Tuscan Chicken Recipe from Hellmann’s

This week’s Chicken Change Up topic is near and dear to my heart.  Budget friendly recipes! I was excited to try their recipe for Tuscan Glazed Chicken because the flavor combination looked absolutely perfect.  While they didn’t give us a price breakdown, I immediately saw some ways to make this moist and flavorful chicken recipe even more budget friendly. The first, and biggest way to make their recipe more affordable is to make your own roasted red peppers.  Well, how perfect that I just happened to have posted a nifty little infographic on roasting your own peppers earlier this week.  Okay, yes, I totally planned it!  But it really can save you as much as two dollars on this one recipe just by roasting your own peppers.  It takes a little more time, but you can even roast a few red peppers at the beginning of the week and then keep them refrigerated until you’re ready for them.

The next big way to save money on this will have some people completely disagreeing with me.  I’ve even had a woman in cooking class stomp her feet at me at the mere suggestion.  But it’s a valid suggestion, so hear me out.

Cut your boneless skinless breasts in half.

That’s right.  Give everyone half of the chicken breast.  I’m sure a lot of you already do this, but in a lot of my classes, this is an earth shattering suggestion.

“But, that’s not enough food!  My husband/son/third cousin twice removed will starve on just half a chicken breast!  There would be an uprising in my house!”  Yes, I’ve heard it all.  But here’s the thing (I always feel like Adrian Monk when I say that), half of that boneless skinless chicken breast in your freezer, makes a whole serving.  A serving of meat or protein is 3 oz.  So the problem is not that you (or your starving family member) need a full giant chicken breast, but that you need to get your other food groups to be more filling.

This is where vegetables and whole grains with lots of fiber come in.  They fill you up faster and help you stay full longer.  We each ate our half of a chicken breast with a fluffy salad of spring greens and a pile of couscous tossed with cucumbers, tomatoes and olives.  The whole dinner came out to around $2 a person and was plenty filling.

Don’t forget to check out the Chicken Change Up on Facebook.

You’ll find tons of easy chicken recipes, tips, and videos from Celebrity Chef Tim Love. There are also daily giveaways and an awesome $5000 grand prize grocery store gift card!

So what are your thoughts on boneless skinless chicken breasts?  1 per person, half per person?  Or do you even use them?