Easy & Elegant Chicken

I love recipes that are really simple, but taste and look gourmet. Easy enough for a week night, but elegant enough to serve to company. This recipe from Food.com for Balsamic Chicken is one of those recipes.

This was easy enough to make low-FODMAP and it’s already gluten-free. Plus, it’s healthy. You can’t go wrong. Balsamic vinegar gets so wonderfully rich when cooked down. It almost looks like chocolate sauce. In fact, I saw an episode of a Giada DeLaurentiis cooking show where she put balsamic reduction on ice cream instead of chocolate sauce. I’d like to try that someday, but for now I think I’ll stick with chicken.

I like to serve this with roasted potatoes, but then I like to serve most main dishes with roasted potatoes. That is no secret. Try my Roasted Rosemary Red Potatoes and a side salad for an easy and elegant meal. Any day of the week.

Easy & Elegant Chicken with Balsamic Sauce
Low-FODMAP, Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free option
Adapted from Food.com
serves 4

Ingredients

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, pounded to 1/4″ thickness
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
1 clove of garlic, smashed but kept whole (to be removed) (optional)
1/3 cup balsamic vinegar**
1/4 cup low-FODMAP chicken broth*
1 tablespoon butter (or dairy-free substitute)
parsley
cherry tomatoes, as tolerated

Directions

1. Season chicken breasts with salt and pepper. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the whole garlic and saute until fragrant, about 1 minute. Remove and discard garlic. Add chicken to skillet and cook about 3 – 4 minutes each side, or until done. (I usually insert a digital thermometer to assure meat has reached 165 degrees F.)
2. Remove chicken from skillet to a plate and cover with aluminum foil to keep warm. Add the vinegar and broth to the skillet and stir while scraping up any brown bits. Increase heat to medium-high and bring mixture to a simmer. Continue to cook over medium-high heat until thick and syrupy, about 2 to 4 minutes. Add butter and stir until melted.
3. Pour balsamic sauce over chicken and serve, garnishing with parsley and cherry tomatoes, if desired.

*As an alternative, I will sometimes use Better than Bouillon (1/4 teaspoon mixed in 1/4 cup water for this recipe). It does contain onion, but so little is used in this recipe that it usually doesn’t bother me.

**Update 03/11/2016:  Monash University has tested balsamic vinegar and it contains moderate amounts of excess fructose, so be mindful of your serving size. If you are really sensitive to excess fructose, you might want to reduce the amount of balsamic vinegar to only 1/4 for the whole recipe (to keep the serving at no more than 1 tablespoon).