You Can Completely Marinate the Meat in Flavored Yogurt
My refrigerator is stocked with dairy products. Cheese, sour cream, labneh, yogurt, every type of liquid dairy known to cows, from milk to heavy whipping cream, I have it all. What you won’t usually find there is flavored yogurt. (I usually buy a large jar of plain yogurt and add strawberry jam or honey.) But I recently saw a large jar of Tillamook strawberry yogurt on sale, so I snagged it, figuring I could use it for protein shakes and the like.
The problem with flavored yogurt is that you are limited to that (sweet, usually fruity) flavor. It makes an easy breakfast or snack, but marinating meat in it would be weird—at least that’s what I thought. It turns out that you can actually marinate meat in flavored yogurt and get delicious results.
I took some boneless, skinless chicken thighs (which were also on sale), then spread strawberry yoghurt with a little salt on four of them and left them in the refrigerator for eight hours. I roasted them in a hot oven and then quickly held them under the broiler and the Strawberry Yogurt Chicken was born.
It was delicious, incredibly juicy and tender – thanks to the lactic acid – with a subtle fruity sweetness. The sugar in the yogurt caramelizes under the broiler, creating bubbly bites with tons of flavor. I chopped up some fresh strawberries and basil in the food processor with a little olive oil, sugar and salt, but it – in the end – turned out to be gilding the lilies, and I found myself avoiding the fruit sauce to better taste the chicken.
You certainly don’t limit yourself to strawberry yogurt or even chicken. Pineapple or cherry yogurt goes great with pork, and lemon yogurt goes great with lamb. Just spread it on, let it sit, and then grill or broil it like you normally would. Your meat will be tender, juicy and well browned, with light fruity notes.
Strawberry yogurt with chicken
Ingredients:
- 4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
- 1/4 cup yogurt
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Combine the yogurt and salt and toss with the chicken in a large bowl to coat. Cover and marinate in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours or overnight.
Preheat oven to 400℉ and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Wipe off any excess yogurt from the chicken and place the chicken on the baking sheet, unrolling it as needed to ensure it is as flat as possible. Bake for 15 minutes until the internal temperature reaches 165℉. Turn on the grill for a few minutes to brown, then remove from the oven, slice and serve immediately.