How to Grill Chicken One Time and Get 3 Different Meals – Delicious and Easy
Life is busy. It doesn’t matter if you’re single, coupled up or raising a small herd of children - we’ve all got a lot going on, and it can be hard to find enough time (and energy!) to make a good meal. For some households, the solution is meal-prepping or batch cooking, but it’s easy to get tired of the same menu on repeat. Our suggestion? Use VG Meats to minimize cooking and still get a variety of delicious, healthy meals all week long. Here’s an example of how to grill chicken once and get three separate meals.
Getting started
Divide a box of VG Meats boneless, skinless chicken breasts into three sections. Season one third with your favourite marinade, BBQ sauce or dry rub (we have plenty of options in store), add salt and pepper to the other two thirds. Heat up the BBQ (or your oven, but who are we kidding...everything is better when BBQ’d). Cook all of the chicken breasts, keeping them in three sections as you’ll be using them for different meals.
Take the seasoned chicken breasts and place them on a platter or dinner plates (you’ll be using these right away). Put the other two thirds into a food storage container and place in the fridge to chill.
Meal #1: Chicken and your favourite sides
Now that you have all of your chicken cooked, you can enjoy meal #1 - grilled chicken and your favourite side dishes. Serve the seasoned chicken while it’s still hot, adding a couple of your favourite veggies (corn on the cob and asparagus, for example) along with any other sides you enjoy (fresh rolls, pasta or potato salad, for example). This is the perfect summer dinner, but it’s great any time of year. Making this meal (along with the extra chicken) should take less than 30 minutes.
Meal #2: Easy chicken wraps
It’s lunchtime (or maybe dinnertime again) and you’ve got cold, grilled chicken in the fridge from yesterday’s meal. What do you do? Wrap it up! Grab some whole wheat tortillas and add some sliced, chilled chicken breast along with your favourite greens (lettuce, baby spinach or alfalfa sprouts, perhaps). Ranch or caesar dressing will add great flavour, and cheese is always a welcome addition to a wrap. Want to take things up a notch? Add sliced peppers, cucumber and/or diced tomato. Making this meal should take less than 10 minutes.
Meal #3: Hearty grilled chicken salad
Use the last of your chicken for a hearty, delicious grilled chicken salad. Start by slicing or dicing the chicken and preparing a bowl of your favourite mixed greens. Now it’s time to get creative - your salad may include fresh or roasted vegetables, sliced avocado, chickpeas, black beans, corn, pine nuts, berries or even your favourite grains (quinoa is delicious in cold salads). Once you’ve filled your bowl, top it with the grilled chicken and add your dressing of choice (or don’t - a hearty salad is often flavourful enough on its own or with a simple squeeze of fresh lemon). Making this meal should take less than 15 minutes.
Cook less, eat well
We’ve used chicken to illustrate this simple meal planning method, but you could easily substitute flank steak or another protein of choice. Remember - you don’t have to serve these meals consecutively. To mix things up, have grilled chicken and veggies for dinner on night one, enjoy leftover chicken in wraps for lunch on day two, make steaks for dinner that evening and eat a grilled chicken salad the following day. The secret is to cook up a big batch of protein on day one, saving time on the following days. Love this idea? Try it yourself and be sure to forward this post to a friend!
