Chicken Bruschetta Zoodle Bowl

We are almost through July and we are still in modified quarantined!  And depending on where you are, some places are starting to lock down again.  If you are like me, you are still cooking 98% of your meals at home!  This one is easy, fresh and quick!  Tomatoes and Zucchini will be coming in the garden by the handful, so this is a recipe that you can gather the ingredients straight from the garden!  

This took minimal prep work and less than 30 minutes to cook!  I love grilled chicken, but living in a condo, I’m not able to have a grill here unless its out in the open area.  So instead, I use one of my favorite kitchen appliances.  The cast iron skillet!  If you’ve read any of my other post, you have heard me talk about them.  For this, I used the cast iron grill.  

With it being summer time and so many amazing vegetables growing in the garden, why not use them for fresh meals.  Over the past few years, eating healthy with “zoodles” or “cauliflower rice” or any other type ic vegetable noodle have become a go to for many.  It’s such a lighter option and you are able to fill up on vegetables and in the summer time, they are vegetables straight from the garden.  I’m lucky enough to have my parents who have really gotten their garden going this year.  Not only that, but a good family friend of ours has also been kind enough to share his home grown veggies.  It’s so nice being able to know EXACTLY where your food has come from.  

Anyway, back to this amazing dish that I’ve been asked to share by so many.  The juices and oils from the bruschetta is used for the dressing over the chicken and noodles.  Since working from home, I’ve been really bad about pulling my meats out of the freezer to marinade, so I’ve had to cut down on some of the marinading times.  But the good news is with this, there is so much flavor working in all parts of the meal, you don’t need it to marinade for more than 2 hours to get the benefits of the full flavor.  But I also wouldn’t marinade it longer than 8 hours either.  When it’s time for dinner, just put the chicken on the grill and then just mix up your bruschetta.

Making your bruschetta is even easier when you use this food chopper.  This is a chopper I bought on a whim and this is one of my favorite meal prep kitchen gadgets!  It also has a spiralizer for the zucchini, but to be honest, I like the one I got from the grocery store better.  Just like this one.  Only cause when getting zucchini from the garden, the sizes vary, so it’s easier to spirlize the bigger ones easier.

In a large plastic ziplock bag, combine the chicken, olive oil, balsamic, salt and pepper, crushed garlic cloves and fresh chipped basil.  For this you can use your favorite cut of chicken.  I’ve used tenders as well as thighs.  Both turn out just perfectly.  

While you are grilling your chicken, you can make the rest of the dish.  In a bowl combine the diced Roma tomatoes, red onion and minced garlic.  Add fresh chopped basil, extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, sea salt, black pepper and grated parmesan cheese (optional).  For this step, I made it super simple in using my favorite chopper.  I also took a short cut and bought the pre-chopped red onion.  Fresh chopped garlic and basil are key ingredients to this dish.  Set this aside while you spirlize the zucchini. 

For the zucchini noodles, while waiting for the chicken to finish up, I add a little salt and pepper to the noodles.  The salt will help with pulling some of the water out.  Once you pull your chicken off the grill and you are letting it rest, add the zucchini noodles and a little olive oil to the skillet and sauté for about 2-3 minutes.  They won’t take long at all.  

Once complete, you can build your bowl.  Add the zoodles, then the chicken and top it with the bruschetta.  And enjoy!!!  

Many great things about this dish, the next day, it’s still great!!!  And even more flavorful!  The other great thing about this dish is, I’m sure it would be great with your favorite fish.  I’m not a fish person, but from what I understand bruschetta and salmon are amazing together!