Chicken And Turkey | Be Nutritious

Homemade Chicken Nuggets

Not long time ago I had a questionable pleasure of takin a bite of Mcdonalds chicken nuggets. Oh boy, were they nasty. They were crunchy on the outside but on the inside they tasted like a cardboard mixed with an oil frying oil. It was just one bite and probably my last. I read somewhere that Mcdonalds chicken nuggets are made almost all of corn and some other fillings. Chicken itself constitutes merely a tiny percent of a nugget.

You can always buy frozen chicken nuggets but making your own is pretty easy and you know exactly what goes inside. This recipe is perfect for the kids because nuggets prepared by this method are incredibly soft and tender. I ended up having exactly 24 nuggets and I simply placed most of the cooked nuggets into the ziplock bag and froze for later use.

Ingredients (makes 24 nuggets):

1.5 pound cooked chicken breats

2 eggs

10-12 saltine crackers

1/2 cup breadcrumbs

Few tablespoons of oil

Salt

Start with boiling chicken breast in a salted water for 20-25 min.
Meanwhile place saltine crackers to a food processor and process until finely ground. Mix in a bowl with breadcrumbs.
When chicken is done remove, let it cool down a bit and place in a food processor.

Add 2 eggs, season with salt and process until it starts looking like a very thick paste (not necessarily smooth).

Form small, round and slightly flat nuggets. Dip them generously on both sides in breadcrumb mix.

You can either fry them on both sides with a few tablespoons of oil or bake until golden brown. If you’ll decide to bake them preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Sprinkle evenly few tablespoons of oil on both sides of the nuggets and bake about 10-15 min.

BBQ Chicken Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

Happy 4th of July!!! What are your plans for today? I am going to have some barbeque with my boyfriend’s and his family. Can’t wait, I haven’t been to a bbq party in a while.

This recipe has nothing to do with 4th of July, unless of course you’re going to throw some chicken on the grill and will have a lot of chicken leftovers. In case you do have some leftover chicken and no idea what to do with it, I may suggest, stuff baked potatoes with it. I adore sweet potatoes and that is what I used but russet potatoes might work as well in this recipe. Also it doesn’t really matter what kind of bbq sauce will you use. As long as you the flavor, it should work.

I love this recipe because it only uses 4 ingredients and is much healthier that pulled chicken sandwiches. Sweet potato is a real nutrient factory. One large sweet potato has only 160 kcal, 6 g of fiber, tons of vit A and good amounts of other nutrients, especially potassium. I try to eat sweet potato at least one day a week and just discovered a great way to eat it.

Ingredients:

(makes 4 sweet potato halves)

2 large sweet potatoes

2 cups shredded leftover chicken

Few Tbs favorite barbeque sauce

4 oz cheddar cheese

Prick sweet potatoes few times with a fork. Bake 1-1.15 hour in the oven preheated to 400 degrees F.
Let it cool slightly and cut lengthwise in half.
Remove the middle portion of the sweet potato leaving about 1/2 inch width inside.
Mix shredded cooked chicken with bbq sauce and place about half a cup in each potato half.
Top with each half with 1 oz cheddar cheese and bake additional 15 min until the cheese is melted.

Healthier Lasagna with Turkey, Mushrooms and Eggplant

Lasagna usually isn’t regarded as a healthy food but I wouldn’t be myself if I didn’t try to make it healthy so I used lean ground turkey instead of beef, low fat ricotta cheese which has half of the calories of regular ricotta and plenty of vegetables such as eggplant and mushrooms. I didn’t skimp on cheese though, in the end I’m a cheesy girl and eat cheese with everything. Other than cheese you won’t find fat in my lasagna but it doesn’t mean that it has no flavor. Oh no, it’s as flavorful as typical bolognese lasagna. And in just one portion you get full serving of vegetables. Isn’t that just fabulous?

Ingredients:

(makes 8 regular portions or 6 for very hungry and greedy like me)

1 standard size lasagna pan
1 box of lasagna sheets
1 pound of lean ground turkey
1 medium sized eggplant
8 oz mushrooms (I used baby bella)
1 medium onion
3 garlic cloves
15 oz box of low fat ricotta cheese
1 egg
2 Tbsp chopped parsley
1 Tbsp italian seasoning
24 oz jar of marinara sauce
1 cup + 1/4 cup of parmesan to sprinkle on a top
2 cups of shredded mozzarella cheese (1 cup if you want to make it extremely low fat)
Salt and pepper
2 Tbsp olive oil

Start with peeling the eggplant and slicing it into rounds. Place on a kitchen towels, sprinkle with salt and let ir rest for 30 min to get rid of the bitter flavor.
Meanwhile chop the onion, garlic and slice the mushrooms.
Mix ricotta cheese with 1 egg, 1 cup parmesan, parsley and salt and pepper.
After 30 min wash the eggplant of the excess salt, dry it with kitchen towels and chop into small cubes.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Boil lasagna noodles for roughly 2-3 min. I used boil free noodles but I don’t believe in boil-free so I boiled it a little bit. Just make sure that they wont stick especially after you’ll drain them under cold running water in the colander. Don’t let them just sit in the colander, separate them right away or they will stick together and you won’t be able to separate them (yes that happened to me). Also even though it might seem like a lot, it’s better to use whole box just in case.
Heat the oil in a large skillet, add onion, garlic, mushrooms and eggplant. Season with salt and Italian seasoning and let it cook on a medium heat for 10 min stirring occasionally.
Add turkey and separate with the fork to prevent large clumps of meat. We don’t want turkey meatballs.
Cook turkey just until no longer pink and add whole jar of marinara sauce. You can also add half cup water to thin the sauce as I did. Let it cook 2 min more.
Spread about 1/2 cup of the sauce on the bottom of the lasagna pan. Place the noodles. Evenly spread half of the ricotta cheese mixture on the top and follow with 1/3 of the sauce.
Cover with lasagna noodles and again spread the remaining half of the ricotta mixture. Follow with another 1/3 of the sauce and top with lasagna noodles.
On the top part just spread the remaining 1/3 of the sauce, sprinkle mozzarella cheese evenly and top with remaining 1/4 cup of the parmesan.
Cover with aluminum foil and bake 30 min. After 30 min remove the aluminum foil and bake additional 15 min.
Take out of the oven and let it rest about 15 min before cutting and serving.

And that’s how it looked when it came out of the oven.

Halloween Recipe – Bloody Mary Chicken

Bloody Mary is one of my favorite drinks ever. Whenever I don’t feel like drinking sweet cocktails I go for Bloody Mary. Plus it’s probably a drink most commonly ordered during Halloween. Bloody Mary’s spicy and savory flavor could also be great in any other savory dish . My inspiration for the recipe were barbeque wings which are as messy as my chicken. Of course the flavor is different but in both cases you have to lick your fingers and wipe your chin with a napkin from a red sauce. Very messy. I am using chicken drumsticks but chicken breast, whole thighs or wings could work as well in the recipe. I also added a shot of vodka but it’s not really necessary, it doesn’t add as much flavor to the sauce.

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Chicken Salad with Walnuts, Raisins and Apples.

My favorite dishes are simple dishes. I love cooking but I don’t like staying in front of the stove everyday for hours (besides who has time for that) so sometimes I just make quick lunch meals like chicken salad sandwich which I can take with me to school. As opposed to tuna salad you do not have to worry about ‘fishy’ smell surrounding you when you unpack your lunch, so it’ just perfect to take with you to school, work or any place where you’ll be eating around people. Nevertheless tuna can be prepared exactly the same way and it is as delicious as chicken so if you don’t care about ‘fishy’ smell go ahead and try one with tuna instead.

Ingredients (2 servings):

6 oz cooked chicken
1/4 cup light mayo (I like Smart Balance)
2 Tbsp honey mustard (or Dijon mustard + some honey)
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1/3 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup raisins
1/3 cup finely chopped red onion
1/4 cup apple cut into tiny cubes
Salt, pepper

Shred and chop chicken until it resembles chunky tuna.

Mix with the rest of the ingredients and season with salt and pepper.

Serve on a salad, with crackers, in sandwich or wrapped in tortilla.

Mirin Chicken

Do you know that delicious, sticky, sweet sauce that’s on top of the eel roll in a sushi restaurant? That’s Unagi (eel sauce) which is made of Mirin and soy sauce. Mirin is a Japanese, sweet cooking wine and although most frequently found as a dipping sauce for sushi, can also be used in many different recipes, like the chicken one I made. I’ve actually had Mirin hanging in my cupboard for a very long time and wasn’t sure what else except the eel sauce I can use it for. So I figured why not using it for a chicken marinade and sauce. When prepared that way it is very similar to another popular dish, chicken teriyaki, both sweet and salty with a beautiful glaze.

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