Poached Chicken Breast

This is such an easy, yet underutilized, technique for cooking a skinless boneless chicken breast. At least it's underutilized by me. 

I happen to enjoy pounding a piece of chicken to a flat, rollable, thin veneer with my fist. 

This is the end result! Not bad for a few punches and a little time wrapped in plastic and simmered in water. 

If you are striving to eat a lean diet this is a perfect way to cook chicken. Lean chicken breasts tend to be dry if not treated carefully...I really loathe dry chicken. 

I have posted in several day because we spent about 6 days eating out at least 1 or 2 times a day. The first few times it's really fun. Then, reality sets in. I need more green food...I need less salt...I need to know what in the world I am eating! 

The exception would be the fantastic chicken mole enchiladas I had at a restaurant in San Antonio's Southtown. They can keep doing whatever it is they are doing. It was delicious! 

Here is how to make this moist delicious chicken breast. 

Prep and cook time:  20-25 minutes

equipment needed: a deep, straight sided saute pan or dutch oven

Step One:

Fist, pound out your chicken breast.

I place it in a plastic gallon size Ziploc bag and start pounding with a closed fist. Like an angry politician banging on their desk. (That was the first thing that came to my mind) 

You can also use a meat mallet. That's fine. I just prefer the control that I have with my hand. That seems to keep me from tearing up the chicken breast. 

You can fill with whatever you would like. I chose a tablespoon of Marscapone cheese, spinach, mushrooms, tomatoes, and just some original Mrs. Dash seasoning (I had too much salt this last week!) 

Here is what it looked like:

Step Two:

Now,  just roll it up very tight in some good plastic wrap making sure it's closed securely by twisting the ends like a candy wrapper. You will need to make sure you have a good size piece of plastic wrap for each chicken breast. 

It should look like this: 

Step Three:

Place the wrapped chicken breasts in the refrigerator until you are ready to poach. 

(This can be done up to 3 days in advance.) 

To poach: 

Bring a large deep sauté pan of water to a light boil. (That means when you start to see bubbles forming) 

Now turn it to low. Drop in your wrapped chicken, or roulades. 

On a very very low heat poach the chicken for 15 minutes. Turning once half way through poaching time to ensure all of the chicken is poached evenly. 

Remove from poaching liquid and carefully unwrap the chicken breasts form the plastic wrap. 

Slice and serve! 

You aren't obligated to stuff the chicken with anything. You can also just season, roll, wrap, and poach.

This is a quick and easy technique. Hope you try it! 

We didn't work out for several day. We walked everywhere! 

Today we got right back in to some cardio and bodyweight exercise. It was horrible and wonderful all at the same time!

Here is the link for what we did:

20 Minute Cardio HIIT and Sweat

5 Minute Ab Workout

Make sure that you warm up, cool down, and stretch to prevent injury!