It’s the holidays! Get ready to break your diets and eat a ton of comfort foods and sweets! Here is a lighter recipe that has only a little bit of guilt involved, make sure to pan fry in coconut oil to cut down on that guilt. Plus, this lemon chicken is super easy to make and only uses 4 ingredients! The less ingredients, the better! My favorite way to serve this chicken is over a Mediterranean style salad and you can add or take out whatever you want in the salad to make it your own. I made this recipe for the first time a couple of months ago and now this is one of Pete’s favorite meals and he is constantly requesting this for dinner.

I also use an amazing, homemade salad dressing. This is one of the few times you will find me using olive oil. Olive oil is a great oil to use for salad dressings, but not so great for cooking. Whereas coconut oil is just the opposite… it is the best oil for cooking, especially high heat cooking, and not so great for salads. If I could I would use coconut oil on my salads, unfortunately coconut oil hardens when it is below 76 degrees and I would prefer my salad dressing to be liquid and not harden on my cold salad.

A light dinner will give you a nice break just in time for the holiday parties to start.

Lemon Chicken Breast & Salad

Serves 2

Lemon Chicken Breast

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Juice of 2 lemons

1/3-2/3 cup flour

Kelapo Coconut Oil

Cut chicken breasts into short strips (like in picture). Marinate chicken breasts in large bowl in lemon juice for 30 minutes, can do overnight. Add coconut oil to large pan until bottom of pan is covered (about ½ inch of oil). Heat oil over high heat. Add flour slowly to bowl of chicken and lemon juice. Add a little bit at a time, then stir until you have a thick batter that is slightly thicker than a pancake batter. Once oil is heated add chicken strips to pan, may have to cook in 2-3 batches depending on size of pan. Cook 5-7 minutes or until browned (see picture) then flip and cook other side until browned. Remove from pan and place on paper towels to drain.

Homemade Greek Style Salad Dressing

(Makes enough dressing to cover salad recipe below)

3/4 cup olive oil

1/4 – 1/3 cup red wine vinegar (depending on how much vinegar you like)

1/2 teaspoon sugar

3/4 tablespoon oregano

3/4 tablespoon basil

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 tablespoon onion powder

1/2 tablespoon fresh minced garlic clove

1/4 cup parmesan cheese

1/4-1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper

Add all ingredients to bowl and whisk until mixed thoroughly. Can make ahead of time and let sit on counter or in fridge for up to two hours to enhance flavors.

Salad

2 heads of romaine lettuce, chopped

2 vine-ripened tomatoes, diced

1 red pepper, sliced

½ large, sweet onion, sliced

Croutons

Add all ingredients to large bowl and top with homemade salad dressing from above. The above ingredients are what we had to hand in our refrigerator. Feel free to add anything you want to make it your own. The salad dressing above will taste amazing with just about any salad. Top salad with lemon chicken, serve with some crusty French bread and enjoy! Check out some more of Pete’s favorite Greek dishes made with coconut oil.

–              Jen