I built this dish around a curry cauliflower quinoa salad I found at Trader Joe’s. I left work late and still had to stop at the grocery store so I knew using something pre-made as the base of my meal was necessary. When I saw this salad (finally! a curry salad that doesn’t have craisins or grapes in it!), I knew it was a winner. For the protein, I went with chicken…and that, dear friends is the real thing I’m telling you about today.
When I was trying to come up with a way to cook the chicken, I needed something simple since it was going to be paired with curry, a pretty powerful flavor. In the spice aisle, I found some onion salt and think it’s a pretty good discovery. It’s got a few different kinds of onion in there, including chive. Lots of flavor. Now, how to adhere it to the chicken? Sure, I could just use olive oil, but then I remembered how often yogurt is used in Indian cooking, and since I had that curry quinoa in my cart, Indian was on the brain.
Here’s the thing: yogurt is a great tenderizer. When used as a marinade, it will keep your chicken nice and juicy. Use it more often.
So here’s how to throw this whole thing together: in a bowl or ziplock baggie, combine chicken, Greek yogurt, and onion salt. Let it sit while you prepare everything else. Let the curry quinoa cauliflower salad come to room temperature. (HOT TIP: I feel like curry quinoa is something you could make yourself…and we should all try in the future.) I wanted some additional veggies so I cooked up a corn/edamame blend. Once the veggies are done, cook up the chicken with a little olive oil. Then simply stack: quinoa, corn/edamame, and chicken.
What I put my chicken on happened to be really tasty (shout out TJ’s!), but the key takeaway here is to start preparing your chicken this way. Chicken, yogurt, and some sort of spice. Really, any spice is great – curry powder, chili lime…you name it – I’m just currently into this onion salt because it’s the newest kid to join my spice rack. You’re just three very simple ingredients away from a yummy winner winner chicken dinner.
Peaches to Apples 