RAINBOW CHICKEN KABOBS

Grilling is chilling! Especially when you can get your husband to do it. ha! Spring is here. It’s my favorite time of the year. Today, we’re grilling some chicken with a bunch of veggies. I call it Rainbow Chicken Kabobs. Look at those colors, everything is fresh, fun, healthy and yummy. For the rainbow concoction, it’s super easy. Just pick your favorite veggies in different colors and skew them with the chicken. I’m using yellow and orange bell peppers, a small zucchini, half of a red onion and half pint of cherry tomatoes. They will be good to make Frittata too, if you end up with some leftovers.

For the chicken, I like to marinade it with my (no longer) secret Asian marinade. Trust me it works, every time. It has 3 fresh garlic (minced), a teaspoon of fresh grated ginger, ¼ cup of Golden Mountain Seasoning sauce (or light soy sauce), a pinch of black pepper, 1/4 cup brown sugar and last but not least and it’s totally optional, 1 tablespoon of spicy Sriracha sauce.

Here’s a funny story. Last weekend, I tried to be creative by adding some pineapple juice to my usual Asian marinade. I was hoping to make Hawaiian chicken kabobs. I forgot to get the pineapple juice from the store so I decided to juice it myself from the fresh pineapple that we had. You know, that juicer that people juice fruit and veggies. I’ve got an Omega juicer (VRT350) and have had it for years and it’s pretty nice. Great for juicing and easy to clean. Here’s the link to Omega juicers on Amazon if you want to get one.

Anyways, back to the pineapple juice story. Yep, I went through all that because I really wanted that pineapple juice for the Hawaiian factor. Then, I let the chicken marinated for about an hour. I knew that the pineapple juice will help tenderize the chicken, but since they are small tender chicken breasts, I didn’t want to overdo it. Everything seemed to be fine, until we started grilling them, when my husband started flipping them on the grill, they started to break apart and fell off from the skewers. While watching, I panicked a little thinking… that’s odd, but they smell so good, how bad could that be. I couldn’t be more wrong. They were pretty bad. Matter of fact, THE WORST chicken I’ve ever had. The texture was so mushy and weird as my husband compared them to mash potatoes. He also got a nickname for it “salmonella chicken kabob”. I didn’t want to give up and tried to fix them by frying them in the pan. Nope, didn’t help either. So, lesson learned, don’t marinate small pieces of chicken breasts in pineapple juice. Now if they were whole breasts or wings, they will totally be fine.

So, that was lunch. Did I give up? Nope. I redid the whole thing at dinner but this time with the proper Asian marinade and everything went well. Whew…….

Now let’s cook some food!

Start with the “proper” marinade. Whisk everything in a large bowl to combine.

Here’s how I grate my ginger, with a microplane grater.

Add the chicken breasts that were cut into bite size (about 2″ chunks) to the marinade and let them sit in the fridge for about 1 hour.

Meanwhile, prep you veggies, cut them into about 2″ chunks as well. Try to make them the same size so that they will be cooked at the same time.  Look at those gorgeous colors!

About 10-15 minutes before grilling, soak the wooden skewers in water. This will prevent them from burning on the grill. A little trick I learned from watching too many cooking shows.

Take out the chicken from the fridge. Add about a tablespoon of sesame oil and mix the oil into the chicken and the marinade.

Thread on the chicken alternating with veggies on the skewers.

On a hot grill, brushed with some vegetable oil. Place the skewers on the grill rack over medium-high heat. We used our out door gas grill at 600º F and grilled for 10-12 minutes.

Turn once or twice until the chicken and veggies are cooked and have some nice grill marks.

That’s it. Enjoy!

Look at the colors. I’m obsessed!

You can serve them just like this or with some Jasmin rice or quinoa.

Hope you give these Rainbow Chicken Kabobs a try and let me know how it goes. I also would love to hear from you about your grilling tips and technique. The recipe card and comment box are below. Happy grilling!