A bright and fresh marinade with a generous hit of garlic and red pepper flake makes this an easy and zesty chimichurri like combination – perfect for chicken, seafood or fish, tofu, beef, and definitely veggies!
A great way to use up your fresh basil is to make 1 batch of pesto and divide it up into various uses and dishes. And if you’d like to learn how to prune your basil to double the growth all season long – then click here for our easy step by step tutorial. Chris teaches you exactly where to snip the stalks to double, triple, quadruple the growth.
Pesto and Lemon Grilled Chicken
A bright and fresh marinade with generous hit of garlic and red pepper flake make this an easy and zesty chimichurri like combination perfect for chicken, seafood or fish, tofu, beef, and definitely veggies.
Servings: 1 batch
Ingredients
Marinade
- 2 tbsp prepared basil pesto
- 1 large lemon fully zested (about 1 tbsp), then squeezed (about 4 tbsp)
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1 tsp fresh chopped garlic
- 1 tsp italian seasoning
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
Instructions
Marinade
- Combine all together in a sturdy zip lock bag or a non-metalic bowl.
- Before adding your protein or veggies, save back 3 tbsp of marinade and set aside. You'll use this to brush on your grilled chicken once it's sliced and plated.
- In the remaining marinade, add your protein or vegetable of choice and let rest for the recommended length of time: chicken about 30-1hr, seafood and fish no longer than 30 min, veggies 30 min, firm tofu (pressed dry) 1 hour, and beef 1 hour or up to overnight.
- Grill until cooked through, set aside and let rest, then slice and spoon or brush with reserved marinade.
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This recipe looks amazing! Going to save this recipe to try as soon as I get some fresh basil!!
Thank you so much, Maria! Yep – we save this one, too – we use it a lot with big batches of basil. Thanks for the comment & stopping by!