52 New Foods: Week 7, One-Pot Asian Chicken with Bok Choy February 20 2012, 14 Comments

One and you’re done! This tasty, easy one-pot Asian chicken recipe is a favorite anytime dish for my family. Healthy eating made easy.

I love designer dinners, but I hate making them. Like most parents, I am too busy between piano, soccer and homework to spend hours in the kitchen primping and prepping a pretty meal. My solution: choose tasty, healthy recipes that use five ingredients or less and can be easily prepared by a five year old. Bonus if it’s a one-pot meal! Holding recipes to that high bar means they make shopping and cooking a breeze for me, which translates into more time to spend with my family.

Feature Recipe: One-Pot Asian Chicken from A Family That Eats Together

One-pot Asian ChickenOne-pot recipes intrigue me. The simplicity makes me feel less stressed around dinnertime. One-pot dinners allow me to easily whip up a healthy meal and focus on quality time with my kids. Clay pot chicken is one of my favorite meals in this category. The smell and taste of this simple meal brings back fond memories of enjoying this healthy dish with friends and family when my daughter was first born. As a new mom, I relied heavily on one-pot dinners! But I had parallel plan in mind this time. Clay pot chicken features a staple vegetable of Asian cooking: Bok Choy. Its simple flavor would seem to be a welcome addition to my picky eaters plate, but for some reason she just wouldn’t try it. Maybe the crunchy, caramel sweetness of one-pot Asian chicken would sway her?

Crunch a Color Kids Vote: Bring on the bonus points! 

What we liked: Though this recipe involved more than five ingredients (it calls for closer to 10), the simplicity of making this dish in one-pot won me over. I simplified it further by using pre-minced garlic and ginger (a time-saving trick that eliminates one chopping step) and substituted grape seed oil for the peanut oil. The combination of healthy ingredients in this recipe make for a deliciously chewy dish that had my kids asking for seconds -- bok choy included!

Next up: Chinese Broccoli (aka Gai Lan)

Chinese broccoliThis month I had the pleasure of dining with the reigning champion of Beef Noodle Soup. Flown in from Taiwan to share his secrets, Chef Hou captured the appetites of noodle soup lovers ranging from amateur chefs to the honorable Narsai David of food-critic fame. Next week I’ll share my twist on this delicious soup that’s sure to warm your soul and win you bonus points for trying a new food: Chinese Broccoli!

Craving more new recipes to try? Catch up on last week’s recipe: Slow cooker curry.

About the author: Jennifer Tyler Lee is a mom of two children and the creator of Crunch a Color™ -- the award-winning game that makes healthy eating fun. Like most parents, she struggled to get her kids to eat healthy, balanced meals, so she decided to make it into a healthy eating game and she’s giving back to support Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, FoodCorps, and Alice Water’s Edible Schoolyard. Watch her picky eaters tell the story of how they turned into healthy eaters playing the game. Follow @crunchacolor and #52NewFoods to tune into Crunch a Color's healthy eating adventure and Jennifer’s tips and kid-friendly, easy recipes.