Grilled Lemon Chicken

​Give me some chicken, some sunshine and a grill and I'm a HAPPY girl. ☀️ Anyone else love chicken so much that they feel like they could eat it every single day for a year and not get tired of it?  There are just so many unique and delicious ways to grill chicken - how could anyone get tired of it? 

I like grilled chicken with herbs, rubs, spices, sauces and toppings.  Whole chickens, breasts, drumsticks, thighs and wings - I like them all.  I also like to experiment by adding different woods to my charcoal grill to give my chicken a deep smoky flavor.  I like chicken so much that I usually grill a giant batch on the weekends so that I can use it in my recipes all week.  

Unfortunately my family doesn't share my enthusiasm for grilled chicken.  They don't complain about eating it once or twice a week but when I try and bump up our chicken consumption to four or more times a week, there's significant grumbling.  My solution?  Serve grilled chicken twice a week and hide it into our other meals throughout the week so that it goes undetected.  (Tacos, soups, salads, sandwiches, calzones, stromboli - all good vessels for hiding chicken protein.)  🤫
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I'm confident that Grilled Lemon Chicken is what summer would taste like if you could actually TASTE summer. 🌞 It's bright, fresh and sunny - that's the only way that I can describe it.  While some grilled chicken recipes call for overnight marinating, this recipe comes together in just over 30 minutes and I'm a big fan.  Oh, and the leftovers got turned into stacked chicken enchilada casserole.  👌🏻

Grilled Lemon Chicken
2 lemons
1/2 cup olive oil
2 medium garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
3 pounds bone in chicken breasts
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil

Zest lemons and cut in half crosswise. 

Stir together zest, oil, garlic, oregano, salt and pepper.  

Add 1/2 cup spice mixture to bowl with chicken.  Let marinate 30 minutes. 

Grill chicken to 160 degrees.  Transfer to a platter to rest.

Place lemons on grill, cut side down and grill until charred. 

​Squeeze 2 lemon halves into remaining garlic oil along with parsley.

Serve lemon sauce and remaining lemon halves with chicken. 

This week is expected to be the hottest week of the summer and I for one am a little nervous about it.  Thank goodness I've got my chicken for the week already grilled and in the frig. because I'm not sure that standing in front of the grill on my back deck in 105 degree temperatures are really an option.  Maybe this is a good week to test out my it's so hot I can "fry and egg on my deck" theory.  I'll let you know how that goes.  

Ciao!

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