5-spice rub, Caesar vinaigrette add intriguing flavors
A home-made five-spice rub for the chicken worked perfectly with some store-bought Caesar vinaigrette in these tasty chicken Caesar pitas.
Mark Guydish | For Times Leader
The ingredients for some tasty chicken Caesar pitas. I was a pita short and tossed a tortilla on top to complete the meal.
Mark Guydish | For Times Leader
Everything ready to fill the pitas. I gave the rice a little extra flavor by cooking it in chicken broth.
Mark Guydish | For Times Leader
As noted in a July 9 test kitchen about roasted sweet potato and chickpea pitas (which were really good), when I settled on that recipe from tasteofhome.com, I found a string of other pita fillings that looked worth a try. In fact, I copied six and stored them on the home computer for possible future use.
The future came pretty quickly. The combination of a five-spice rub with some Caesar vinaigrette in this recipe from the same website proved too intriguing to delay, so I made these within a week or two after the chickpea filling.
There is nothing particularly hard to find or difficult to prepare here, though I was a bit surprised to discover a dearth of Caesar vinaigrette at our local market. Creamy variations were aplenty, but finding the lone Caesar vinaigrette offering took several scans of the shelves that otherwise had an abundance of dressings.
I also wondered a bit about using rice as part of the pita filling, but that turned out a great choice. I did opt to cook the rice in a chicken broth, adding more flavor.
We thoroughly enjoyed these. The warm chicken and rice coupled with the cooler lettuce and dressing made for a nice contrast, and the spice rub worked very well with the vinaigrette.
Dobru chut!
Chicken Caesar Pitas (tasteofhome.com, Sharon Lehman)
¾ teaspoon dried oregano
½ teaspoon dried basil
¼ teaspoon onion powder
¼ teaspoon paprika
⅛ teaspoon dried mint
1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts
2 cups torn romaine
1 cup ready-to-serve brown rice
½ cup reduced-fat Caesar vinaigrette
8 whole wheat pita pocket halves
In a spice grinder or with a mortar and pestle, combine the first five ingredients; grind until mixture becomes fine. Rub over chicken.
On a greased grill, cook chicken, covered, over medium heat — or broil 4 inches from the heat in oven — for 4-5 minutes on each side until a thermometer reads 170° internal temperature . When cool enough to handle, cut into ½-inch strips. Refrigerate until chilled.
In a large bowl, combine the chicken, romaine and rice. Drizzle with vinaigrette; toss to coat. Serve in pitas.
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