Summer. is. busy.

There’s softball. And the other softball league. And BBQs.  And bonfires. And happy hours. And seasonal ice cream shops. And farmer’s markets. And festivals. And baseball games. And concerts. And lake adventures. And road trips. And, oh yeah…work.

In Minnesota, we love summer like no other state in the union. We’ve got only three months to spend every possible second outside before Ol’ Man Winter arrives and forces us to spend twenty minutes putting on eight layers of clothing just to go on a trip to the grocery store.

So what do we do? We soak up the sun. Literally.

We use up our PTO every Friday we can to have long weekends spent almost entirely outside. We head to the lakes every weeknight evening we can to walk around and simply soak up every ray of sunshine we can before sunset. We press “GO” starting every morning when we wake up and try to spend as little as time possible indoors. Why? Because we know winter is coming. 

In this drive to get outdoors, there is one thing that always seems to slow us down: dinner. We gotta eat, but we want something quick, fast, and healthy. We don’t want to turn the oven on, we don’t want to have to spend a lot of time prepping, and we sure-as-heck don’t want to have to spend eons doing the dishes.

Or normal summer go-to is grilling. But here’s the thing: grilling is fabulous, but there’s really only so many burgers/brats/chicken breasts we can eat. Towards then end-of-summer we’re searching for a quick meal that can fill Tom up without all the normal “time-savers” (pasta, bread, etc.) that I shouldn’t be eating much of for my health.

So…where’s the compromise?

Here’s our answer:

• Limit our ingredients to just four items–the fewer the items, the less prep (and clean up) you need to do!
• Utilize in-season ingredients like cherry tomatoes and basil that we can easily grow (or buy from the farmer’s market) that are uber-flavorful this time of year
• Add a protein punch with rotisserie chicken and fresh mozzarella cheese–items that take zero prep and add a ton of oomph to a dish

| Easy Breezy Chicken Caprese |

Serves: 4 Tom’s or 6 Alaina’s

Ingredients Needed: 

• 1 lb. cherry tomatoes, halved
• 16 oz (1 lb) fresh mozzarella, chopped in small cubes
• 4 cups rotisserie chicken, chopped
• 1/2 cup fresh basil, thinly sliced
• Balsamic vinegar (to taste)
• Olive oil (to taste)

Directions:

First of all, get ready to chop, chop, chop! Slicing and dicing is literally 90% of this recipe!

• Slice all of your cherry tomatoes in half and set aside
  • There are some NIFTY kitchen gadgets for this that I have seen while browsing my favorite kitchen stores, but otherwise you can usually do 2-3 at a time the “old-fashioned way” if you’re careful!

• Chop your fresh mozzarella into small cubes–ideally following the below method:
  • Cut the log of mozzarella the long way into slices about 1/4 inch thick
  • From there, take each slice of mozzarella, lay it flat,  and (again the long way) slice into 1/4 inch thick strips
  • Once you have your strips, group them together into piles of six to eight strips and slice every 1/4 inch to create 1/4 inch cubes!

• Finally, chop up your rotisserie chicken—or any pre-cooked chicken you have on hand! (You really can’t mess this up)

You’re literally almost done with dinner…now just start putting it all together!

• For each bowl you’re prepping, add the following:
  • 3/4 cup(ish) chopped tomatoes
  • 1/4 cup(ish) cubed mozzarella
  • 1/2 cup(ish) chopped chicken

• From there, add the following toppings:
  • ~1 tbsp. sliced basil
    • Pro Tip: Layer 4-6 leaves of basil on top of each other, roll it up, and use kitchen shears to easily slice basil over your bowls!
    • Alaina Tip: MORE BASIL=ALWAYS BETTER
  • ~1 tbsp. balsamic vinegar
  • ~1/2 tsp. olive oil

• Finally, just give the bowls a quick toss to mix all that goodness together…then serve!

So here’s the thing, you’re probably thinking “I’ve had caprese salad before, Alaina. It’s good and all, but it’s nothing to write home about” But here’s the deal: have you ever had caprese salad not where it’s not just slices of cheese and tomato?

Have you ever had caprese salad where each bite is a flavor explosion of ever-so-sweet tomato and buttery mozzarella combined with a tangy zip of sweet/sour balsamic goodness and a fresh bite of basil? The beauty of this simple salad is that the balsamic vinegar ever-so-lightly coats the entire dish–making each forkful a balanced bite of tomato/mozz/chicken a mouth-watering flavor punch that keeps you wanting more.

Now normally, a frou-frou “salad” is definitely not something Tom would typically want for dinner. I mean, how is a salad supposed to fill up the guy who ate eighteen Sweet Martha’s cookies in one sitting at the State Fair this year?

Here’s the answer:

Since you prepare each bowl separately, you can increase/decrease the ratio of ingredients to satisfy the appetite of everyone at the table. It’s marvelous.

For example:

• Tom: 1/2 bowl chicken with big handfuls of cheese and tomatoes and just a touch of basil
• Alaina: 1/4 bowl chicken with a big handful of tomatoes, a small handful of cheese, and an entire plant’s worth of basil

See? Same dinner, but we each can get enough food to be satisfied (ie: Tom wants all of the protein) and we can also adjust the ingredients to our liking (ie: I want to basically eat just basil for dinner)

It’s also a total pro-move for leftovers–instead of having leftovers be a soggy, mushy mess, you can leave the containers of chicken, tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil separate and just put together meals/lunches as you need them*. Talk about quick summertime meals– once everything’s prepped you can throw a dinner or lunch together in under two minutes. Seriously!

[*Note: When you’re putting this together for lunch the next day, I recommend putting in the tomatoes, then the balsamic/oil, then the chicken, then the cheese, then the basil. This keeps the balsamic from getting soaked into the chicken/cheese and getting soggy!]

So there you go–don’t waste one minute of the precious summertime we have left. Tom and I are soaking up every bit of sunshine we can and not sacrificing the nutrition or taste of our dinner in our rush to get outside. We’re just putting everything together as easy a 1, 2, 3 (4)!

Here’s to making many more culinary compromises…all in the name of love.

xoxo,

alaina