Basil Chicken (made with Basil Paste)

Just a few days ago I stopped by the farmer's market on the way home.  I got yellow tomatoes, eggplant and fresh basil.  My entire kitchen smelled AMAZING!  I roasted the eggplant, tomatoes and a few other veggies to make delicious ratatouille.   The problem is that I didn't use all of the basil.

The next morning  my basil was looking a little blackish.

Day old Basil

 There had been some dark spots when I bought it, but this was CRAZY!  I didn't want to throw it out, so I decided to make it into basil paste.

Store bought basil paste

Let's be clear, I've NEVER made basil paste before and I wasn't sure what was in it.  As is my custom, I decided to just wing it!

My basil looked bad, but still smelled GREAT so I cut the basil from the stems.

Remove the stems

Then I rinsed the leaves thoroughly.

Thoroughly rinse the leaves

There was a LOT of sand in the leaves so I'm glad I rinsed them well.  I didn't dry the leaves, I drained them and stuck them in the blender.

Into the blender they go

I knew that they'd need some sort of liquid to get things moving in the blender to I added about 1/4 cup of olive oil.

Not smooth enough yet

With the blender running I drizzled in approximately another 1/4 cup of olive oil until the mixture turned into a smooth paste.

Basil Paste!

That's it!

My original plan was to freeze the paste into an ice cube tray, but I couldn't find my tray.  So, I just put it into an air tight container.

Homemade Bail Paste

Because I wasn't sure how I would use it, I didn't add any additional ingredients.  This is just basil and olive oil.

NOTE:  The mixture was a soft paste when I made it.  Once refrigerated it thickened into a much more solid (but not hard) paste.

Serving Suggestions:
Use Basil paste on warm pasta, on garlic bread, in place of red sauce when making pizza.  You can also use it as a marinade for Basil Chicken!

A day or two later I decided to make

Easy Basil Chicken
My kids were away for the night so I made a small meal for 2

Homemade Basil Chicken

1 Large Boneless Chicken Breast Sliced
2 Tablespoons of Basil Paste
1 medium onion, chopped

Put the sliced chicken in a Ziploc bag.  Add chopped onion and basil paste.  Squeeze the bag closed until everything is well coated in basil paste.

Chicken and Basil in a ziploc bag

Return the bag to the refrigerator and allow it to rest for about 15 minutes.


Add the chicken, onion and basil to a non stick pan.  Cook over medium heat until the chicken is no longer pink and the onion is tender (about 10 minutes depending on the size of the chicken slices).

Basil chicken with ratatouille

I added a little bit of left over ratatouille.  Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve over warn rice or pasta.

All done!

PRO TIP:
Basil chicken makes a GREAT burrito!  Roll warm basil chicken, rice and chopped mozzarella in a tortilla.  It's the best way to use leftovers!  

For more recipes, click HERE!