Meal Prep-Teriyaki Chicken//Zucchini Salad

Before you think “Wow, those two dishes don’t really go together”, trust me, I already know.  Why would I make a half Asian, half Italian meal?  I’ll tell you why….because I wanted to.  Or, more specifically, because I used what my local grocery stores had on sale this week.

Honestly, I’ve been waiting to make this teriyaki chicken for a few weeks now.  I’ve never done a homemade teriyaki sauce, but I’m glad I did, because it was damn good.  It took no time at all, which was also a major plus.  In fact, this whole meal was actually quite quick.

I started out by making my zucchini salad, which is just pasta salad substituting the pasta for zucchini noodles.  I wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out, but wanted to risk trying in case it was something I ended up loving.  I’m glad I thought about doing this.  Zucchini noodles have become a staple in my household recently.  They’re so much healthier than pasta noodles and they take very little time to prepare.  If you’ve never done so, I’ll give you some very detailed instructions on how to.  First, invest in a spiralizer…it will change your life.  Second, wash your zucchini, cut the ends off of both sides, and cut the zucchini in half (this isn’t a necessary step, but i like to do this so my noodles don’t come out so long).  Third, stick your zucchini on your spiralizer and start spinning.  Done.  It’s that easy.  When you finish, you’ll have a little something like so:

Perfect zoodles.   Yep, you read that right.

After I cut all of my zucchini (I used 8) I started preparing the veggies that I was going to add into the salad.  You can use whatever vegetables you want.  I decided on red and orange peppers, broccoli, black olives, and green onions.  Nothing too fancy.  The reason I was hesitant to make this side dish was because I didn’t know how well the zucchini would take to the Italian dressing I chose to use.  Zucchini is obviously pretty moist once you cut it up, and I was nervous that the noodles were just going to be a soggy mess once I added the dressing.  Before I added anything into the noodles, I lined a big mixing bowl with paper towels and moved all of the noodles into the bowl with the paper towels, hoping that some of the moisture would get sucked up.  I let them sit for about 25 minutes and then moved on to finishing off the salad.  I did add some parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper in addition to the veggies and dressing.  To my surprise, it turned out great.  The noodles were not soggy and still had a nice crunch to them.

Alright, so now we’re moving on to the main dish, the teriyaki chicken.  I found a recipe for a very simple teriyaki sauce here and tweaked it to my liking.  It took less than 10 minutes to make this sauce and you’d never know that by how good it was.  All you have to do is add all of the ingredients into a saucepan, let it boil, then reduce your heat down and stir until it starts getting heavy.  You can also add a little more cornstarch if you’re wanting a thicker sauce, or more water if you want it thinner.

That’s basically all there is to it.  I bought chicken tenders because I was honestly too lazy to cut up large chicken breasts, so I already had my chicken ready to go.  I lined a baking pan with foil (again, out of sheer laziness and not wanting to clean) and added a couple spoonfuls of the teriyaki along the bottom of the pan.  You add in your chicken, add any spices you want on the chicken (I went simple and just used garlic, salt, and pepper) and use the rest of your teriyaki to top everything off.  Throw it into a 400 degree oven for about 18 minutes and you’re good to go.

This was so simple, anybody could make this meal.  And again, I know this doesn’t technically ‘go together’, but do what you want!  I wanted a veggie side dish to keep it on the lighter side this week, as opposed to something heavier like rice, so that’s exactly what I did.  Plus, with Summer weather coming in full force here in Arizona, a cold pasta salad was perfect.

Let me know if you make this meal and how it turned out 🙂

 

Recipe: Teriyaki Chicken 

• 3/4 c. Soy Sauce (I used low sodium)
• 5 1/2 tbsp Honey
• 2 tbsp Cornstarch
• 4 tbsp Water
• 1.5 tbsp Minced Garlic
• 3.75 lbs Chicken

-Add all ingredients into saucepan over medium heat

-Bring to a boil, then turn to low heat and stir sauce until desired thickness

-Coat bottom of baking pan with a layer of teriyaki, add in (optional) seasoned chicken, then use the rest of the sauce to cover chicken

-Bake at 400 degrees for 18 minutes

Recipe: Zucchini Salad

• 8 large zucchini, spiralized
• 12 oz. Italian dressing
• 2 cans Black Olives, sliced
• 2 Orange Peppers, cut
• 1 Red Pepper, cut
• 3 large Broccoli heads, cut
• 1 bundle Green Onions, sliced
• 1/2 c. parmesan cheese
• Salt, pepper to taste

-Cut ends off zucchini, spiralize into thin noodles.  Line bowl with paper towels, place zucchini in bowl for 20-25 minutes to absorb excess moisture.

-Remove paper towels from zoodles.  Add in all prepped veggies, spices, cheese, and dressing.  Stir together.

-Enjoy!

(I’ll remind you that these recipes are what I use for 10 meals, so be sure to adjust accordingly!)

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