime in half and squeeze juice into mixture

·         Cut the two lime halves into small wedge pieces and put in mixture

·         Cut chicken up to small pieces 1”x2” (we did this to grill as kabobs; you could leave the chicken breasts whole, but having smaller pieces allows more surface area so marinade gets absorbed)

·         Mix everything together

·         Seal container and store in fridge

The day of cooking:

·       Soak your kabob sticks (just a few are needed) in water for ~20 minutes or so to prevent   burning while grilling

·        Place on kabob sticks and grill (I put the lime wedges on the kabob for flavor as well)

To serve the chicken, I made this Chipotle wanna-be rice recipe, except with brown rice, and mixed up the rice and chicken (be sure not to add in the lime or you’ll be eating peels), and served on a warmed tortilla.

I was surprised how light the cilantro flavor was for how intense the smell was, but overall Ben and I both liked this dish a lot.  It’d be easy to spruce up with some bell pepper and/or Chihuahua cheese and it’d be perfect with a Corona :O)