Since Jay and I have been trying to eat healthier, we’ve been making a more conscious effort to eat at home more often. We eat a lot of eggs/egg whites for breakfast and a lot of tuna for lunch, which has led me to discover the gloriousness of putting hot sauce on everything (yeah, it’s even awesome in tuna!). Our weeknight dinners tend to be the Costco salmon with spinach salad and some form of either chicken or shrimp with veggies or a whole grain quinoa/rice mixture we get from Target’s Simply Balanced line. We’ve also done turkey sausage and peppers and we still make the Tex Mex Stuffed Peppers (Zach’s favorite!!), only with less cheese on Jay’s, since cheese has a lot of Weight Watcher’s points and Jay gets a lot fewer points than I do (because I’m nursing). I’ve saved a bunch of the better recipes to make posts about them, so stay tuned.
Anyways (ding), we’re constantly on the lookout for healthy meals that are low in Weight Watchers points. Big shout out to Mandi for sending me a link to a website that has some great recipes. I also turned to Pinterest and found this recipe for a balsamic chicken pan bake that looked intriguing. I modified it a bit to fit our family’s tastes, but I’d still put it at around 6-7 Weight Watchers points in total, and that’s honestly overshooting it. The only thing in this meal that has points is the balsamic dressing and the extra virgin olive oil. Another plus is that this is gluten-free and dairy-free.
Jay told me that it’s his favorite thing I’ve made so far. I made four pieces of chicken. Jay and Zach liked it so much that they split the last piece. I regret not making more so there would be leftovers.
Here’s the way that I made it:
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup of balsamic vinegar
- 1/3 cup of olive oil
- Chopped broccoli
- 3 peeled medium carrots, cut into sticks
- Green beans
- Sliced red/yellow/orange peppers
- 1 small red onion, diced* (I bought the onion but totally forgot to cut it. I’m going to use it next time!)
- Minced garlic (to taste)
- 3-4 tbsp. of finely chopped fresh basil
- 1 tsp. fresh thyme (1/2 tsp. dried)
- Sea Salt (to taste)
- Pepper (to taste)
INSTRUCTIONS
- Preheat oven to 400℉.
- Combine the balsamic vinegar, EVOO, garlic, basil, thyme, salt, and pepper. Whisk to make a sauce.
- Place chicken in zip-lock bag with 2 spoonfuls of the balsamic sauce. Toss and move chicken breast around to coat. Set in fridge to marinate for however long you want it to (I did 2 hours).
- Chop veggies.
- Place veggies on the sheet pan. Pour remaining balsamic sauce over veggies and toss veggies to coat.
- Remove chicken from the zip-lock bag. Put chicken on the same pan as the veggies.
- Bake for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, remove from oven toss veggies. Place back into the oven.
- Bake for an additional 7-10 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. This will depend on the thickness of the chicken and your oven.
- Remove from oven and enjoy!
