Simple Cherry Wine Marinade for Chicken
Have you heard the Pure Michigan ad for Coldwater, Michigan yet? It is seriously heart warming, as is all of them. I’m the weirdo that you see at the light with her windows down listening to the Pure Michigan ads on full blast. I love them; something about Tim Allen’s voice.
I have been experimenting with wine lately and lucky for you, some recipes are good (ha)! There will be plenty more recipes with Michigan wine as I am a snob and will not drink a wine that is not Michigan. Now maybe I am missing out on something amazing…. BUUUT….. I am quite content with drinking/baking/cooking with Michigan wine.
Michigan Ingredient: Cherry Riesling Wine.
This is a sweeter blush type of wine that is made with Michigan cherries. The Riesling portion of the wine (white) is always good for making a “marinade” if you will for the chicken.
You can use this chicken for anything. You can eat it by itself (with sides of course) or you can chop it and put it in a nice summer-y salad with fruit and a nice vinaigrette. The wine flavor is not overpowering, but you can tell that you definitely used wine in the marinade.
Place your chicken breast in a bowl and use the zest of one lemon. I love the freshness that lemon gives chicken. Roll the lemon (to release the juices) and cut said lemon in half and use the juice of half a lemon.
Pour one cup *gasp* of wine over the chicken. Take a look around to make sure no one is looking, and take a sip. Seriously, how great is wine while you are cooking? At this point, you are going to want to pour the chicken and the liquids into a plastic ziplock bag (or if you want you can cover your bowl with clear plastic wrap) to place the chicken in the fridge. IT IS THAT EASY! <– sorry for shouting 🙂
Chicken in a plastic ziplock bag is not very photogenic; sorry. But I wanted you to see that the chicken is submerged in the liquid in the plastic bag. To be safe, I would place the plastic ziplock bag in a bowl in the fridge just to be safe.
After you have waited 2-3 hours, fire up your grill and remove the chicken breast from the plastic ziplock bag.
Again, this is such a simple marinade, you can add some salt and pepper (if you wish at this point) to the chicken while it is on the grill. Since the wine is not a super sweet/dessert wine (i.e. liquid candy), I opted to not add cherries to the marinade this time and wanted to go with something a bit more simple. But in the very near future, I will be creating a syrup that will almost be used like BBQ sauce. Stay tuned for that!!
- 1.5-2 pounds of chicken breasts (2 large breasts)
- 1 Lemon
- 1 cup Cherry Riesling Wine
- Salt and Pepper
- Place your chicken breasts into a bowl.
- Zest one lemon over the chicken breasts.
- Roll your lemon to release the juices and use the juice of half of the lemon over the chicken.
- Pour 1 cup of Cherry Riesling wine over the chicken and pour the contents into a ziplock bag or cover your bowl with clear plastic. Place in the fridge for 2-3 hours.
- Fire up your grill and grill the chicken breasts until the juices run clear. Serve with sides or onto of a summery salad