Honey and Sesame-Glazed Chicken Breasts From CookingLight Reviewed

• Time To Cook According To Recipe: 20 Minutes
• Actual Time To Cook (Including Prep): 30 Minutes

This recipe comes from CookingLight. According to the recipe, it should have taken only 20 minutes to prepare. Unfortunately, it took me 30 minutes. Still, not a bad time from start to finish.

After buying a gigantic bottle of sesame seeds for another recipe and not realizing exactly how long they were going to last me, I was happy to find a quick chicken recipe where I could use some. It just so happened that I had everything I needed to make this happen. Except the green beans, so I just substituted asparagus that I had on hand. I also didn’t have whole grain mustard, so I used some spicy brown mustard which ended up working out just fine.

To make this recipe quickly, you need to start on the honey sauce first, so it can reduce to a thick glaze while you cook the chicken and veggies. If it finishes first you can always let it simmer for a while, but actually, as the sauce cools it will thicken and be better for coating the chicken. This way you won’t have runny sauce all over the plate when you serve!

According to the recipe I needed six tablespoons of chicken stock. Well, I only had the dry cubes on hand, and didn’t feel like accurately making a pot of chicken stock the measuring out six tablespoons, so I just added half a cube and about a quarter cup of water to the mixture.

Once boiling, I set it to simmer and started prepping the chicken.

The chicken breasts I bought were extra large, and would take quite a while to cook, so I sliced them in half to cook longer. THe four you see here started as two. Simply slice long-ways, then sprinkle with salt and pepper. I got a bit crazy with the pepper but you can tailor it to your taste.

I liked that this recipe used sesame oil instead of olive oil like so many do! I’m a huge fan of sesame oil after my time teaching in China. Of course, it doesn’t work for all recipes, but when you get a chance to use it, it adds a very fragrant and unique flavor to dishes. I cooked the breasts 7 minutes on one side on medium-high heat, then 3 minutes on the other.

As a big fan of fewer dishes to wash, I just threw the asparagus into the same pan I cooked the chicken. If you were really strapped for time you could cook these at the same time as the chicken breasts to shave off about 5 minutes of total cooking time. That does mean an extra pan for washing though!

Don’t forget that your honey sesame glaze is still cooking at this point. See if the sauce has blended well, and if it’s started to thicken. We don’t want it too potent and thick, or it will be too salty/sweet. We also don’t want it too runny, or it’ll just be a liquid sauce at the bottom of your dinner plate.

If it’s started to thicken nicely under heat, you can turn off the heat and let it cool. As it cools, it will get thicken even more.

I didn’t add any extra oil to the pan to cut out a bit of fat from the dish. But when the chicken bits started to get crispy I added just a bit of water to prevent burning and help cook the asparagus faster. That added a bit of salt and pepper to the veggies, so I didn’t need to add any extra to season them.

Plus, I only had salted butter on hand, so the veggies were plenty salty when they were finished. The recipe called for tossing them with the butter in a separate pan, but who’s got time for that? I just threw in the butter (much less than the 1 tbsp called for), stirred it around a bit, and the meal was done.

Buy the time the chicken and veggies were done cooking your honey sesame sauce should be pretty thick and you can pour it over the chicken. Sprinkle some sliced almonds on top of your veggies. If you don’t have any, that’s cool. Vegetables are great by themselves. Check out the original recipe here.