Recently I randomly decided I was going to challenge myself with what I make for dinner. I’ve been racking my brain to come up with a meal plan that is healthy, inexpensive, and easy. Then I thought, what if we just had chicken and rice every night? We had a full box of Minute Rice in the cupboard and a bag of chicken tenderloins from Costco in the freezer already. Could we do it?
A big issue for me is that I have all these grand ideas of meals we’ll make with all these vegetables and what not, but time is hard to come by some weeknights and usually the vegetables end up going bad before I can use them all. So, I decided that if we challenged ourselves to eating chicken and rice every night, we could just buy fresh veggies for the week on Sunday. Then, they would be allocated for the week, and therefore would not go bad. So, we did this for a week- and it went really well. The meals were tasty and fast.
Since we had the chicken and the rice, all I had to buy on Sunday was veggies. We got tomatoes, cucumbers, onion, bell peppers, carrots, and mushrooms. I did some brainstorming and came up with random ways to season the chicken and veggies to make different meals out of chicken and rice. We did this four nights in a row, leaving Friday as a “freebie” day where we got to have something else, like pasta. Here’s our chicken and rice meals:
Taco Chicken and Rice
I cooked the chicken with taco seasoning and topped it with sauteed onions and shredded cheddar cheese. I served the rice with fresh tomato and avocado slices. No tortillas necessary!
Italian Chicken and Rice
I cooked the chicken and seasoned it lightly. I chopped red and green bell pepper and onion and cooked it in a little oil with minced garlic. I warmed up some red sauce to top the chicken and sprinkled Parmesan cheese on top. I chopped some cucumber and tomato as well, one of my favorite combos. I’m a spaghetti girl all the way, so I really enjoyed this meal!
Fajita Chicken and Rice
I had fajita seasoning already, so this was a snap to make. I cooked the chicken in the seasoning and removed it from the pan. I added sliced onion, red and green bell pepper to the same skillet and cooked until tender. I topped the chicken with some cheese, topped the rice with the bell pepper and onion, and served with avocado and tomato.
Homey Chicken and Rice
This was my hubby’s favorite. It was delicious! I cooked the chicken and lightly seasoned it. I boiled chopped baby carrots and cooked onion, red bell pepper and mushroom in oil and garlic. While those were cooking, I made some creamy chicken gravy which I served over the rice and chicken.
I’m hoping to keep this challenge up and think of more ways to serve chicken and rice. I’m thinking Greek… Stir fry… the options are endless!
Happy Sunday!
xoxo,
Kayla
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