Winstead Wandering

Prone to Wander

Easy Instant Pot Seasoned Chicken

by

Did you know you can make Easy Instant Pot Seasoned Chicken? It’s great for eating as-is, but it’s also wonderful for using in recipes or freezing for later!

Did you know you can make Easy Instant Pot Seasoned Chicken? It's great for eating as-is, but it's also wonderful for using in recipes or freezing for later!

It took me a long time — like, nearly a year — to really find a groove with my Instant Pot. I just didn’t take the time to figure it out. Even during that time, though, I was still using it regularly to make chicken.

We eat a lot of shredded chicken. While we rarely have it as a main dish, I use it often as a condiment of sorts, an ingredient in our meal, like these Baked Green Chile Chicken Taquitos. You’ll almost always find a container of seasoned shredded chicken in our fridge for use in recipes or just for whipping up a chicken and cheese quesadilla.

You might also like: Honey Balsamic Chicken Marinade

In the last year, all of that chicken has been prepared in the Instant Pot. Here’s the beauty of Easy Instant Pot Seasoned Chicken: it’s easy (I know, I said that already), it’s flavorful, it’s fast, and it’s totally customizable. I love that I don’t have to tend the chicken like I would if it was cooking on the stovetop, and it’s ready much faster than if I baked it. The pressure-cooking of the Instant Pot seals in the flavor, and I swap out spices to develop any profile I’d like.

Did you know you can make Easy Instant Pot Seasoned Chicken? It's great for eating as-is, but it's also wonderful for using in recipes or freezing for later!

[Read more…]

How to Make Frozen Fries Taste Good

by

How to make frozen fries taste good: with a couple ingredients and few minutes of work, you can transform bland frozen fries into a side dish even grown-ups will want to eat.

How to make frozen fries taste good: with a couple ingredients and few minutes of work, you can transform bland frozen fries into a side dish even grown-ups will want to eat.

One of our favorite easy weeknight meals- heavy emphasis on the easy– is grilled sandwiches. Somehow, you can take an ordinary sandwich with ordinary bread and ordinary toppings, slather the outside with butter, toss it in a skillet to toast both sides, and suddenly everyone thinks you’ve made a creative meal.

One of the bigger challenges with that scenario, though- because we all know there’s nothing challenging about the sandwich-making process- is what to serve the sandwich with. Many of our preferred side dishes, even the easy ones, require more work than I’m usually willing to put in on a grilled sandwich kind of night. On those nights, I often turn to frozen fries.

We almost always have a bag of these guys in our freezer. We don’t eat them more than once every several weeks, but they’re just too easy to not have on hand. J doesn’t much care how they’re prepared, or what, if any, extra love goes into them, but I do. I just can’t quite get on board with the throw-on-a-baking-sheet-and-call-it-good version, even when the theme of the evening is easy.

My mom taught me this insanely clever trick for making frozen fries taste good. I don’t know that you could call this a recipe, but I’m putting it out there for those who prefer to have precise instructions to follow. My go-to seasoning for frozen fries is seasoned salt (because I love potatoes + Lawry’s), but I also enjoy any combination of garlic, Parmesan cheese, and Italian seasoning. You could really spice things up by trying chili powder, cumin, or paprika.

How to make frozen fries taste good: with a couple ingredients and few minutes of work, you can transform bland frozen fries into a side dish even grown-ups will want to eat.

[Read more…]

Easy Weeknight Cheesy Garlic Baked Chicken

by

Chicken is tossed in an easy garlic butter and coated with Parmesan and cheddar cheeses, spices, and crispy bread crumbs and then baked until tender and full of flavor.

Chicken is tossed in an easy garlic butter and coated with Parmesan and cheddar cheeses, spices, and crispy bread crumbs and then baked until tender and full of flavor.

Because I’m all about easy weeknight meals, and because frugality is just a way of life for us, we often don’t have meat as the primary ingredient in our dinners. Sure, almost all of our favorite recipes include meat- like chicken tacos or sausage and tortellini– but it isn’t the only component.

Frugality aside, I often avoid preparing a protein as a main dish because it can be time-consuming. I’m all about quick and easy, and trimming, marinating, and cooking larger pieces of meat isn’t my idea of an easy weeknight meal. Every once in a while I’m willing to break the rules for a recipe that promises to taste great and require minimal effort

These cheesy garlic baked chicken tenders fit that bill one hundred percent. The prep was minimal, and could be reduced even further if you chose to use jarred minced garlic. As the butter melts and soaks up the garlic flavor, all you have to do is toss the rest of the ingredients together. Because this recipe uses chicken tenders, there’s no trimming required. Simply bread the chicken and it’s ready to bake. Prepare an easy vegetable, like pan-fried romaine lettuce, while the chicken cooks and you’ll be ready to eat in less than 30 minutes.

J is a huge lover of all things meat and poultry. He’s always willing to taste test my chicken recipes. The thing is, though, he’s a dipper; he dips nearly all his chicken and beef in ketchup. So for me, the true sign of an amazing recipe- not just a good one- is when J claims there’s no dipping sauce necessary. That’s exactly what happened with these cheesy garlic baked chicken tenders: I offered ketchup, but he took one bite of the chicken and declared it unnecessary.

It isn’t hard to see why. This chicken is bathed in garlic butter for an immediate infusion of flavor. It’s tossed right in the dish of crunchy Panko to get coated with crispy bread crumbs, plenty of spices, and two different types of cheese. It’s baked until the coating is crispy and the cheese is melted, making for a full flavor experience in every bite. While J and I agree these are perfect on their own, they’d also be great dipped in homemade ranch or your favorite marinara sauce.

Do you eat gluten-free? I found gluten-free panko bread crumbs! You can safely enjoy this dish without sacrificing that signature crunch.

[Read more…]

Bacon Cheddar Ranch Chicken Roll-Ups

by

Bacon cheddar ranch chicken roll-ups are tortillas spread with cream cheese and crammed with chicken, shredded cheese, crisp bacon, and creamy ranch dressing. They’re perfect for a party or a snack-y supper.

Bacon cheddar ranch chicken roll-ups are tortillas spread with cream cheese and crammed with chicken, shredded cheese, crisp bacon, and creamy ranch dressing. They're perfect for a party or a snack-y supper.

This recipe has so much going for it.

Let’s start with the fact that it doesn’t involve any cooking (if you cook and shred large batches of chicken and freeze them in one- or two-cup portions, which I do and I recommend you do, too). The bacon can be zapped in the microwave to save time and minimize mess. The fact that this recipe comes together so easily without the need for a stove or oven makes it a perfect easy weeknight meal for hot summer days. Don’t worry, I’m thoroughly enjoying the January weather right now, but as a Mississippian, I’m always thinking of ways to beat the summer heat.

The other thing I love about this recipe is how easy it is to make changes and swap ingredients based on your taste preferences and what you have on hand. I used ranch dressing- duh, it’s in the title- but I imagine they’d be delicious with Caesar or even Italian dressing. Nearly any kind of cheese you have on hand would be acceptable, and you could even get away with omitting the bacon (but why would you?).

These little guys freeze great, making them a great option for a freezer recipe, and they’re sure to be a hit at any party or potluck you bring them to. With the bacon and the cheese, they pretty much sell themselves.

Do you love this wooden slab as much as I do? You can get a super similar one here.

Bacon cheddar ranch chicken roll-ups are tortillas spread with cream cheese and crammed with chicken, shredded cheese, crisp bacon, and creamy ranch dressing. They're perfect for a party or a snack-y supper.

[Read more…]

Easy Weeknight Sausage and Potato Skillet

by

Hearty sausage and potatoes come together with the vegetables of your choice to make an easy, crowd-pleasing weeknight meal. Plus, you’ve got to check out the mouthwatering breakfast-for-dinner recipe you can make with this leftover sausage and potato skillet.

Hearty sausage and potatoes come together with the vegetables of your choice to make an easy, crowd-pleasing weeknight meal. Plus, you've got to check out the mouthwatering breakfast-for-dinner recipe you can make with this leftover sausage and potato skillet.

When I’m looking for or brainstorming easy dinner recipes to make for my family, there are few different things that will make me stop and take notice. First and foremost, I’m always on the lookout for easy weeknight meals. I don’t want complicated ingredients or dozens of steps. Sure, there are times I enjoy more involved recipes, but weeknights aren’t one of those times.

If a recipe can be made using one pot only, I’ll definitely give it a second look. I hate making a twenty minute meal and then spending just as long on clean-up. If the process can be streamlined by using the fewest pots and utensils, I’m much more likely to consider trying it.

Lastly, I love when leftovers lend themselves to a recipe redo. For example, I almost use leftover chicken and salsa from easy weeknight chicken tacos to make nachos or quesadillas. The ingredients may be similar, but the flavors and textures are different enough to feel like a new meal. What I especially love about this recipe is how a hearty dinner becomes an easy, filling breakfast.

As you might can imagine, this sausage and potato skillet recipe checked off all the above boxes for me. It’s ready in less than 30 minutes, and it requires only one pot. You could easily speed up the prep process by using two skillets and cooking the sausage and potatoes at the same time, but I prefer to use the cooking time of one ingredient to prep the next.

Hearty sausage and potatoes come together with the vegetables of your choice to make an easy, crowd-pleasing weeknight meal. Plus, you've got to check out the mouthwatering breakfast-for-dinner recipe you can make with this leftover sausage and potato skillet.

The round two sausage and potato skillet recipe is super simple. Just add salsa, a little shredded cheese, and a fried egg to a serving of the original recipe and you’re good to go! This would obviously make a quick and filling breakfast, but it’d also me a crowd-pleasing way to serve these leftovers for supper. Basically, when you take a recipe that was delicious to begin with, add the trifecta of cheese, salsa, and an oozing egg, you can’t go wrong.

[Read more…]