Grilled Peanut Chicken

 

I love peanut flavours.  True confession here, I have a slice of toast and peanut butter every night. If I don't, I miss it.  I don't have butter on my toast, or anything else . . .  just a slice of thick whole wheat toast, lightly spread with peanut butter.  I am a happy camper. Peanut Butter is such a versatile ingredient and a real store cupboard essential, at least in my home it is! 

 

This recipe today is for a delicious marinade that you can make for marinating chicken.  You could also marinate other proteins, like pork, fish or even tofu in this tasty mixture. It works great, and tastes even better!!!

 

I just love the flavour of this marinade. Its an interesting mix of ingredients that somehow work very well together.  A delicious mix of sweet and salty . . . 

 

I like to use light olive oil.  Its a waste of good olive oil to use extra virgin olive oil in something like this. I use a good quality light olive oil, one which has been specifically been produced to be used in cooking.

 

You can use whatever brand of peanut butter you like. Myself, I prefer Skippy. Its the North American in me I guess.  I pick mine up by the HUGE jar at Costco, and I probably go through one of those a month, no kidding.  I also prefer smooth peanut butter over crunchy for this, but if you are a fan of crunchy, go for it.

  

Soy sauce.  I like to use the dark one because it is filled with flavour. You can get low salt ones nowadays that are really good.  Honey, just plain regular clover honey works well, and again for the BBQ sauce, just pick your favourite one.   Everything else is pretty self explanatory.  Fresh lemon juice (not the stuff in the plastic squeeze lemon, please!!!!)  Worcestershire sauce and garlic, plenty of garlic.  Its just yum, yum, yum . . .

 

I like to reserve some of the marinade for drizzling over the cooked chicken, or for dipping it in.  Today I grilled some tender stem broccoli along side of the chicken and served it with my Simple Sesame Noodles.  This went down a real treat!

 

*Grilled Peanut Chicken*

Serves 4

Printable Recipe 

A delicious marinade which yields a really tasty bit of chicken. I like to make extra marinade to dip the finished chicken in when I am eating it. Its just so tasty! 

For the marinade:

120ml light olive oil (1/2 cup)

50g peanut butter (1/4 cup) (creamy or smooth, you choose)

60ml of soy sauce (1/4 cup)

85g liquid honey (1/4 cup)

2 TBS your favourite BBQ sauce

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

the juice of one lemon

pinch cayenne pepper

3 cloves garlic, peeled and minced

fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

4 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts, trimmed and pounded to an even size
 

  

Poke your chicken breasts all over with a fork.  Place into a shallow dish.  Whisk together the remaining ingredients.  Remove about 1/2 cup of it and set aside.  Pour the remainder over the chicken in the shallow dish, turning the chicken over to coat.  Cover and place in the refrigerator to marinate for 2 hours, or up to 6 hours. 

When you are ready to cook, Remove the chicken from the marinade, discarding any marinade left in the dish. 

Preheat the gas grill to a medium heat (Or a grill pan)  Place the chicken onto the preheated grill, top side down.  Grill for 5 to 7 minutes, flip it over and grill for a further 5 to 7 minutes or until the chicken juices run clear.  Let rest for several minutes.  Warm the reserved marinade in a small saucepan.  Drizzle over the grilled chicken and serve immediately.

 

I grilled my chicken outdoors on our Space Grill.  I just love this fabulous BBQ Grill.  It is just so easy to use and makes outdoor grilling fun instead of a chore.  We have had a BBQ for years, and to be honest, we have used this Space Grill more in the few weeks we have had it than all of our other BBQ grills combined throughout the last 18 years.  Seriously I use it almost every day, and sometimes more than once a day, and the main reason for that is because it is just so darned easy to use.  It literally folds out ready for use in seconds, and you can be cooking on it before you can say Jack Rabbit. Its unique patented design is probably one of the best I have ever seen.  When not in use, it tucks away, taking up very little space in the garden.  Its attractive, easy to use, and  works really well.  I love using both the ceramic coated cast iron reversible cooking tray and the stainless steel grill rods.  Today I used the tray.  When done, I find that a simple soak and then scrub with a heavy duty plastic brush gets everything back and looking great again, ready to fold down and store away until next time.  I also love that the drip tray (which is located in the bottom front, beneath the easy to use controls) is so easy to clean.  Just pop it off and wipe it out!  I would not want to be without it now!  To find out more do check out the Space Grill home page.  If you're not impressed I'll eat my hat.