I've been making sandwiches more often recently, mainly because I've kind of put cooking on the back burner for a little bit. I'm sure you've noticed the lack of "home cooking" posts lately. I'll be honest; I haven't been inspired to cook anything wild and exciting.
It's okay though, because I'm still creating deliciousness!
In this case, deliciousness in the form of a chicken salad sandwich. I love that I can prep a large batch of the filling and just scoop from the fridge whenever I'm hungry. It's super easy to make in the toaster (aka. mini) oven. This way I don't need to hover over a stove nor do I need to heat up the kitchen. Oh and it saves me from doing lots of dishes.
Here's what I do:
- Preheat the oven to 400F and line it with foil so that there's plenty of excess hanging over the end. We're going to make a sealed packet out of it, so be generous! Foil not big enough? Use this method.
- Get three or four fresh chicken breasts and prep them by rinsing.
- Place chicken on to the lined pan and add in a tablespoon of water/per chicken breast. Throw in some basil or rosemary if you want.
- Create a packet out of the foil, encasing the chicken inside. It doesn't matter how you do it, just make sure that the edges are tightly sealed so no juices and/or steam can escape.
- Put the pan with the wrapped chicken on it, into the oven and set the timer on for 25 minutes. This is free time, so go ahead and do some chores or watch a bunch of You Tube videos!
- After 25 minutes have passed, the chicken should be cooked through. Carefully remove from the oven and open the package up (it will be super hot and steam with race out) to check for done-ness with a meat thermometer- 165C. I am without one of these tools, so I simply cut into the thickest part.
- Stick the chicken back in sealed, if it needs more time, checking every 5 minutes. Otherwise, allow the meat to cool in the pan along with its juices*.
- Shred or chop into your desire consistency. Sometimes I add diced celery or onion. I like dressing it with Hellmann's mayonnaise, salt, black pepper and whatever herbs I've got. Store in the fridge until you're ready to chow down. It'll keep for about five days in there, but I doubt there will be any left by three.
*If there's any liquid in there, save it! That's chicken stock and it's gold. For those who prefer to use less mayo but would still like a moist chicken salad, sub in some of this stock instead.
That's all! It's eight steps, but in short it's really just steaming chicken in a foil packet in the mini oven for 25 minutes the adding things to it. Clean up is a dream. The foil goes into the trash and if you're good, you'll shred the chicken with clean hands or a fork, into the bowl/container you'll be storing it in! What's there to wash? A knife from chopping veggies and maybe a fork. Ha!
I ate my chicken salad between two toasted pieces of whole wheat vegetable bread and a couple slices of Roma tomato. Something green, like lettuce or cucumbers would have been a terrific addition, but I used what I had and this was it. So good!