Grilled Chicken Salad with Cilantro Lime Dressing

My sister recently made this Smitten Kitchen recipe for a family dinner and I am hooked. It's a bright and light summer salad filled with flavor. The dressing recipe makes a lot and can be kept for 5-6 days and used for other salads or as a marinade.  Pin It Now!

Classic Chicken Salad

As a quick grab and go lunch option, this chicken salad has come in handy. Eat it with crackers, in a sandwich, or in a lettuce/traditional wrap. It's a great use up any leftover rotisserie chicken. Pin It Now!

Spicy Miso Chicken Katsu Ramen

This recipe has been passed along time and time again. My sister's friend shared it with her, she shared it with our mom, and my mom shared it with me. It's a quick and easy dinner option you can make in under an hour.

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Easy Enchiladas

Enchiladas are a great idea when you're short on time or have leftover ingredients to use. This works great with leftover chicken or a rotisserie chicken. You can also use leftover turkey. Feel free to sub cubed roasted sweet potatoes for the chicken to make the dish vegetarian. To keep this as simple as possible, I used pre-made enchilada sauce. 

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Buffalo Chicken Dip

This dip makes for a very easy appetizer that works great for a summer BBQ. You can make it a day prior and bake it the day you need it. I usually shred the chicken the day before and assemble and bake it the day I need it. Serve with corn chips (Fritos scoops work great), cut up veggies or crackers. Pin It Now!

Portuguese Peri Peri Chicken and Potatoes

I recently discovered this recipe and it has quickly become a weeknight favorite. There is so much flavor coming the sauce that it tastes great even without the cilantro yogurt sauce. If you're in a rush, feel free to skip that step and just make the chicken and potatoes with the peri peri sauce. Using chicken on the bone means that leftover will still be juicy the next day.

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Leftover Chicken Curry

If you're looking for an easy weeknight dinner, this curry is it. Use almost any leftover chicken you have. This works well with rotisserie, roasted, or grilled chicken. I have made this with leftover cut up Peruvian chicken and it is still delicious. You can add or subtract vegetables to this as well based on what you have at home. If you want a spicier curry, add some chopped serrano pepper with your spices.

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Grilled Tandoori Style Chicken

My go to barbecue meat will most likely always be chicken thighs. Their flavor and general easy of grilling have won me over. Unlike chicken breast, if you lave these on for a minute or two too long, they will still be juicy and taste great. This recipe is another easy but very flavorful way to grill chicken. You can put the meat on skewers or just grill the chicken thighs straight on the grill.

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Rotisserie Chicken Thai Curry

There are times when a rotisserie chicken, or leftover chicken, makes for delicious leftovers. This recipe is one of those times. Personally, I don't like rotisserie chicken on day 2, but if it's made like this recipe, you'll wish you had more chicken to use up. You can use this recipe as a guide and use whatever vegetables you have at home.

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Sheet Pan Szechuan Chicken and Brussels Sprouts

Once I discovered how easy sheet pan dinners are, I've added a couple more to my rotation. This one is the newest addition and is just as easy as the rest. The flavor is fantastic and with a little planning ahead, makes for a quick dinner.

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Sheet Pan Chicken Tikka

Having an easy sheet pan dinner in the weeknight cooking rotation is always a good call. This one is one of my favorites so far with a great Indian flavor and veggies cooked to a perfect level of doneness. Smitten Kitchen does it again with this recipe! And if you're lucky enough to have leftovers it's even better the next day.

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Ina Garten's Skillet-Roasted Lemon Chicken

The more Ina Garten recipes I make, the more I realize she is always publishing the best recipes. I have said it before, but I have yet to make and Ina recipe I don't enjoy. This chicken was no exception. Because you butterfly the chicken, it cooks much more quickly than a traditional whole chicken so it can easily become a weeknight dinner favorite. While the chicken is roasting, you can prep any other dishes you want to serve with the chicken.

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Leftover Turkey or Chicken Enchiladas

It's not an uncommon thing for me to have leftover chicken in my fridge after a lazy rotisserie chicken dinner or roasting chicken at home. I first found this recipe after Thanksgiving, when here was a plethora of leftover turkey but nobody wanted to eat plain turkey anymore. But it works great with any leftover poultry. Or you can buy a rotisserie chicken and make this recipe for a quick dinner.

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Za'atar Grilled Chicken

This summer I have discovered the wonderful world of Middle Eastern spice mixes. If you love grilling but don't always have the time or energy to come up with homemade seasoning, these  mixes are the way to go. I recently purchased Baharat and Za'atar spice mixes at World Market and they are a BBQ game changer. You can mix the spice mixes with some olive oil and use that as a marinade. In this recipe, lemon and garlic are added for an extra layer of flavor. This takes about 5 minutes to put together and received rave reviews last time I made it.

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Easy Chicken Quesadillas

I had some leftover rotisserie chicken at home and wanted to make something with the leftovers since I'm never a fan of reheated rotisserie. I often go from my green chile and chicken enchiladas but wanted to try something new. I found this recipe and had everything on hand already. This is a very easy recipe and leftovers can be reheated in a toaster over the next day for an equally great meal. Serve with your favorite condiments, such as guacamole, salsa and sour cream.

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Garlic Mustard Glazed Chicken

My sister had made this recipe a while back and we more or less inhaled this chicken. This is a delicious, easy dinner that can be prepared ahead of time and grilled later. The marinade packs more flavor than I anticipated and it was a great surprise when I first tried it. I've since added this recipe to my rotation of summer dinner and I am sure it would taste great broiled as well. The original recipe calls for chicken skewers, but I take the easy way out and just use the marinade on chicken thighs.

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Italian Sausage with Peppers and Onions

I recently had a backyard barbecue where (as usual) I had too much food. I threw a few things in the freezer and decided I wanted to make something with the Italian sausages I had left over. They were the Trader Joe's chicken Sicilian sausages and they worked great in this dish. I always loved peppers and sausage  and this recipe is very easy, hard to mess up and the leftovers are still delicious. I had 2 red peppers at home when I made this, but feel free to use whatever variety you prefer.

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Shawarma Marinated Grilled Chicken

Grilling season is officially in full force and I have been looking for some new recipe ideas for quick weeknight dinners. I pretty much love all Middle Eastern and Mediterranean flavored food and started looking for a chicken shawarma marinade. This one is a delicious option. I only had time to let everything marinate for about 45 minutes and it was still delicious. I made this with grilled veggies and a salad. But I have also served it with pita, hummus and zhoug (a spicier Middle Easter green chili sauce). This would also be great with a yogurt sauce with some garlic and seasoning. I pretty much always grill chicken thighs, but feel free to use whatever cut you prefer.

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Lighter Chicken Korma

I absolutely love Indian cooking and am a huge fan of anything with a sauce that can be poured over rice or mopped up with naan. Traditional Indian recipes tend to be on the heavier side with lots of cream or butter. I found this recipe and decided to give it a try. It's not as rich as a traditional korma, but the flavors are fantastic and this is a great recipe for the days you want Indian food with a lighter approach.

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Greek Style Chicken Souvlaki Bowl

I always enjoy "bowls" as a dinner option since you get your protein, starch and veggies in one place. I haven't been making them lately, but recently went looking for a souvlaki bowl recipe. If you've never had souvlaki, it's originally Greek dish, which means the marinade is fresh and flavorsome. This recipe is really only "souvlaki" like in that the chicken is marinated in Greek flavors and there's a tzatziki style sauce involved, along with fresh tomatoes and cucumbers. This is a great and easy to make dish and the leftovers taste just as good.

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