Cilantro-Lime Grilled Chicken with Strawberry-Jalapeño Salsa

I made this recipe this week and even though it's not a Traveling Tuesday recipe I really had to share it! First of all, it was really easy. Which is nice with a toddler running around. And of course, it smelled and tasted fantastic! It was equally approved by Matt and Nicholas alike. :) And I could see this being cooked ahead and used throughout the week for lunch. Let's get started!!!

CILANTRO-LIME GRILLED CHICKEN WITH STRAWBERRY-JALAPENO SALSA
Serves 4

Ingredients:

For the Chicken Marinade
 
2 limes, zested and juiced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon honey
½ cup fresh cilantro leaves, finely chopped
4 thinly sliced boneless skinless chicken breasts (or regular chicken breasts..just pound them thinner)
Kosher Salt
Coarse Black Pepper

For the Strawberry-Jalapeño Salsa

2 cups diced strawberries
1 jalapeño, seeded and finely chopped
¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon minced red onion
1½ tablespoons finely chopped cilantro
½ lime, juiced
Kosher Salt 

The first thing I did was get everything together to marinate the chicken. I received this particular Microplane/zester as a gift for Christmas (I have two in fact!) and I LOVE LOVE LOVE both of them. They make prep time easier for the ingredients that I use most--zest and garlic. I encourage every cook to have one. Or two. Or three. In any case, zest was gathered. Limes were juiced. And the rest of the marinade came together super fast.


I put everything into a 13x9 glass dish because it was easier to just throw some plastic wrap on it and stick it in the refrigerator once I was done. I whisked together the zest, lime juice, cilantro, and olive oil in the dish. Then I got to work on my chicken! I had to pound the chicken out, since I bought just regular chicken breasts and not the thin cut ones. Each chicken breast took turns in the Ziplock bag and I used my heavy wooden rolling pin to pound them out. I didn't take pictures of this. I apologize. It was chicken-y looking!! And I think we all know what that looks like.

I salted my chicken on both sides once I was done.






I did, however, take pictures of the marinating chicken! In fact, I almost forgot to! Hence the plastic wrap seen in the upper right hand side of the picture. These chicken breasts were so large once I was done flattening them that Matt and I split one in half and Nicholas got half of my half. Pretty gigantic! Haha! But great for leftovers!!!

Anyway, I marinated the chicken for about four to five hours. The recipe says about two at the very least! I say the more time spent marinating the better!!








Once I was done with my afternoon run, I threw the strawberry-jalapeño salsa together. (Fun fact: apparently this phrase "strawberry-jalapeño" is spelled incorrectly and one of the choices, for it to be correct, was strawberry-jalopy. I don't know about you, but that kind of a funny picture in my head!!) This salsa is very easy and super pretty!!











All you have to do is combine the strawberries, jalapeño, cilantro, red onion, lime juice and salt. Easy peasy. Once you have everything mixed together, put some plastic wrap on the bowl and put it into the refrigerator for all the ingredients to get yummy together.

Now we were ready for grilling. I am not very good at grilling, but I think they came out pretty awesome for the most part.

I served the chicken with salad and cous-cous. And of course the salsa. It was delicious. Very flavorful. You could definitely taste the lime in the chicken.

This was not a Cooking Light recipe (surprised?), but I found a similar recipe here and the calorie count was 149 per serving. I also found a similar recipe on the Cooking Light website for Chicken Cutlets with a Strawberry-Avocado salsa and it was 211...and that's with Avocado! So I figured that this dish is most certainly under 250 calories per serving. Probably around the 200 mark--which is great! I love that it was so tasty for leftovers as well. It re-heated well and the salsa...well I could eat that just by itself!!




I found the original recipe here, which was of course on Pinterest. I think there are many versions out there though, which is great because you could honestly make it your own! I think this is a great recipe for the end of summer and to take advantage of the (still) warm days before it gets too chilly. Although the cold hasn't stopped us from grilling. But then again, now we live in Alaska. So. We will see. Ha! Anyway, I hope you have enjoyed this post and I hope you try this recipe out! Let me know if you do!!

Talk soon!!