Last night I hosted a surprise birthday party for a friend. We had about 25 friends and neighbors gather. It was pot luck and folks brought all kinds of delicious appetizers and baked beans and salads.

I grilled chicken breasts and burgers–well actually some nice guests volunteered to man the grill so I can’t take credit for the actual cooking. But I got more compliments on these chicken breasts and everyone wanted to know what was in the marinade. So here you go!

This is from The Freezer Cooking Manual from 30 Day Gourmet: A Month of Meals Made Easy. It has some really good recipes and some great advice and worksheets for those of you who want to cook ahead and freeze dishes or prepped food, like this chicken marinade. You can freeze chicken pieces in this marinade, then grill or bake or use in fajitas or stir fries. I took frozen boneless skinless chicken breasts and popped them bags with this marinade and let them marinate while they thawed overnight in my frig.

This makes about 3 cups of marinade. I cut back a bit on the soy sauce as it seemed like a lot of salty stuff. The chicken does not taste salty though, just very flavorful. And the grillers cooked the chicken perfectly!

• 2 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
• 2 Tbs dry mustard
• 1 cup oil
• 1/2 cup red wine vinegar
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1 tsp pepper
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• 2 tsp dried parsley

Just delicious!  Mix it up and pour over chicken pieces in a gallon freezer bag. Freeze and pull out later, or pour over frozen chicken and let marinate while it thaws.

I didn’t measure this but am recording the “idea” so I can fine tune the measurements later.

• a few chugs of soy sauce
• a few splashes of sesame oil
• some crushed garlic (a few teaspoons)
• some sesame seeds (a few spoonfuls)
• some lime juice (I emptied the bottle, maybe 1/4 cup)
• some brown sugar (2 spoonfuls)
• some ginger (would have used fresh if I had some but I used dried)
• black pepper

I marinated the steaks overnight due to a change in plans at the last minute. Actually, I bought a max pack at the grocery since they were on sale, so I marinaded more than we needed for one night, then frozen the rest in the marinade for another night.

PS: This was good!  The next day I took the leftover steak and sliced it into thin strips and made a version Mongolian Beef with it. I just modified the recipe so that I quickly heated the strips of steak rather than needing to cook them. That was a great way to use leftovers in a totally different tasting dinner.