I have made this recently for friend’s coming over for lunch, it’s so simple to put together, packs so much flavour but no effort whatsoever. I have thyme growing in pots on the patio and I always have a lemon, there would be something amiss in my kitchen if I didn’t have a lemon. The words of my friend Gill come to mind with this recipe, when she commented how sometimes there’s just too many ingredients in a recipe, well I think this fits the bill. This is perfect for this time of year, grill it, bbq, pan fry it, whatever takes your fancy. Makes for a good salad and I always make sure I cook more than enough in order for leftovers, makes great pack lunch.
Unless it’s very hot I will leave it to marinade for 2 hours at room temperature, that’s plenty of time, because if left much longer the lemon juice starts to ‘cook’ the chicken and makes it tough. The best way to marinate it if you want to do it overnight is to leave out the lemon juice, use the lemon rind and then just sprinkle the juice over the chicken just before cooking it or while it’s on the pan.
I’ve cut the chicken breasts here into thick strips but I’ve also made leaving the breast whole but opening it up by cutting almost through horizontally and opening the breast like an envelope, making it thinner and quicker to cook it. This would also be perfect for using boneless thighs. Oh yes, almost forgot but it’s also fat free, if you’re into that sort of thing…
Lemon & Thyme Chicken
4 chicken breast boneless but preferably with skin on, cut into large strips
1 large unwaxed lemon, rind and juice
1-2 tablespoon of fresh thyme leaves striped from the stalks
Two large pinches of salt
Mix all of the ingredients together marinade it for up to 2 hours at room temperature or in the fridge for 6 hours. If marinading for longer leave out the lemon juice until cooking the chicken.
Grill, pan fry, or bbq it. Look at notes below on grilling it.
You can see from the above photo how after 2 hours of the chicken marinating at room temperature, the lemon juice is turning some of the meat a white colour, you don’t want to leave it much longer than that.
My favourite way of cooking it is either grill it on a cast iron grilled pan or bbq. The reason it’s a good idea to leave the skin on is so you put skin side down on the pan. I leave it to grill it with the skin side down far longer than on the other side, that way the skin crisps up and it will help to maintain the chicken moist.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
The chicken looks very tasty, I often do a similar marinade with pork and love the freshness of it
Very good idea using it on pork, one of my favourite meat….
What a lovely flavoursome recipe, Azélia! Thyme has to be one of my favourite herbs and I always have it growing in pots. It will be good either served warm or cold with a salad.
I love thyme with chicken Renée.