This Sunshine Citrus Chicken Recipe is a healthy choice with lean chicken breast and a nutritional boost from spinach and citrus. It’s delicious!
It is terribly, terribly cold here in Minnesota right now. This morning the air temps were below -20 and the “feels like” temps were less than -40!
It’s so cold that our local Minnesota grocery store chain, Rainbow Foods, is even closing early tonight so that its employees won’t be exposed to the elements in the extra cold, dark, late hours. But Rainbow Foods is not only taking care of their employees, they are helping all of us take care of ourselves better with their new health key™ system.
The health key™ system at Rainbow Foods is a helpful and convenient way to assist you in making better food choices, leading to a healthier life. Products throughout the store are marked with special, brightly colored shelf tags and signs offering helpful nutritional information. This information all helps your decision making process with on-the-spot information.
And this isn’t a “once size fits all” system. They have specific information available according to particular diets you may be following, whether that be gluten-free, vegetarian, low-sodium, etc. They also provide general health information by identifying products that have no added sugars, are organic, are whole grains, are heart healthy, etc. No matter your nutritional focus, the health key™ system should be able to help you.
When doing our grocery shopping, there are certain nutritional areas I concentrate on to make sure our diet is healthy. Some of the key areas are buying whole grains and lean protein. I also prefer organic foods when available, so it’s great to have those items clearly labeled so I can more easily make choices between various products on the shelf.
In the spirit of healthy living, and to brighten things up on a cold, cold winter day. I created this Sunshine Citrus Chicken Recipe. It uses boneless chicken breast as a source of lean protein and gets a great nutritional boost from spinach and citrus fruit. Oh, did I forget to mention that it’s also delicious???
Sunshine Citrus Chicken Recipe
Ingredients:
1 1/2 boneless chicken breast, cut in bite-size pieces
salt and pepper
3 egg whites
1/3 cup corn starch
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 green onions, chopped (green and light green parts only)
3 cups fresh spinach leaves (large stems removed, roughly chopped)
3 clementines/small tangerines, segments cut in half
2 Tbsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp honey
1 tsp rice wine vinegar
2 tsp sesame seeds
How to make citrus chicken:
Prepare sauce: Mix soy sauce honey and vinegar in a small bowl. Set aside;
In a large bowl, whisk egg whites and cornstarch together. Add chicken to the bowl, season with salt and pepper and toss until coated.
Heat 1 Tbsp oil in a nonstick skillet on medium/high. Add half of the chicken and cook 6-8 minutes or until golden and cooked through. Remove to a plate and repeat the process with the remaining oil and the other half of the chicken.
Move all the chicken back to the skillet, add in garlic, onion, spinach and clementines. Continue cooking and stirring until spinach is wilted.
Stir in sauce and heat through. Sprinkle sesame seeds on top before serving.
Serve with brown rice.
Sunshine Citrus Chicken
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 boneless chicken breast cut in bite-size pieces
- salt and pepper
- 3 egg whites
- 1/3 cup corn starch
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 2 green onions chopped (green and light green parts only)
- 3 cups fresh spinach leaves large stems removed, roughly chopped
- 3 clementines/small tangerines segments cut in half
- 2 Tbsp soy sauce
- 2 Tbsp honey
- 1 tsp rice wine vinegar
- 2 tsp sesame seeds
Instructions
- Prepare sauce: Mix soy sauce honey and vinegar in a small bowl. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk egg whites and cornstarch together.
- Add chicken to the bowl, season with salt and pepper and toss until coated.
- Heat 1 Tbsp oil in a nonstick skillet on medium/high.
- Add half of the chicken and cook 6-8 minutes or until golden and cooked through.
- Remove to a plate and repeat the process with the remaining oil and the other half of the chicken.
- Move all the chicken back to the skillet, add in garlic, onion, spinach and clementines.
- Continue cooking and stirring until spinach is wilted.
- Stir in sauce and heat through.
- Sprinkle sesame seeds on top before serving.
M.Clark says
This is a great recipe, the chicken looks delicious. Thank you for sharing this recipe.
Sarah L says
This looks very good to me right now. I’m glad our temps were in the 40s today and 50s tomorrow. I like the stores labeling system.
Summer Davis says
Oh WOW, that recipe looks delicious! I love citrus combined with meat, and this looks super comforting and yummy. Do you know if there are any substitutions for corn starch? I’m allergic to corn (worst allergy EVER) and would love to make this recipe for my family this week. Also, can you send Rainbow Foods my way? I need one in North Carolina! #client
Chrysa says
Thanks, Summer! The corn starch is just to give it a little bit of crispness on the outside, but you could skip that step or else I think you could get a similar result with any type of flour (wheat flour/rice flour) instead.
Alicia says
Yum! That recipe look delicious:) Once I’m back in Rainbow Foods territory I’m going to have to check out those health key tags, they make selecting specific items (such as organic) so much easier! #client
Jennifer says
I wish more grocery stores had a system like this! That gluten free tag would make my life so much simpler!!
David Smith says
I pinned this one so I could get back to it and we could give it a try. This looks really good with the citrus in it. Thanks for the recipe.
Ashley M says
Wow that looks really good and I love that is just uses a handful of ingredients. Also, I feel your pain about the weather. lol
Autumn says
This looks delicious! It’s cold here, too (but not nearly as cold as where you are! Brrr!) This would be a great meal to warm up with.
Angela says
This looks so healthy and delicious! Just pinned this to a healthy recipe group Pinterest board that I am on.
Amy Desrosiers says
I really, really love this recipe! It looks like a much healthier version as opposed to take out!
vickie couturier says
that really looks good an more healthy