Meal Hint – Low Calorie, Low Fat, Marinated Chicken

They say “necessity is the mother of invention.” That’s certainly true in the case of my usual method of marinating chicken – and even pork and beef.

One day, I was trying to come up with a new way of cooking our usual chicken. We eat chicken a lot. We like it and feel it’s much better for us, but we were all getting bored with the ‘usual’.

Unfortunately, I was very low on groceries so had few ingredients to choose from. One thing I did have was some low calorie Italian salad dressing. So, I got the brilliant idea to pour about 1/2 cup in a zip-loc bag, added a couple pieces of chicken and massaged a bit to completely cover the chicken with the dressing. I repeated until I had the necessary quantity of chicken. Then, I placed the chicken on cake racks placed in a foil covered cookie sheet and placed in a non-preheated oven set at 425 degrees for about 30 to 40 minutes, depending on the size and thickness. Not pre-heating the oven allows the meat to sear, therefore retaining the juices.

Since that day, I routinely use salad dressing as a marinade, whether it’s low-calorie or not. We really like to use Sundried Tomato, Roasted Red Pepper and Balsamic dressings, but I do intend to try others. I find the stronger, more robust flavors I just mentioned are great on pork and even beef as well.

We now have to select low sodium versions because my husband has been diagnosed with high blood pressure. Using salad dressings is quick, easy, and inexpensive.

The true test of success was my finicky son saying how much he loved the chicken marinated in salad dressing.