30 Minute Meal Prep

Today we're making chicken pesto wraps. They're packed with nutrition, they're super easy to make, they're delicious and you can eat them hot or cold. Let's get straight into it. Now with the prep we'll cut our chicken last so we don't mess up our board but what we're going to need is about one to one and a half baby coz or baby romaine lettuces. Stack this up and then just shred it the whole way across. Proper culinary term for this is called chiffonade. You want these nice little thin strips and because this is a layered lettuce you do want to give it a rinse after you've chopped it because there can be quite a bit of dirt. Along with that we need 200 grams of cherry tomatoes. You can also use baby romas or grape tomatoes. Slice these in half lengthways or in the middle the way you want to do it, it's up to you and you can also quarter them to make them smaller. We then need one clove of garlic. This can be ran along a microplane to create a paste and I do recommend getting pasted garlic for this just because it's going to be mixed for a sauce and you don't want slices or chunks of garlic in there. This is one tablespoon of capers just washed from their brine. Don't have to rinse them off, it's all extra flavor that you'll just be washing away. Roughly chop these, make sure they're nice and fine. Doesn't have to be too perfect though, just make sure that there is no whole capers left. Last but not least is the chicken breast. I'm using one kilo or 2.2 pounds and it's also boneless and skinless. We're going to butterfly this so slice it horizontally to open it up like a butterfly then slice it in half to create two even sized fillets. Into a blender bowl add five grams or 0.2 ounces of both pine nuts and parmigiano-reggiano, two cloves of garlic, then about two cups of fresh basil leaves which is equivalent to about one bunch. Squeeze in the juice of one quarter of a lemon, just make sure no seeds go in there, and then add in about three tablespoons or 60 milliliters of extra virgin olive oil. Season to taste with salt and cracked black pepper, 10 cracks worth. Then blend this up on a high speed until it's broken down and what we're looking for is a pourable but thick consistency. You might need to scrape down the side of the blender bowl and if you need to just adjust it with any more extra virgin olive oil. If you are tracking the calories and want to be completely accurate just make sure you know exactly how much you're adding. All of the macros that I've calculated for this recipe are for one quarter of a cup of extra virgin olive oil, no more or less so if you do add more just make sure you adjust it for yourself. I will also say if you don't have a blender this can easily be done in a mortar and pestle which is more traditional way to do it anyway. Once you have that done we can then place it into a container or leave it in the blender bowl to save dishes. What you should have is a nice smooth pesto that looks like this. Now for our sauce add three quarters of a cup of mayonnaise into a mixing bowl, add in the grated garlic, 20 grams of grated parmesan cheese, the capers that we chopped up at the beginning, one teaspoon of Dijon mustard, one teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce, squeeze in another quarter of that lemon, just make sure no seeds go in there, then season it up with a little bit of salt as well as some cracked black pepper, 10 cracks worth. Let's then give all of this a really good mix, just breaking up all of the ingredients making sure everything's combined and all of those flavors have become friends and what you should have is something that looks like this that we can just pop aside until we're ready to serve. This is the macro card for the sauce and the full written recipe is in the description. With our chicken in a bowl add one teaspoon of onion powder, one teaspoon of garlic powder, a nice big teaspoon of dried Italian herbs, also adding in a little bit of chili as well, don't have to do it it's completely optional, add in two teaspoons of olive oil, then hit it up with a generous amount of salt as well as some cracked black pepper, 20 cracks worth. Using clean hands let's mix this all together, make sure it covers all those little nooks and crannies of the chicken as well as making sure that the chicken isn't stuck together as well and then with all of that done you have nice little chicken breast pieces that look like this. To get this cooking place a large pan over a high heat and get it nice and hot, add in two teaspoons of olive oil then we can start placing in the chicken and if your pans are big enough I do recommend doing this in batches, don't overcrowd the pan otherwise you'll end up boiling the chicken and that is another reason why I've said to put it over a high heat just so we don't lose any of that heat when adding the chicken. What we're going to do is sear these for about three and a half to four minutes on each side or until cooked through in the center then remove them and allow them to rest. Once the lettuce has dried off a little bit after washing it add it into a bowl along with the cherry tomatoes. We're then going to add about two thirds of that sauce that we made and then just get in there with clean hands and mix this all around. I would say use tongs or a spoon but our natural hand tongs are so much better. After the chicken's been rested for about five minutes to allow juices to redistribute we can start slicing this up, you can leave it in slices or you can dice it like I'm doing that choice is all yours but once you've got that done place it into a bowl then add in all of that basil pesto and start mixing it around until everything's coated, all of those flavors have become friends and you have something that looks like this. Then right here is the macros for the pesto chicken including the recipe and the serving size. With the remaining sauce spread it across five burrito style tortillas, place down that pesto chicken, I have left weight on those macro cards it's about 220 grams, add over the lettuce and tomato mix, make sure you get enough tomatoes in there as well then we can start wrapping this up, fold it over on itself, tuck in the sides so nothing falls out and then just close it up nice and tightly, tuck in any loose ends as well if something decides to pop out and there's a couple of different ways you can wrap these, just do whatever's easiest for you what you should have though is these five even sized wraps, they're wrapped nice and tightly then to store these I'm wrapping mine in food safe paper, you can also put them in airlock bags or even a meal prep container. Now once you have these wrapped up they'll go in the fridge for up to four days, they're best eaten fresh and you can eat them hot or cold, toast them if you wanted to as well, I don't recommend freezing them just because they'll fall apart when you thaw them out and that lettuce will become extremely soggy. There is one way you can do it, you can freeze the pesto chicken mix, put that in the freezer, it will last up to three months, bring it out and then just make these fresh when you want them, the choice is all yours. Whether you've toasted them or left them fresh, slice them in half, do it on an angle if you want to impress someone and what we have in the center is that beautiful pesto chicken, looks and smells incredible and it's nice and juicy too. As for the macros for the complete dish, this right here is all of them and that is for one individual wrap. With everything said and done there is only one thing left to do and that is of course we can then dig in. That's everything you want from a wrap, it's tasty, it's fresh, it's super simple and the flavours work really well. Pesto and the sauce creates a really nice savoury flavour but it's not over the top, there's enough moisture in there as well without it becoming a soggy wet blanket and it is super easy to make and really delicious. If you enjoyed this video hit that like button, leave a comment for the algorithm and subscribe if you haven't already, it's free so why not? I'll see you in the next one, thanks for watching.