Soy Ginger Chicken Fajitas
I’ve said before on the blog that I’m not a huge fan of most 30 minute or less recipes and with a few exceptions, I’m standing behind that. No shade to Rachael, but I just prefer to take a little bit more time with preparing my food. The longer that the spices have to cook, the more they can infuse into the ingredients and make them taste better. There are certain dishes–like braises or stews that I actually prefer to eat the next day after I’ve cooked them, just to give the flavors time to develop. I could name a few desserts that work the same way.
For the most part, it’s just better to have at least one hour of cooking time available for your dishes–better for the food and also better for your tastebuds. Now, I did say ‘for the most part’. There are exceptions to every rule.
After all, sometimes after a very long day when you come home hungry and dog tired, the last thing you probably want to do is get out a bunch of dishes and stand over a stove for a prolonged period of time just to whip up a meal. You just want to sit down and be able to eat. I get it.
A perfectly cooked and steak can (and depending on the size, should) certainly be made in thirty minutes or less. With a tasty enough sauce, most stir fries can be whipped up in 30 minutes. I can make myself a delicious egg in the basket in less than 10. I’m certainly not above browning some ground beef, using a taco seasoning packet and taco sauce to make quick tacos. And if I REALLY don’t feel like cooking, yes. I too will pick up a rotisserie chicken, shred that bad boy and mix it into a homemade salad for dinner.
And then there’s fajitas. Chicken fajitas is another one of the ‘quick meals’ we whip up around here when no one feels like doing much labor intensive cooking, but we also don’t want to order out either. I usually make huge batches of it to last a few days and we can use the meat for various types of meals: tacos, salads, sandwiches, whatever. Today’s recipe is the latest version I made for us. Normally I stick to a Latin cuisine flavor profile, but this time I switched it up a bit. Here the chicken is flavored with soy sauce, mirin, ginger and sesame oil so that they have more of an Asian flair to them.
A few things I particularly love about this: first, it doubles as both a 30 minute meal, BUT the spices have also been given plenty of time to permeate the chicken and give them plenty of flavor thanks to a marinade that they sit in overnight. The night before, mix together the marinade and place the chicken inside. The next day when you’re ready to put dinner together, all you gotta do is cook the chicken over high heat so that it cooks quickly, then give a quick saute to some onions and peppers. That’s it. Plenty of flavor to go around for what’s a pretty low effort meal. I know I don’t have to say it but I will anyway: this was really good stuff. Please do help yourself.
Linking this up to Fiesta Friday #209, co-hosted by Monika @ Everyday Healthy Recipes and Laurena @ Life Diet Health.
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Soy Ginger Chicken Fajitas
Recipe Adapted from Williams Sonoma
Ingredients
- 3 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breast
- 1 cup soy sauce
- 1 cup mirin
- 1/4 cup sesame oil
- 2 tablespoons minced garlic
- 3 tablespoons minced fresh ginger
- 1 tablespoon brown sugar
- 2 red bell peppers, sliced thin
- 2 green bell peppers, sliced thin
- 1 large yellow sweet onion
- A few tablespoons of canola or vegetable oil
- Tortilla shells, for serving
Directions
Cut the chicken into small strips and place inside a gallon size Ziploc bag.
Combine the soy sauce, mirin, sesame oil, garlic, ginger and brown sugar in a bowl. Pour over the chicken in the Ziploc bag and seal. Place the bag in a bowl and refrigerate overnight.
Pour the oil into a large skillet and bring to a medium-high heat. Take the chicken out of the marinade and sear it in batches in the skillet until golden brown. Keep cooked chicken in a bowl you cover with foil until all of it is cooked.
Once the meat is finished, saute the peppers with the onions in the skillet until softened and slightly charred, about 5-10 minutes.
Spoon the chicken into tortilla shells with the veggies and serve drizzled with sweet chili sauce and/or sriracha.
I am definitely pinning this recipe. I try to cook all of our meals from scratch but, as a working mother of four, I am often slammed for time. I, therefore, love any recipe where I can do most of the prep the evening before so that all I have to do is cook the following day.
I think you all will like how it turns out Laura– thank you!
Jes, that chicken is gleaming. Love this recipe and wonderful photo to capture them.
Thank you so much!
This looks and sounds delicious! We love fajitas and I’m thinking this would work with tofu! Your photos are amazing too, thanks so much for linking and sharing at Fiesta Friday this week. Enjoy the weekend.
It most certainly would work with tofu, though you’d probably be able to cut the marinade time down. Let me know how it turns out, thanks 😉
Love the combo of colours there! I’m drooling. An original twist to fajitas indeed!
Thank you!
Looks great! Love the combo of garlic and ginger and soy sauce! Terrific!!
The flavors really do work great together, thank you!
My daughter recently told me that nothing under 30 minutes was any good, so we were trying to think of recipes that were and came to about the same conclusion as you! A few curry dishes, like Thai Curry came to mind, but then again, that’s basically a stir fry!
These fajitas look marvelous and what a genius idea to change up the flavors! I’m wowed! I am going to have to try this at the first opportunity!
Wise words from your daughter lol–I hope you get to try the fajitas sometime. Thanks Mollie!
Yum!!
Thank you, that they are 🙂