Chicken and Rice Remix

One complaint that I hear a lot from anyone dieting and training for a physique competition (and one I remember making a lot when I was little and my mom was competing) is that they get tired of eating the same thing every day for every meal—chicken and rice. The other day, I noticed that one of her clients posted a Facebook status saying “How many ways can you make chicken and rice?” That got me thinking. How many ways CAN you make chicken and rice? For now, I’m just going to link to the original recipes, but eventually we’ll get around to writing up blog posts with our own adjustments for as many of these recipes as we can!

Let’s start with chicken breasts:

1. Tequila Lime Chicken: This one is really good and very simple. The only thing you need to watch out for is letting it marinate for too long. The acids in the marinade will start to cook the chicken, so make sure you’re watching your timer.
2. Peanut Chicken: Christine (aka my mom) came up with this recipe and it’s always a go-to for me when I don’t feel like stopping at the store because I already have all the ingredients. It’s absolutely delicious and tastes great with some veggies thrown in, I like broccoli in it, my mom prefers peppers and onions.
3. Pecan and Panko-Crusted Chicken Breasts: What I love about this recipe (besides the fact that it tastes great) is that the pecans and panko give the chicken a nice crunch—which is perfect if you’re looking for a way to make your chicken feel different than the chicken you’ve been eating all day, everyday for the last 10 weeks. You can skip making the sauce and it will still be delicious.
4. Taco Chicken: If you keep up with this blog, then you’ll already know that we’re big fans of Alton Brown’s taco seasoning. You can use the seasoning with any meat really, but it would be a great way to spice up your chicken—either find ground chicken or just thinly slice chicken breasts.
5. Garlic Lemon Chicken: This is one of the recipes we made for our On Track appreciation party this fall and the kabobs practically flew off the plate! For your meals, it wouldn’t be necessary to make them into kabobs but it would be a good idea to cut them into smaller pieces before grilling or cooking them since they definitely cook up better that way!
6. Chili-Lime Chicken: We also made this for the party and it went over pretty well. It’s probably a good idea to cook this one in smaller pieces as well so that it cooks up better.
7. Chicken in Coconut-Lime Peanut Sauce: I just made this over the weekend and it’s delicious! It’s very similar in taste to the peanut chicken, there’s just a few different ingredients in the sauce that give it a bit more of an asian taste.
8. Thai Chicken:
9. Chicken and Rice Soup: If you’re really looking for something different, take some time on the weekend to make this delicious and simple soup. The recipe will make enough for leftovers, warm you up in the winter and gets your chicken and rice taken care of in one dish.
10. Ginger Coconut Chicken:
11. Moo Goo Gai Pan: This is my go to menu item at any chinese restaurant. When I found this recipe, I was surprised at how easy it was to make at home and it really tastes just like the Moo Goo Gai Pan from our favorite take out place.
12. Yellow Curry Chicken: A quick and delicious curry chicken recipe. Serve with the rice recipe that follows the curry recipe.

And then move onto to rice:

1. Cilantro Lime Rice: I’ll be honest, I go to Chipotle just for the rice so why not make it at home?
2. Fried Rice: Who doesn’t love fried rice? Plus, you can kill two birds with one stone by cutting up your chicken breasts and cooking it with the rice to make chicken fried rice. You can use whatever vegetables you like best in place of what the recipe calls for.
3. Lemon Rice: This is a simple and fresh departure from plain old rice that you can make right in your rice cooker. You can easily substitute olive oil for the butter and it will taste just as good!
4. Rice Pilaf: Tyler Florence never fails with his recipes—they’re always delicious! His rice pilaf recipe is one of the simplest that I’ve found even if you do have to cook it in a sauce pan rather than the rice cooker.
5. Coconut-Scented Rice:
6. Mexican Rice: This is one of the least time consuming Mexican rice recipes that I’ve found that still tastes pretty yummy. You can make your own sazon seasoning with 1 teaspoon of salt, garlic powder, cumin, coriander and annatto.
7. Trader Joe’s Rice Medley: This isn’t really a recipe, just something that I’ve found that’s yummy and counts as a rice variation. The link leads to Trader Joe’s description of the frozen product, but I know they used to sell a dry version that you could make on your own in the rice  cooker so ask around at the stores.
8. Garlic Brown Rice: This super simple recipe starts on the stovetop and then moves to the rice cooker.
9. Basmati Rice with Cumin Seeds: This rice goes along with the yellow curry chicken recipe from above, but it has a subtle enough taste that it would be good paired with most of the chicken recipes.

You could mix and match these 21 recipes many different ways to keep some variety in your daily meals. Some of them have distinct flavors that you probably wouldn’t want to mix (such as the thai chicken and the mexican rice) while others seem like a match made in heaven (the chili-lime chicken would be delicious with the coconut-scented rice!). A lot of the chicken recipes involve creating a simple sauce (the peanut chicken for example) so that you wouldn’t even need anything besides plain white or brown rice to go with it.

This obviously isn’t the end all, be all list of ways to make chicken and rice so let us know what you’re favorite recipe is!