Whether you are looking to adopt a nutrient-dense, plant-based diet or are just trying to find healthier alternatives to some of your favorite dishes, we have great recipes on our site to suit your tastes! Some of our recipes can look a little intimidating, though. That’s why we created a weekly segment called RecipEASY — to make healthy eating easier. We (Kate and Kayla) make a recipe from our site and break it down to give you helpful tips and modifications. Since neither of us are professional chefs, we are always looking for ways to simplify healthy recipes!
This week we made…
Zesty Chicken with Steamed Kale
This was our first foray into animal protein for our RecipEASY segment! Still chock full of nutrient-dense veggies like kale, red peppers, carrots, and garlic, this chicken dish is easy to make and packed with flavor.
Our shopping list included: kale, garlic, lemon, fresh ginger root, carrots, red pepper, arrowroot powder, vegetable stock, carrot juice, no-salt seasoning, Bragg Liquid Amino, chicken breasts, and cayenne. Find the full measurements here.
To get started, we chopped the carrots, garlic, red pepper, and ginger, and then added them along with the carrot juice, no-salt seasoning, and liquid amino to our wok to simmer for about 5 minutes. You would also zest the lemon and add the zest in this step… but we forgot to buy an actual lemon, since we already had lemon juice. We added an extra teaspoon of lemon juice to make up for it.
Next, we mixed the arrowroot powder (which managed to get everywhere) with the vegetable stock and added it to the pan. We let that simmer and thicken for 2 minutes.
We hurried to finish cutting the raw chicken and added it to our simmering concoction. Because we don’t have a lid for our giant wok, we covered it with foil to let the chicken steam in the sauce for about 5 minutes.
Finally, we ripped two bunches of kale into bite sized pieces, added it to our chicken mix, and let it cook for another 5-7 minutes. We kept our foil lid on to make sure the chicken cooked all the way through (Kate and I were a little nervous about undercooking the chicken).
A pinch of cayenne and we were ready to eat!
After we started cooking things, this recipe went really fast. It probably took us longer to chop everything than to cook it! It was very flavorful -- the fresh ginger added a nice kick and made the kitchen smell delicious. Our coworker, Alberto, liked this recipe the best out of the ones we’ve made so far. There were no leftovers this week.
Try it for yourself and let us know what you think in the comments below!
