By Natalia Alexander, The Greek Glutton
Who doesn’t love chicken? What’s more, is who doesn’t love grilled chicken? I feel like you can never go wrong with grilled chicken. And want to know what’s even better? This grilled chicken is 1) Greek 2) easy to make 3) super healthy 4) made in the oven (for those of us who don’t have a fancy grill in the backyard or who don’t want to go outside because it’s cold). I think that’s cause for celebration. I’ll be right back, I need to go run around in circles now.
Ok I’m back now. Excuse me while I catch my breath. Moving on. I feel like so often we settle for outside food from a store or a restaurant because we’re lazy or we forget how easy it is to make delicious real food at home. But it really doesn’t have to be that hard to make something that’s hearty, real, and good for you. Ok, fine, you have to let the chicken marinate for about an hour but I think that’s a small price to pay. Plus it’s just sitting there, it’s not as if you have to touch it or do anything with it. Plus this tastes like it came from a restaurant. And here’s an idea, while it’s marinating you can do one of the following: catch up on your favorite show, check your email, play with your dog, browse Facebook, talk to your roommate/significant other/spouse, clean your room, or (even better) catch up on the latest posts from The Greek Glutton (I vote for the last option).
So I highly recommend you run to the store now and buy the ingredients to make these awesome chicken skewers, come home, skewer your chicken, let it marinate, and then come back and read the rest of this post. Are you back? Ok, great! I’m so glad you listened. So in other non-chicken related news, well…there isn’t really any news. I’ve been sitting home alone for two days because everyone I know is off traveling to fabulous places like Montreal and London and Las Vegas and I’m sitting here in my PJs. Writing about chicken. But that’s ok! Because I have chicken, I’m sipping Greek coffee, and more importantly because *drumroll please* I’ll be taking my own trip next week and I’m going to see my dog Fudge (see a pic of him below), so all is well in the world.
Now I’m not sure if chicken and yogurt seem like an appealing option to you but trust me when I say it’s SO GOOD and I can’t get enough of it. Becausetzatziki sauce isn’t just yogurt. It’s the sauce of the Greek gods. It’s got cucumber and a ton of garlic in it and this recipe calls for enough of it to smother your chicken with it. And you don’t even need to feel guilty about smothering or eating this dish in general because like most of the recipes on The Greek Glutton it adheres to the wonderfully healthy principles of the Mediterranean Diet. Hurray!
That’s why I love this dish because it’s so tasty but it’s simple and good for you. A simple olive oil, oregano, and garlic marinade over juicy chicken with a squeeze of lemon juice – which has many benefits for your skin, hair, throat, teeth, blood, etc – paired with protein-packed Greek yogurt. Enjoy this with a side of Greek salad, a glass of red wine, and I think you’ll be one step closer to living (healthily) until you’re 100. Now get cooking!!!!
You can find my recipe for Greek tzatziki sauce here.
Now everyone say hi to Fudge. Hiiii Fudge. He likes chicken too!
- 2 chicken breasts
- ½ cup olive oil
- 3 cloves garlic, shopped
- Juice from half a lemon (save the other half for pouring over the cooked chicken)
- Dried oregano
- Salt and pepper
- 4 skewers
- Wax or parchment paper
- Tzatziki
- Soak your skewers in water. This prevents them from burning (or worse, setting on fire!) and changing the taste of your chicken
- Cut the chicken breasts into bite-size pieces. Try to make them all similar sizes
- In a bowl, mix the chicken with the olive oil, garlic, oregano, salt, and pepper
- Place in the fridge and let marinate for 1 hour
- In the meantime, make your tzatziki and also place it in the fridge to “marinate”. This is really important because for some reason the sauce really changes taste the more you let the flavors work together, and it tastes way better the longer you let it sit.
- Preheat your oven to 450 degrees
- Place your chicken on the skewers and place them a the wax/parchment lined cookie sheet
- Cook for about 8 minutes on each side
- Serve with a side of Greek salad
