Welcome back, friends. I have been living it up in Milwaukee the past few days (j/k, actually just working) & engaging in such wild activities as having a beer at the Harley Davidson bar, eating some REALLY good food (one restaurant had a bottle of wine from a tiny little winery I actually visited in Galicia, Spain, back in June??? Wild!), and doing a little shakeout run along Lake Michigan.
Now I am home for one day, trying to relax and rest up before our masters team heads up to Sacramento on Saturday for Sunday's USATF 10-Mile Masters National Championship. (I will not be running fast BUT my right ankle has been doing a-ok, so I'll be very happy just to get a double-digit run under my belt for the first time since Victory Half over a month ago now.)
I know you have been waiting with bated breath for your next visit to The Road Warrior Kitchen, so let's dive right in. Today, we're talking sautéed chicken breast.
Sautéed Chicken Breast, Solved!
First things first: If you don't eat meat or chicken, don't @ me, I can only please all of the people some of the time. Chicken does seem to be one of the more universal meats, though, and while chicken breast is a go-to for many athletes for the high protein and low fat and cholesterol, it can also be one of the more, well, bland options. I'm here to fix that for you.
Let us talk about protein or "prots" as I like to call them. You know you should get a solid supply every day, especially if you're an athlete. For athletes, a good rule of thumb is 0.8-1 gram per day per pound of lean body mass. For me this is ~88-110 grams per day so I usually mentally ballpark it around 90-100 grams. That's a large number and I am not even a particularly large person. (There is conflicting evidence re: the exact amount someone needs and of course it depends quite a lot on your activity level and type of activity, but 0.8g per pound of lean body mass is a pretty safe number to shoot for and 1 gram per pound is almost *certainly* safe for all but those with the most extreme protein needs.)
Of all the macros, protein is maybe the one that is hardest for a lot of folks to get right because it's somewhat less easily accessible than fat and carbs. If all else fails you can almost *always* find some source of carbs and/or fat that will get you through the day whereas sometimes protein requires a bit more hunting/planning. (Raise your hand if you've ever snagged egg white bites from Starbucks or grabbed the airport "Protein Pack" with its sad boiled egg and handful of stale nuts.)
If I'm going to have a Macro Failure Event, it's almost always going to be on the protein side. Circa 2015 when I had a few sessions with a sports nutritionist, a good strategy I learned is best summed up as "See if you can get into the habit of eating mostly the same thing for breakfast, lunch, & snacks most of the time" so you don't have to think or make decisions as often; you've already done all the nutrition math so all you have to do is make or order the thing and consume it.
This is what I started doing around that time when I was working at my Redwood City office a lot. The deli next door had a huge kale salad with veggies and beans that came with a nice little rectangle of focaccia, so I started just ordering that for lunch every day with two sides of pesto chicken, ie two little tubs of seasoned roast chicken breast cut up into tiny cubes in a bit of pesto dressing. Stir it all together with the salad, and boom! A big nutritious lunch loaded up with veggies and protein, plus beans and bread for a solid hit of carbs and a bit of tasty fat in the form of pesto. If I was in the office, that's what I had for lunch almost without exception.
Working full time at home starting in March 2020 kind of threw things off for me. Like many other people, I was having trouble "preparing" "healthful" "meals", and honestly kind of didn't care with the Apocalypse Plague threatening to kill everyone and everything else that was going on. A lot of time our lunches were called "What is in the fridge and edible with the least amount of time and effort?" Like everyone else, we were just surviving, and that was fine, under the circumstances.
In 2021, I had my mental health a bit more together and had some extra bandwidth to start paying more attention to what I was eating. (This was especially important as, post-vaccination, I was once again lifting heavy weights a fairly consistent two days per week.) When I got back to for-reals training in January 2022, I put some real effort into thinking about how I could simplify my nutrition while working from home, ideally by removing the decision-making process; ultimately what I settled on for lunch was sautéed chicken breast, hummus, feta cheese, and chopped cucumber (or, failing cucumber, a handful of arugula/kale/spinach).
Part of how this is works is that I buy bulk chicken breast and try to always have a supply in the freezer. A couple times a week, I thaw a pack and sauté it up so that I always have precooked, precut chicken bits for my lunch or whatever else I need it for. (Bonus, I can also throw it onto a salad or soup if I need a quick dinner & don't have any other protein option readily available.)
Now, if you hear the phrase "chicken breast" and your taste buds instantly shrivel up, I don't blame you. A lot of us have been traumatized by dry, bland, flavorless chicken in the past and can be forgiven for feeling hesitant to try again.
That said, I'd encourage you to give this method a shot. It's the quickest way I know to turn raw chicken breast into a moist, delicious, flavorful meal building block with endless flexibility. I bid you put your fear aside and join me on this culinary adventure.
Step 1:
You're going to need some raw chicken breasts (or tenders, but I find that breasts fit more efficiently in my pan than tenders, which inevitably seem to involve two batches for the same amount of chicken). The method I am explaining here is tried and true for the boneless, skinless variety; I'm not saying it wouldn't work for other types of chicken breasts, just that I haven't tried it so I can go to bat for what happens if YOU try it. (But if you do, let me know what you learn!)
I am a little picky about meat so this is the one I get, or, when I can, I get the butcher to just wrap a bunch in paper for me in order to try to avoid the plastic waste.
Depending on how long your stove takes to heat up a pan, you may want to get it started warming before you prep the chicken. I usually turn my pan on medium heat first (say 5 out of 9), prep the chicken, then turn it up to medium-high when I'm almost ready to put the chicken on. (Our cook top goes from 1 to 9 and I do my chicken on 6.5.) You will know your pan is hot enough because if you splash a bit of water in it, the water will sizzle & bounce around in tiny little balls.
Your chicken prep starts by removing your chicken from the package and patting all the pieces dry with paper towels. Do not skip this step -- when you brown solid meat without patting it dry first, it can end up releasing a lot of water into the pan and suddenly you're boiling/poaching your meat rather than browning it and we want to minimize this.
Next, season the pieces on one side with salt and pepper. You may have to calibrate exactly how much salt & pepper you prefer, but just know that it's the salt that will give the cooked chicken a lot of its flavor, so don't feel like you need to skimp. I've cut down on the pepper in recent months because I like to be able to add other spicy elements later and if there's already a lot of pepper sometimes it can be a bit much.
Step 2:
When your stove is hot, add a couple of tablespoons of a neutral, high-heat oil to your hot pain. (If you put oil in a cold pan, you're just giving the oil molecules more time to break down and form long, sticky polymers that can potentially alter the taste of your food. Waiting to add the oil until you're ready to cook puts this off as long as possible)
Glad you asked. We are cooking our chicken at fairly high heat so if you use an oil with a low smoke point (such as almond or olive oil or many unrefined oils), you are going to end up burning your oil which is arguably bad for you and also tastes gross. (Not to mention the disaster you will make of your pan and potentially smoking yourself out of your kitchen.)
- High-heat oils (such as grapeseed, canola, safflower, or refined avocado/sunflower/peanut oil) have a much higher smoke point (~400°F and up) so aren't going to break down and get disgusting while we sauté our chicken. Here's a handy chart with more info about which oils are good for what type of cooking at which temperatures. Here's another good one. Wikipedia has an even more complete and detailed table.
- A neutral oil is just one that doesn't have a strong flavor. Olive oil for example has a fairly strong flavor which is why it's great for salad dressing and dipping bread. So does avocado oil and many unrefined oils (think coconut). We are trying to make chicken that both tastes really good and can be used as a basic building block for a lot of different meals and dishes, so in this case we're looking for something that will let other flavors shine through (such as canola, grapeseed, safflower, or sunflower oil).
For sautéing chicken, I often find myself reaching for canola or safflower since they meet both of these requirements.)
Now, wait for the oil to get hot. You'll know the oil is hot because it will shimmer a bit and sizzle if you flick water into it. (Seriously, don't put cold meat in cold oil--let the oil heat up first. Here's a good explainer about why.) Once the oil is hot, arrange the chicken in the pan, seasoned side down, & set a timer for 10 minutes. (Be sure to turn on your hood.) While the first side is cooking, season the other side with salt & pepper.
(Sidenote: I say 10 minutes because that is plenty of time for most chicken breasts to get a nice sear on one side. But sometimes you get a thinner one & you'll see that these start to cook through a bit quicker than larger pieces. In that event, it is fine to turn them over early & let the other side cook through. Sometimes particularly tiny pieces get to temperature with just a few minutes of searing on each side. If you check the temp and they hit 155-60°F, you can go ahead and pull them off and let them rest. This also may be the case with chicken tenders -- 4-5 minutes may be fine.)
Step 3:
Set your timer for another 10 minutes, BUT know that you are now cooking for temperature. We are looking for ~155-160°F when dealing with chicken. (The minimum safe temperature for cooking chicken is 165°F, and if you get it close to 160°F on the stove, it will come up those last few degrees when you pull them off to rest.) A ThermaPen will make any kind of temperature-sensitive cooking you do an absolute breeze & is worth every penny.
If you have thinner pieces, you can start checking them around 6 minutes -- just be sure to slowly move the ThermaPen all the way through the thickest part of the meat so you can be sure the whole thing has gotten to temperature. Thicker pieces will probably take closer to the full 8-10 minutes, and sometimes I get super thick pieces that take a bit longer. Just look for that 155-160° mark.
While the chicken is cooking on the second side, I like to get a plastic cutting board out & get it ready for the cooked pieces.
**Pro-tip** You can get away with cooked meat on a wooden cutting board as long as you clean it well but I have no patience for that so use plastic for cutting my chicken which can go in the dishwasher. Don't ever place raw meat on a wooden cutting board. If raw meat goes on a cutting board, the only reliably safe way to get it completely clean is to run it through a dishwasher, which is not a place your wooden cutting board should ever go unless you really like throwing money away replacing wooden cutting boards. Use plastic, and put that plastic *immediately* in the dishwasher or follow these handy instructions from TheKitchn.
Step 4:
This step can be challenging, but if you can manage it, let your chicken rest for 5-10 minutes, then cut into your preferred shape (cubes or strips, probably, but hey! It's your world!). Store in a tupperware in the fridge for up to 3-5 days.
4 ounces of chicken in my lunch is ~31g of prots, which makes a nice dent in that 90-100g per day. And if we find ourselves feeling lazy with no real dinner plan? Some pre-cooked chicken on a chopped veggie salad with some beans tossed in will definitely keep us fed for the night.
That's all for today, see you next time in The Road Warrior Kitchen!
In Case You Missed It:
Chopped Veggies in Dressing
You Are Invited to The Road Warrior Kitchen!
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