I wasn’t sure if my grilled chicken caprese could get any better- but you guys. It did.
We got a new puppy this week and holy. hell. I haven’t had a puppy in 10 years. I figured that I thought it was hard then because I hadn’t had a kid yet. This round should be a piece of cake right? Wrong. I mean kids are hard, but a puppy is hard in totally different ways. He loves to chew on everything (including me) and has needle teeth of death. After a number of sleepless nights and cleaning way too much pee off rugs I was not interested in spending more than 10 minutes in the kitchen last night.
So I took our Grilled Caprese Chicken leftovers out of the fridge and chopped them up- ALL of it. Cheese, balsamic glaze, basil, chicken. I used every piece. I snagged some leftover basil, tomatoes, arugula and mozzarella and added those into the mix. Then I cooked up some angel hair pasta and tossed it all together with a bit of olive oil, and some balsamic vinegar. Fun fact- did you know that you can use the cooking water from noodles to help your olive oil go further and still have a ton of flavor? It’s such an effortless way to cut fat and not flavor. It literally took under 15 minutes to put a dinner together that I had to tell myself I couldn’t go get thirds of. It was just THAT good. It’s funny how some of my creations come out of necessity. But isn’t that what they say? Necessity is the mother of invention. It’s just as true in the kitchen.
Servings: 6-8
Hands on Time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 15 minutes
Ingredients:
Leftover Grilled Caprese Chicken recipe, chopped
16 oz angel hair pasta (use Banza chickpea spaghetti or linguine for a boost of protein)
1-2 sprigs basil, cut into strips
1 large tomato diced, or 1 C cherry tomatoes, or a can of drained diced tomatoes
2-4 T balsamic vinegar
4 slices of pre sliced fresh mozzarella (like Belgioioso), chopped OR 1 C shredded mozzarella cheese if you don’t have any leftover from the grilled chicken recipe.
1 T olive oil
1 T balsamic glaze
Directions:
- Bring a large pot of salted water to boil then cook pasta according to package directions, but check for doneness a minute or two before the suggested cooking time.
- While pasta cooks, heat up tomatoes and chicken leftovers in a medium frying pan (or the microwave. I don’t judge).
- Turn off burner and drain the pasta, saving 1 cup of the pasta water.
- Add pasta back into the large pot, along with pasta water, olive oil, chopped leftover chicken recipe, basil, tomatoes and cheese. Add balsamic vinegar to taste. Toss pasta to mix and coat the noodles. If you have some arugula or spinach laying around, you can add it into this mix to get an extra layer of flavor and nutrients! I used some arugula and it was great.
- Serve topped with additional basil and a drizzle of balsamic glaze.
Living the High Life 