Recipes

Easy Chicken Piccata

~ SL

This post was written in a paid partnership with Manitoba Chicken Producers. As always, all opinions are my own and I only promote products and services that I use and love.

I love this Easy Chicken Piccata recipe from Manitoba Chicken Producers because it’s simple enough to serve on a busy weeknight, but fancy enough to serve to guests. 

Simple Ingredients

My favorite part of this chicken piccata recipe is that the sauce is made with basic pantry staples that I always have on hand, so I can make this any night of the week without having to go to the store. 

Boneless skinless chicken breasts, lemons, chicken broth, Dijon mustard, garlic, shallot, thyme. Add these to your list of go-to ingredients because they can be used in so many more recipes, like lemon basil orzo, rice pilaf or one-pan chicken souvlaki. This recipe also contains capers, which I love because they add a nice burst of tangy flavour to the sauce.

Easy Weeknight Meal 

Hands-free meals allow you to tackle other everyday tasks while you wait for dinner to be ready. You can make this chicken piccata a hands-free weeknight meal by baking the chicken on a sheet pan and spending only 5 minutes cooking the sauce. Since the chicken breasts are pounded thin for this recipe, they will cook quickly.

No matter how you decide to cook the chicken, always check for doneness with a meat thermometer. Perfectly cooked boneless skinless chicken breasts should read 165°F or 74°C when the probe is inserted in the thickest part of the breast. 

Meal Prep Tips for Chicken Piccata 

I love this meal leftover! You can cook the chicken, sauce and pasta or rice and simply reheat it for nights when you are rushed but want a flavourful, filling meal. 

I like to cook and freeze extra rice to use on busy nights when we don’t have a lot of time to cook.

If you only wanted to prep part of this meal ahead of time, you could either cook the chicken or the sauce, then reheat it as needed. 

Serving Chicken Piccata to a Crowd

A great strategy for serving this to a crowd, as I mentioned earlier, is baking the chicken on a sheet pan. This allows you to mingle with your guests as it bakes. Again, you could make the sauce earlier in the day and simply reheat it before serving. 

As previously mentioned, you can serve this over pasta or rice, or with another side dish like Rosemary Garlic Smashed Potatoes and a salad. 

Sheet Pan Gnocchi

~ SL

Sheet Pan Gnocchi is a super simple and versatile recipe you can make hands-free on a busy weeknight.

Gnocchi is rested on a bed of veggies, making it soft and chewy, yet toasted, giving it a wonderful texture.

Jump to Recipe

Choosing Vegetables for the Sheet Pan Gnocchi

The vegetables I chose to include in this recipe are easy to chop quickly and have varying textures. Mushrooms can be halved, while red peppers are sliced in 8ths and eggplant is chopped into 1-inch chunks. Keeping the skin on the eggplant allows the chunks to hold up while roasting. You can use any vegetables you prefer. Broccoli, cauliflower, butternut squash and grape tomatoes are also excellent options.

Meal Prep Tips

All of the veggies for this recipe can be prepped a day or two before you need them. Chopped vegetables will last a lot longer when stored separately from other veggies, so if you’re planning on prepping them more than a day ahead of time, store them in separate containers or bags. Additionally, to prevent the peppers from getting slimy, place a folded paper towel in the bottom of the container before storing them. For a complete list of how to prep and store vegetables, see pages 43 and 44 of your Ultimate Guide.

Sheet Pan Secrets

Sheet Pan Meals are flexible. Depending on the texture you want for your vegetables, you can choose to spread the ingredients out over one or two sheet pans. Crowding makes the vegetables soft and steamy, whereas spreading them out over two pans lets them crisp up.

For this recipe, I like to use one pan so that the steam created by the vegetables softens the gnocchi. Spreading the gnocchi out on top of the vegetables, allows the gnocchi to both steam on the bottom, and crisp up on the top.

Simple Seasonings

For this Sheet Pan Gnocchi recipe, all the ingredients are seasoned simply with olive oil, Italian Seasoning and salt and pepper. The flavor boost comes once it has been cooked, with a drizzle of three-herb pesto and balsamic reduction, like Nonna Pia’s. You can of course use store-bought pesto if you want.

Print

Sheet Pan Gnocchi

Vegetables and Gnocchi are roasted together on one pan for a quick and easy dinner

Course Main Course, pasta
Cuisine Italian
Keyword balsamic reduction, bell peppers, eggplant, gnocchi, mushrooms, pesto, roasted red pepper, roasted vegetables, sheet pan, sheet pan dinner, sheet pan meal, yellow pepper
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 25 minutes
Total Time 35 minutes
Servings 6

Ingredients

  • 1 eggplant
  • 2 bell peppers
  • 1 454g package cremini mushrooms Can use white button mushrooms
  • 1 package gnocchi Find it in the dry pasta section
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tbsp Italian seasoning
  • 4 tbsp pesto homemade or store-bought
  • 2 tbsp balsamic reduction
  • parmesan cheese for garnish

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 425 F.

  2. Chop eggplant in 1-inch pieces, halve mushrooms and cut the bell peppers in 8ths.

  3. Spread out the vegetables on a parchment covered sheet pan and drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and Italian seasoning.

  4. Top vegetables with gnocchi (uncooked). Drizzle again with olive oil.

  5. Bake at 425 F for 25 minutes.

  6. Top cooked gnocchi and vegetables with a dollop of pesto and a drizzle of balsamic reduction.

  7. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese.

Recipe Notes

You can swap out the vegetables for any vegetable you like. 

Serving suggestions for Sheet Pan Gnocchi

Serve this meal with Easy Weeknight Foccacia, cheesy breadsticks or a side salad. This makes a delicious lunch when reheated the next day.

Stir-fried Chicken with Cashews – Cooking with Kids

~ SL

This post was written in a paid partnership with Manitoba Chicken Producers. As always, all opinions are my own and I only promote products and services that I use and love.

September is National Chicken Month so I wanted to share Manitoba Chicken’s Stir-fried Chicken with Cashews recipe. It is flexible, quick and easy to prepare and that your kids can even help prepare it.

a bowl of rice topped with stir-fried chicken, cashews and vegetables.

Prepping this stir-fry

There are so many meal prep strategies that you can apply to this meal, to get it on the table in 15 minutes or less. A great tip for when you bring chicken home from the grocery store is to slice it up before you freeze it. This saves you a step on a busy weeknight and you can simply take the bag of sliced chicken out of the freezer the night before, thaw in the fridge and start cooking! Sliced boneless, skinless chicken breasts can be used in stir-fries like this one, sheet pan meals or fajitas.

Recipe tip: Did you know that you can find recipes for any cut of chicken you have, at manitobachicken.ca? Click the link and select the cut you’d like under the CUT menu.

This stir-fry recipe calls for carrots, snap peas, peppers and onions. You can swap them for other vegetables that you prefer. Snap peas are what I like to call a no-prep veggie, so they don’t require chopping. Other no-prep vegetables you can use to serve this stir-fry up quickly are frozen vegetables or pre-cut carrots, broccoli, mushrooms and cauliflower from the grocery store.

Did you know that you can cook and freeze rice? You can! This is one of my favorite meal prep tips for reducing the cooking time of my weeknight meals. I always make a double batch and freeze half for a future meal. You can reheat frozen rice in the microwave in two minutes. You can also serve this stir-fry over noodles.

a child pouring cooked rice from a bag into a dish
Cooking with kids can be a bit messy but it’s all in the name of connection and skill development!

Preparing the stir-fry sauce

I love this sauce because it contains ingredients that I usually have on hand, like chicken broth, soy sauce, sugar and red chili flakes. Other ingredients like oyster sauce and Chinese hot sauce can be used in many other recipes like these Ginger Chicken Wonton Cups and this Sesame Chicken with Black Bean and Ginger Stir-Fry. Once you have the sauce ingredients, you can use them in a variety of recipes for weeks to come.

a child mixing ingredients in a bowl

Cooking with kids

Depending on how old your kids are, they can help prepare this recipe! Some kids might be reluctant to try a stir-fry because it is saucy and different ingredients are touching. Getting the kids to help prepare the stir-fry with you provides exposure to new foods and teaches them valuable cooking skills. Here are a few things they can do to help:

  • Measure out rice
  • Fill a pot with water
  • Pour cashews in a bowl for garnish
  • Wash vegetables
  • Slice chicken and vegetables (older kids)
  • Combine the sauce ingredients
  • Set the table

There is a complete list of ways that kids can help out in the kitchen on page 32 of the Ultimate Guide.

a child's hand picking up a snap pea from a plate of vegetables.
Setting aside some of the vegetables raw or serving the chicken without sauce is an easy way to ease kids into eventually enjoying a stir-fry.

Deconstructing this stir-fry

Some of my kids are reluctant to try stir-fry for a few reasons: different ingredients are touching, vegetables are cooked and there is a sauce! Here’s how I handle it without making them a separate meal. Serve the same vegetables on the side, raw, if they’re not into cooked vegetables. Before adding the sauce, you can set some stir-fry aside so they can enjoy the chicken and vegetables plain. Serve the cashews on the side as a garnish. My kids love adding toppings to their meals and self-serving helps them eat intuitively and develop their independence. We always serve meals family style so kids can practice good manners and interact as they pass and share dishes around the table.

a bowl of rice topped with chicken, cashews and vegetables

Try this stir-fry and let us know how you (and your kids) enjoyed it on our Instagram pages @manitobachicken @toobusylivin204.