ready in about an hour and 15 minutes; serves 4
You might need to buy:
  • chicken
  • olive oil
  • Salt
  • Black pepper
  • bay leaves
Use either your favorite homemade BBQ sauce or a store-bought sauce. Our favorite brand is Bull’s-Eye Original Barbecue Sauce.
ready in about 25 minutes; serves 4
You might need to buy:
  • Salt and pepper
  • barbecue sauce
  • minced chipotle chile in adobo
  • water
  • shredded cheddar cheese

Freezer Chicken Enchiladas

Preparing enchiladas can be a multi-hour, labor-intensive endeavor. There’s the sauce to prep and the filling to cook, and finally, all the rolling. We wanted to find a way to streamline chicken enchiladas and make them freezable so that they could be prepared well ahead of time and stored at the ready. Here’s what we discovered:

Test Kitchen Discoveries

  • Freeze the rolled enchiladas and sauce separately; otherwise they will turn into a mushy mess.
  • Spray the tortillas with vegetable oil cooking spray and briefly heat them in the oven to make them pliant enough to roll easily.
  • Bake the enchiladas while still frozen. We found that defrosting them actually leads to a dried-out texture once baked.
  • Partially bake the enchiladas “naked,” or without sauce. A light coat of vegetable oil spray will keep the tortillas from drying out too much.
  • For authentic flavor, puree and “fry” the sauce until the flavor and color has intensified. Most Mexican sauces are prepared in this fashion.
  • Smoky chipotle chiles add both heat and a rich flavor to the sauce. These chiles, which are smoked jalapeños, come packed in a tomato-based adobo sauce. They are found in the Mexican foods section of most supermarkets.

Use leftover cooked chicken or a store-bought rotisserie chicken in this recipe. Note that you won’t need 1 1/2 cups of the cheese until you bake the enchiladas. Serve with avocado, pickled jalapeños, shredded lettuce, and/or sour cream.

ready in about an hour and 40 minutes; serves 4
You might need to buy:
  • canned chipotle chile in adobo sauce
  • ground cumin
  • coriander
  • table salt
  • low-sodium chicken broth
  • vegetable oil
  • shredded cooked chicken
  • shredded Monterey Jack cheese
  • chopped fresh cilantro leaves
  • minced canned pickled jalapeños
  • Cooking spray

To crush the corn flakes, place them inside a plastic bag and use a rolling pin to break them into pieces no smaller than 1/2 inch.

Want to serve Oven-Fried Chicken after work? Marinate the chicken in the buttermilk mixture and combine the dry ingredients in a zipper-lock bag (all but the oil) the night before or in the morning before heading out. When you come home, all you’ll have to do is heat the oven, toss the crumb mixture with oil, coat the chicken, and bake.

ready in about 50 minutes; serves 8
You might need to buy:
  • buttermilk
  • Dijon mustard
  • table salt
  • garlic powder
  • ground black pepper
  • hot pepper sauce
  • crushed corn flakes
  • fresh bread crumbs
  • ground poultry seasoning
  • paprika
  • cayenne pepper
  • vegetable oil

Mirin, a sweet Japanese rice wine, is a key component of teriyaki; it can be found in the international section of most major supermarkets and in most Asian markets. If you cannot find it, use 2 tablespoons white wine and an extra teaspoon of sugar. If desired, low-sodium soy sauce can be used in place of regular soy sauce. Serve with steamed rice, preferably short grain. To keep the skin on the chicken crisp, hold back the teriyaki sauce until serving time.

ready in about 40 minutes; serves 4
You might need to buy:
  • Table salt and ground black pepper
  • soy sauce
  • sugar
  • grated fresh ginger
  • mirin
  • cornstarch

Mirin, a sweet Japanese rice wine, is a key component of teriyaki; it can be found in the international section of most major supermarkets and in most Asian markets. If you cannot find it, use 2 tablespoons white wine and an extra teaspoon of sugar. If desired, low-sodium soy sauce can be used in place of regular soy sauce. Serve with steamed rice, preferably short grain.

ready in about 45 minutes; serves 4
You might need to buy:
  • Ground black pepper
  • vegetable oil
  • soy sauce
  • sugar
  • mirin
  • grated fresh ginger
  • cornstarch

If you prefer to serve whole bone-in thighs and thereby skip the step of boning the chicken, trim the thighs of excess skin and fat, position the oven rack about 12 inches from the heat source, and increase the broiling time to 20 to 26 minutes, rotating the pan once halfway through the cooking time. This recipe was developed to work in an in-oven broiler, not the drawer-type broiler typical of older gas ovens. Mirin, a sweet Japanese rice wine, is a key component of teriyaki; it can be found in the international section of most major supermarkets and in most Asian markets. If you cannot find it, use 2 tablespoons white wine and an extra teaspoon of sugar. If desired, low-sodium soy sauce can be used in place of regular soy sauce. Serve with steamed rice, preferably short grain.

ready in about 25 minutes; serves 4
You might need to buy:
  • Table salt and ground black pepper
  • soy sauce
  • sugar
  • grated fresh ginger
  • mirin
  • cornstarch

When hosting a barbecue, it is generally a good idea to offer a choice of at least two different grilled meats, and you usually cannot go wrong making chicken one of them. Chicken breasts marinated in lemon and herbs are a nice contrast to barbecued ribs or other rich meats.

ready in about 15 minutes; serves 8
You might need to buy:
  • extra-virgin olive oil
  • Tbs. chopped fresh thyme
  • coarse salt

This recipe showcases two prized ingredients from Frances Provence region: aromatic herbes de Provence and coarse sea salt. The preparation is simple, with a minimum of ingredients, and the results are sublime.

ready in about an hour and 20 minutes; serves 4
You might need to buy:
  • Tbs. olive oil
  • Tbs. herbes de Provence
  • Tbs. sea salt
  • Tbs. coarse sea salt
  • bay leaves
  • baby red potatoes
  • Tbs. olive oil