Intro: Welcome everybody to another awesome episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can always get on the table. Promise. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich. 

Susie Weinrich: Back in episode 16, we talked about making a fresh basil pesto, that is so delicious. But today we are talking about making a 15-minute pesto cream sauce that is so good and perfectly tossed with pasta for dinner. There are a ton of different options when you are buying pesto. Of course, your very, very, very best option is going to be to make your own fresh basil pesto, just like we did in episode 16. Of course, I will link that recipe right in the show notes here for this episode so you can find it.

Tips and Tricks: You’re going to need about one cup of basil pesto. If you don’t want to make your own. If you want to keep this super simple, you can absolutely use store-bought pesto. However, the quality of pesto ranges drastically. Your best bet for a store-bought pesto is going to be from the refrigerated section, absolutely, hands down. Now if your store doesn’t have that option and you need to get something shelf stable, your best bet is to turn over the bottles and look at the ingredients. You’re going to find that the shelf-stable pestos use a lot of fillers, and some of them don’t even have basil as one of the first ingredients, which is wild. Try to find one that uses Basil as one of the first ingredients. And doesn’t have a lot of fillers like potato starch, and spinach. Those are my best tips for finding a good pesto.

Pesto Cream Sauce Recipe: Let’s go ahead and get into making this recipe. If you plan on serving this overcooked pasta, then I recommend going ahead and getting your pasta boiling and just cooking it to al dente per the package instructions. Then take a large, non-stick skillet and pop it over medium-low heat. You’re going to melt two tablespoons of butter, and then you’re going to add two minced garlic cloves and just saute them for about one minute, so you can start to smell that delicious garlic flavor. Then you’re going to add one teaspoon of dried basil. My tip here with any dried herb that you add is, to measure it out, put it in the palm of your hand, and then take your fingers and just kind of rub it into the palm of your hand. What that’s doing is releasing those essential oils and bringing them to life again. So add that one teaspoon of dried basil, half a teaspoon of kosher salt, and then saute it for an additional 30 seconds with that garlic.

Here’s where your pesto comes in. You’re going to add one cup of good-quality pesto and one cup of heavy cream. Stir to combine everything, and then just simmer that over medium-low heat for about three minutes. Finally, remove that pan from the heat and stir in half a cup of freshly grated Parmesan cheese. 

That’s it. That’s the whole recipe. You’re going to let the sauce cool and thicken for just a couple of minutes and then serve it tossed with your cooked pasta. You want to have a creamy and super decadent pasta dish that only took about 15 minutes to make, which is excellent.

If you like to grill, I highly recommend adding a little bit of grilled chicken on top, but it’s totally not necessary. I also have a recipe for a big Italian salad that would be great on the side if you want more of a big dinner. Then, of course, garlic bread. Who doesn’t love garlic bread? 

You could store any leftovers in the fridge in an airtight container for up to four days. But when you’re reheating this, you have to be a little careful because just like when you reheat Alfredo, It can kind of separate, the oil and the cream can separate a little bit, so you want to reheat it in portions just for 30 seconds at a time. Give it a good stir. You may want to add a little more milk. Give it a stir. 30 more seconds and it should reheat okay. 

That does it for this episode of Let’s Make Dinner. As always, I will link all of the recipes right in the show notes for you to find when you’re ready to make dinner. 

If you’re enjoying these episodes, I would love to have you rate and review this show in your favorite podcast player.

Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner Makes your dinner time a little easier.

Intro: Welcome to Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can get on the table any night of the week. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich. 

Susie Weinrich: Some of my very favorite flavor profiles in the kitchen are all included in Cajun cuisine. We’re talking smoked paprika. That’s probably in one of my top five spices outta my spice cabinet. Oregano, red pepper, lemon, onion powder, cayenne pepper. Doesn’t all of that sound so delicious? 

Well, today for dinner, we are going to be making the easiest Skillet Cajun Shrimp. These shrimp are lightly marinated in all of these Cajun flavors, and then they get cooked hot and fast in a skillet. Then we’re going to add a few side dishes to make it a delicious dinner. Or you can add a Cajun aioli and have a fantastic appetizer. 

Tips and Tricks: So let’s get started with a few tips on buying shrimp and getting started with this recipe. 

When you buy shrimp for this recipe, you want to get a shrimp that is raw de veined, and shelled, but still has the tail on. Well, and actually you can have a tail on or tail off. It doesn’t matter. But you definitely want raw shrimp that has been shelled or peeled for this recipe. Now, when you’re looking at shrimp, it is sold by size, count, and pound, which is a lot all in one. But basically what you’re looking at is the number of shrimp per pound also refers to the size of the shrimp. So for this recipe, we call for an extra large shrimp, which then also turns into about 26 to 30 shrimp per pound. So I hope that makes sense. 

I love to buy my shrimp for this recipe at Trader Joe’s. They have the perfect shrimp in their frozen section, and they call it just like a medium to large size shrimp because I think they kind of mix the sizes in the bag, but they are perfect. They come frozen, but they are raw, they’re deveined, they’re shelled or peeled, and they have the tail on. So it is perfect. I actually have a picture of the bag in the recipe post, so I will link that recipe of course in the show notes for you. 

So since I’m buying frozen shrimp, and if you buy frozen shrimp, you’re going to need to thaw it for this recipe. There are two different methods that I use for thawing shrimp. There’s the overnight method and the quick method. A quick method is for those of you out there that always forget to thaw your meat, I am included with you. 

So we’ll go over the overnight method first. If you know you’re going to have this the next day, you can take the shrimp package out of the freezer. I like to put it in some kind of bowl or dish so that if there’s any leakage, it gets caught in there and doesn’t run over all of your other food in the fridge. Pop that in the fridge overnight, and it should be thawed and ready to make for dinner the next day. Now if you forgot to do that and you need the quick thaw method, what you’re going to want to do is take the shrimp out of the package, pop them in a bowl, and run just a little bit of cool temped water over the shrimp until they are thawed. This will be like 15 minutes, so you can just let it kind of trickle into the bowl and keep it right in the sink. Now, before you move on to the recipe, if you use this method, make sure you give the shrimp a good pat with paper towels to dry them. 

The only other tip before we get started with this recipe is for your paprika.

Paprika comes in, I don’t even know. I’m going to Google it right now. Hold on. How many different varieties of paprika are there? I’m going to find out. Okay. It says there are only three varieties of paprika, but I know that’s not true. They say there’s hot paprika, sweet paprika, and smoked paprika, but I know there’s also regular paprika. I’ve seen bitter paprika and bittersweet paprika. Then there’s also Hungarian paprika. So they are lying, whoever wrote that post. But what we are looking for in this recipe is smoked paprika. It has such a very specific flavor profile that’s delicious by the way. It’s slightly smokey, but not offensively smokey, and really earthy flavor. So make sure you get smoked. 

Skillet Cajun Shrimp Recipe: Let’s get to making your Skillet Cajun Shrimp. You’re going to start with one pound of raw deveined shelled tail-on or tail-off shrimp. That is around 26 to 30 shrimp per pound. Now we’re going to get that marinating. To mix your marinade, just do it in like a little bowl or a Ziploc baggy, add two tablespoons of olive oil, two minced garlic cloves, one and a half teaspoons of smoked paprika, and one teaspoon of dried oregano. You can also substitute dried thyme if oregano is not your jam. One and a half teaspoons of red pepper flakes. If you like it a little spicier, you can definitely add more red pepper flakes. Half a teaspoon of lemon zest and that is going to be the zest of a fresh lemon. A quarter teaspoon of black pepper, a quarter teaspoon of kosher salt, a quarter teaspoon of onion powder, and a pinch of cayenne pepper. You can absolutely add more. Again, if you want more heat, more spice. Give that a really good stir and then you’re going to add the shrimp in there and stir that up to coat all of the shrimp. You’re going to marinate it for at least 30 minutes and you can marinate it for up to six hours, but I would not marinate it any more than six hours because it can start to break down the actual shrimp. 

Now, once that’s all marinated and you are good to go, in a large skillet over medium-high heat, add one tablespoon of olive oil and one tablespoon of butter. Once that’s nice and hot, you’re going to add half of the marinated shrimp. You’re only adding half because you want to really like pan-fry the shrimp. If you crowd all of that shrimp in there at one time, you’re actually going to steam the shrimp instead of pan-frying. So we’re going to do two batches.

Hop half that shrimp in the hot skillet. Cook for two minutes on the first side, and then grab a pair of tongs and flip all of the shrimp and cook for two minutes on the other side. These cook hot and fast. Then you’re going to remove all of that shrimp to a plate. Set it aside, and then you’re going to repeat all of that for the second half of the shrimp. Then remove your skillet from the heat, and add all of the shrimp and all of the juices back into that pan. You’ll squeeze in two fresh lemon wedges all over the shrimp and give it a good stir. Any little bits that are stuck to the bottom of the pan, kind of scrape those up because that’s really delicious flavor.

You have a couple of options when you’re serving this shrimp. You can absolutely serve this as just an appetizer. I have an excellent Cajun aioli recipe on Mom’s Dinner that I will link in the show notes for you. If you’re serving this as an appetizer, I highly recommend putting some jicama sticks on the side. They’re nice and cooling and perfectly paired with the spicy Cajun shrimp. It’s kind of like when you serve celery with hot wings.

But if you want to serve this as a dinner, then let’s talk about some side dishes. If it’s a weeknight and you want to keep this just fast and easy, then I highly recommend just getting a box of Zatteran’s Dirty Rice or Cajun rice and serving that on the side. If you have a little bit more time, I have such a good recipe for dirty rice and beans. It’s just a Skillet of Dirty Rice and Beans, so you can make it right on the stovetop next to your Cajun shrimp. That would be a perfect side dish. It’s got that beef-smoked sausage in it. Mm. You love it. If you like grits, excellent choice. Like shrimp and grits that you get at fancy restaurants? Perfect. Or you could serve cheesy rice. I have an excellent recipe for Cheesy Rice that I will also link in the show notes. Add a little bit of roasted broccoli, and dinner is done. 

As always, I will link all of these recipes that I talked about in this episode right in the show notes for you, so you can make this for dinner whenever you want.

If you are loving these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, I would love to have you rate and review this show in your favorite podcast player that will just help other people find this show too. 

Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner, makes your dinner time a little easier.

Intro: Welcome everybody to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can get on the table any night of the week. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich. 

Susie Weinrich: Today I have an amazing one-pan dinner that is made on a sheet pan right in your oven, and it’s a little bit healthy too. Super bonus. We’re talking about an Asian Glazed Salmon and Veggie Sheet Pan dinner. So you have your salmon filets that are lightly marinated, and then they cook up super tender and flaky in the oven. Then you’re going to have mini peppers and broccoli that is roasted to perfection right alongside your salmon. You’re going to add an easy side dish, and then dinner is ready, and all of this is going to be done in about, let’s say less than 45 minutes. 

You want to make sure that you find a really good quality salmon, and some of the things you’re going to look for are really bright, like orangeish-reddish skin that doesn’t look dried out. If it’s starting to curl up on the ends or anything like that, or if it has a really fishy smell, do you want to skip that one? Find something that’s a little bit fresher. You’re going to want four, six-ounce filets, and you can do skin on or skin off, both work. If you can’t find individual filets, you can always buy one large filet and then slice it into individual portions. 

Sheet Pan Salmon and Veggies Recipe: Usually I start by going over some recipe tips and tricks, but today I’m going to head right into the recipe and I will add all of those tips and tricks and hacks right into the recipe as we’re going through.

So there are really three steps to this recipe. First, you’re going to make that Asian-flavored marinade and get your salmon marinating. While that is doing its thing, you’re going to prep the vegetables and get those roasting. Then you’re going to add that salmon and get that roasting with the vegetables and simmer the remaining marinade into a glaze that you’ll use for serving.

To get things started, you want to preheat your oven to 400 degrees and then you want to grab your very largest sheet pan. Usually, this will be considered a half-sheet pan, which is about 18 by 13 inches in size. It’s important that you have a really large sheet pan because you want to roast your veggies. If you overcrowd the sheet pan, they will actually end up steaming in the oven instead of roasting. 

Now you want to cover that sheet pan with parchment paper and then give it a really good spray with non-stick spray. Here’s a tip with your parchment paper. If you have some really curly parchment paper that won’t lay flat on your sheet pan, give the sheet pan a spray with non-stick spray and then place the parchment paper down and it will like glue it to the sheet pan and then you can spray the top of the parchment paper.

Now that the prep is done, we can get started on the recipe. We’re going to begin by making that Asian marinade for the salmon. In a shallow bowl or a Ziploc baggy, will work too, you’ll add three tablespoons of soy sauce, two tablespoons of honey, and one teaspoon of toasted or regular sesame oil. One teaspoon of fresh grated Ginger, and I’ve talked about this in other episodes too. I love those Dorot Gardens, little frozen ginger cubes that you can keep right in your freezer. Ginger is not an ingredient that I keep around that often, but to have those little frozen cubes that you can just keep in there and pop right out, it’s excellent. I buy mine at Trader Joe’s, but I think they have them at most grocery stores. So then you’ll also need one teaspoon of unseasoned rice vinegar. You want to make sure that you buy the unseasoned rice vinegar. There’s also something called seasoned rice vinegar, but it has a much stronger flavor that you’re not looking for In this recipe. You’ll use one large garlic clove that you mince or chop an eighth of a teaspoon of red pepper flakes that’s really just going to be a little pinch. Get all of that mixed together and then add your salmon filets. Now if you’re using a shallow bowl and you have skin on salmon, you’ll want to make sure and pop those in the marinade skin up so the flesh can actually soak up that marinade. 

You’re going to let that marinate for about 20 to 30 minutes at room temperature while you start your veggies. To prep your veggies, you’re going to take three cups of broccoli florets and cut them into bite-sized pieces. Then you’ll take 10 to 12 of those little mini sweet rainbow peppers. They usually come in a bag and cut the stem off and cut them lengthwise, and if you don’t want the seeds, you can scrape out those seeds that are inside. There usually are not that many. Now I like to just put those all right on the sheet pan. Then you’re going to drizzle over one tablespoon of that toasted or regular sesame oil, one tablespoon olive oil, and then about a quarter to a half a teaspoon of kosher salt and a quarter teaspoon of black pepper. Then I like to do it with clean hands, just toss it all together so that olive oil and the sesame oil coat all of the veggies. 

Pop that in the oven to roast for about eight minutes while the salmon continues to marinate. At the end of that eight minutes, you’re going to remove that pan from the oven and then give the veggies a little toss, and then you’re going to scoot them to the edges of the pan so that you have room for the salmon in the middle.

Place the salmon filets on the sheet pan and then pop it back in the oven. At this point, remember to reserve the marinade because we are going to simmer that for a glaze when we serve. Reserve the marinade. Set a timer and roast the salmon filets for about 12 to 15 minutes. You’ll know they’re done when they register 145 degrees with an instant-read thermometer. They’ll be nice and flaky and they will have shrunk up just a little bit. So once they are cooked through, you can remove the salmon and the veggies from the oven and let those cool for about five minutes. While those cool, take a very small little saucepan and pop it over medium-low heat. Pour all of that reserved marinade into the pan and simmer it gently for about two to three minutes until it’s slightly thickened. This becomes the most amazing Asian glaze to serve over top of the salmon. 

This is pretty much a complete meal. You have your veggies and you have your protein. If you want to add a carb side dish, you absolutely can. We love to add just brown rice to the plate. Or you could get fried rice to add to the side. Trader Joe’s has a great frozen fried rice that you just put in a skillet for like five minutes and it’s ready and it’s perfect. It would be delicious with this dish. 

So on the plate, I like to lay down some rice, put my salmon over top of the rice, put the veggies on the side, and then spoon a little bit of that glaze right over the salmon. Then you can also garnish the salmon and the veggies with either toasted sesame seeds, fresh chopped cilantro, or fresh chopped green onions. Those would all be delicious with this dish. 

I have one more little tip about this recipe. So if you like to make grilled salmon or you want to do salmon in your air fryer, or you want to like pan fry your salmon, the marinade that we talked about in the very beginning, that Asian flavored marinade, is a great flavor profile for your salmon any way you want to cook it. So you can use that Asian marinade in more than just the sheet pan recipe. 

That’s it for today. As always, I will link all of the recipes that I talked about in this episode. Write in the show notes for you. If you like what you’re hearing on Let’s Make Dinner, I would love to have you rate and review this podcast in your favorite podcast player. That will help other people find this show too. 

Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner Makes your dinner time a little easier.

Intro: Welcome to Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can get on the table any night of the week. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich. 

Susie Weinrich: I’m about ready to blow the doors right off of your Taco Tuesday, so you’re going to want to add this to your meal plan. Grab a pencil, and write it down. Marinated grilled steak tacos with Chipotle Crema, Tuesday dinner is done. This is a crazy, delicious grilled steak taco. So you’re going to take a top sirloin, you’re going to make a marinade for it and pop it in the fridge for about four hours. Prep your grill up for dinner, grill that marinated steak. Mix up the easiest chipotle lime crema, and you have dinner ready. It’s going to be delicious. 

Tips and Tricks: But before we get to the full recipe, let’s talk about a few tips for your ingredients and for making these steak tacos. First of all, the recipe calls for a top sirloin. When you’re at the grocery store and you’re looking at sirloin steaks, you want to make sure that it says top sirloin. That is not the same cut as just a sirloin steak. A sirloin steak is going to be a different cut that is a little bit tougher. Same with a sirloin tip, which is also going to be a little bit tougher than a top sirloin. So make sure you see the word top on the package. Second of all, top sirloin is actually a very lean cut of beef. So this steak is going to be cooked to a medium at most, medium rare, somewhere in there. So around 135 to 145. If you do not want to see any pink in your steak, then this might not be the recipe for you because top sirloin, as I said, is so lean that if you cook it to like a medium well or well done, it will be a little bit tough. However, if you still want to make this recipe, you could always use a ribeye or something that’s a little bit tender and can handle more of a well-done temperature. 

Grilled Steak Tacos Recipe: All right, so let’s get into making this grilled steak taco recipe with the Chipotle lime crema. We’re going to start with a Chipotle lime crema because that can be made a couple of days in advance and left in the fridge. Just cover it up, in an airtight container, pop it in there, and it’ll be ready for when you are ready to have dinner. So in a small bowl, and this is very, very simple. In a small bowl, you’re going to combine half a cup of mayonnaise, a quarter cup of sour cream, and three teaspoons of fresh squeezed lime juice. Then you need three Chipotle chilies in adobo sauce. That’s going to come in a can, and you can find it anywhere in the Mexican food aisle at your grocery store. They are super spicy. Don’t be fooled by their appearance and their smell. They are spicy, so that’s why this only calls for three. If you like it super spicy, go ahead and put four or five in. If you don’t like it spicy at all, you might want to dial it back to two. But you’re going to finally dice those Chipotle chilies and pop those in the bowl.

Then add one large garlic clove that’s minced and two tablespoons of milk. Then you’re just going to stir it until everything is combined together. Like I said, pop it in the fridge. Now let’s get to the marinade for the steak. You’re going to want to have about a one-and-a-half to two-pound top sirloin steak. If you can’t find one that big, you can always buy two or three top sirloin steaks and put those in the marinade. Start by taking your sirloin steak and using a fork, you will poke holes all over in one side of the steak. That will just allow the marinade to seep in and flavor the beef just a little bit better.

For the marinade, you need three tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce. Three tablespoons of fresh squeezed lime juice. Three tablespoons of vegetable oil. One tablespoon of sugar, one teaspoon of ground cumin, one tablespoon of chili powder, one teaspoon of ground coriander, and one teaspoon of onion powder. Three large garlic cloves that are just rough chopped, and you don’t want tiny little slices or mince of garlic because you don’t want it to stick to the steak and then burn on the grill. So I like to just give it a really rough chop into large pieces. Then finally add three-quarters teaspoon of kosher salt. Mix that all together and get the steak in the marinade and pop it in the fridge for about four hours. 

Now it’s time to grill the steak for your steak tacos. You want to set your grill up whether you have charcoal or gas for direct high heat. Now while your grill is heating up, you want to take the steak out of the fridge and let it sit at room temperature for 20 to 30 minutes. This is called tempering and it will just help your steak cook more evenly. Anytime you’re grilling, really, whether it’s chicken, beef, or pork, you want to do this so that the outside doesn’t cook really fast, and then it takes forever for the inside to cook and you end up with dry chicken or dry pork or overcooked beef.

So once the grill is heated and ready, you can grill the steak covered on your grill for about four to five minutes per side over direct heat, and that should be about medium, medium rare. You want it to read about 135 to 140 with an instant-read thermometer. Like I said in the tip section, you do not want to cook a top sirloin steak to a medium well or well done. If you have some little charred bits on your steak, those are extra tasty, promise. 

Go ahead and remove the steak from the grill and let it rest at room temperature for about five to 10 minutes. No need to tent your steak at this point because you’re not trying to carry over cook. You just want it to redistribute the juices and be cool enough to slice. Finally, you want to very thinly slice the meat across the grain. You want pretty thin slices here. We’re talking like a quarter-inch thick. 

Now when you’re serving these tacos, of course, get that Chipotle lime crema out that we made at the beginning of this episode, and then we just like to add a little pico de gallo. You can definitely get some at the store. I know Trader Joe’s and Aldi have a killer pico de gallo, or I have a recipe for a homemade pico de gallo and I will link that in the show notes for you. Take your tortilla, and pile on four slices of that thinly sliced, marinated, and grilled steak. Add a little of the chipotle lime crema drizzled over top, and then spoon on some pico de gallo. That’s it. It is so, so, so good. So I really do hope that you will add this to your menu plan and have a really good taco Tuesday. 

Now let’s talk about side dishes. I have a great recipe for a 15-minute refried bean that would go great on the side, as well as just regular Mexican rice. I have an Instant Pot version, or I have a stove top version, and I will link both in the show notes for you. Of course, chips and salsa and guacamole are always good if you’re trying to have a bigger meal. I also have a wonderful cilantro lime pineapple. It’s made with fresh pineapple. That would be a great fresh side dish to add as well. As always, you do not want to forget the margarita, especially if it’s the weekend.

I will link all of these recipes that I talked about in this episode, right in the show notes so you can find everything you need when you’re ready to make these grilled steak tacos for dinner. If you are listening to this show in your favorite podcast player and you like what you hear, I would love to have you go in and rate and review our show.

Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner, makes your dinner time a little easier.

Intro: Welcome back everybody to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your Audio Library of amazing dinner recipes you can get on the table any night of the week. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich. 

Susie Weinrich: Today I have a fresh and delicious dinner idea for you that is kind of a follow-up to episode number 27 where we talked about making a fresh basil vinaigrette. This time we are talking about using that vinaigrette in an Italian salad. If you love to have a salad for dinner or maybe you like to have pasta or Italian-style dinners and you’re not quite sure what to serve on the side besides bread, this big, veggie-filled Italian salad is a great side dish.

Or you can certainly serve it as just the main dish. If you want to, you can even add a little bit of protein to it by doing either my buttermilk, marinated grilled chicken, or I have just a marinated grilled chicken that uses Italian dressing, lemon, garlic, those type of flavors. So I will link both of those recipes right in the show notes for you.

Tips and Tricks: Now, before we get on to the full recipe, I have a couple of salad tips for you that I think you’re going to love. The first tip is to try serving the salad on a platter instead of in a bowl. I find sometimes when you serve salad in a bowl, you toss everything together with the dressing and all of the yummy bits fall to the bottom. But when you serve it on a platter, then each person can grab a section of the platter and they get the perfect amount of lettuce and yumminess. It’s a win-win, right? 

So my next tip actually has to do with serving on the platter. What I recommend is you actually start by tossing the lettuce or the salad, the romaine, or whatever you’re using, with dressing first. Lay that down as a base on the platter, and then in that same bowl, add the veggies, add a little bit of more dressing or vinaigrette, toss the veggies with the vinaigrette, and then pour those on top of the salad. Then you have your perfect balance all the way across. 

Two more quick tips, quick tips, quick tips. That’s kind of hard to say. Two more quick tips for your salad. Number one, don’t make your salad ahead. It was meant to be made and served right away. You don’t want the lettuce or any of those softer vegetables to break down and get mushy. 

Second, don’t overdress your salad. Just lightly dress it and then I recommend adding more salad dressing just on the table or on your little dinner buffet so that people can add more salad dressing as they like. 

Italian Salad Recipe: Those are all my salad tips, so let’s get right into making this big old Italian salad. You’re going to start with one head of romaine or green leaf lettuce. You’re going to wash it, chop it, and make sure it’s pretty well dried. This is another tip. The salad dressing will stick to the lettuce a little bit better if the leaves are dry and not wet. So then go ahead in a large bowl and toss that salad with about three tablespoons of the fresh basil vinaigrette that we talked about in episode 27. 

Get out a big old platter and pour the salad right across the platter. Now in that same bowl that is now empty, you’re going to add one cup of cherry tomatoes that have been halved. One cup of pitted black olives or your favorite pitted Italian olives. Anything will work here. One small raw fennel bulb. You cut the core out of the fennel bulb, cut it in half, and then thinly slice it. It’s delicious In a salad. A 14-ounce can of halved or quartered artichoke hearts. You want to get the artichoke hearts that are in brine and go ahead and drain them and then cut them, or just put them right in the bowl. Half an English cucumber that has been sliced, half a red onion, and again, I’m going to repeat my tip that I always say on my podcast. When you have a red onion after you slice it, run it under cool water, just really quickly, it will rinse away that enzyme that will have the red onions overpowering your salad. So put all of that in a bowl. Add the rest of the basil vinaigrette to the bowl, and then just give everything a really good toss. Then pour those veggies right on top of that romaine that you had previously dressed. You’ll finish by shaving Parmesan cheese, and my tip here is to use a potato peeler or a carrot peeler to shave the Parmesan. Shave the Parmesan into the salad, and then add some of your favorite seasoned croutons, whether they’re store-bought or homemade. And that’s it. That’s the whole salad. Super veggie-heavy, super fresh, and healthy. It makes a great dinner or like I said, a great side salad. 

As always, I will link all of the recipes that I talked about in this episode right in the show notes. If you’re loving these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, you definitely should subscribe or follow your preferred podcast player. That will just make it easier for you to find all of our new episodes right in your podcast feed. 

Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner, makes your dinner time a little easier.

Intro: Welcome to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can get on the table any night of the week. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich, and I’m so glad you’re here.

Susie Weinrich: Today I have a super fresh and delicious dinner idea for you that you are going to be able to put together in about five minutes. It’s not a full dinner, but it’s a start. We’re talking about fresh basil vinaigrette. I think when we all think about fresh basil, we automatically think about just basil pesto. In episode 16, we talked about how to make a fresh basil pesto, but this time we’re going to make a vinaigrette and it is extremely tasty.

This is going to be a very simple vinaigrette that you probably have a lot of the ingredients already in your kitchen, except for maybe the fresh basil. It’s going to come together in about five minutes, and then at the end of this episode, I’m going to tell you some different ways that you can use your basil vinaigrette.

Tips and Tricks: A couple of tips before we get started on the full recipe. This recipe calls for extra virgin olive oil. Extra virgin and regular olive oil are not the same thing. I mean, they’re both olive oils. Extra virgin though, has a very different flavor profile than your regular olive oil. The extra virgin is going to have a little bit of a spicier and more pronounced olive flavor, which I actually love in this vinaigrette recipe. If you don’t love the extra virgin olive oil flavor, or you don’t have it and you don’t really want to buy it, you can absolutely just use olive oil or canola oil in this recipe. 

The other tip that I have for you is when we’re talking about fresh basil if you’ve never used fresh basil in your kitchen, it’s usually going to come on a large stem, and then it has all the leaves that come off of that large stem. You can use the leaves, you can use the small stems, but then there’s going to be a really long woody stem in the center. Don’t use that part in your vinaigrette. It will be way too coarse and not break down enough into the pesto. No, we’re not making pesto. Into the vinaigrette. 

Basil Vinaigrette Recipe: One piece of equipment that you’re going to need for your vinaigrette is either a blender or a food processor. So make sure you have those to get started with this recipe. You’re going to take all of your ingredients and put them together in your blender or food processor. You need six tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, and two tablespoons of red wine vinaigrette. One tablespoon of shallot that’s been chopped. One small garlic clove that’s been chopped, one tablespoon of water, one teaspoon of Dijon mustard, and then 15 to 20 large basil leaves. A quarter teaspoon of kosher salt, and then just a pinch of black pepper. You basically just blend that all up until it’s nice and smooth and pureed. 

Now if your blender won’t get started, you can always add an extra tablespoon of water. As always, I recommend tasting the dish before you serve it. Vinaigrette can tend to go very tart. If you like it just a little bit sweeter, you can blend in a pinch or two of sugar or honey and it will help balance the flavors for you.

So this vinaigrette can be stored in the fridge for up to a week, or you can use it right away. If you do store it in the fridge, some of that oil may tend to solidify. You just need to let it sit at room temperature for a few minutes and then give it a good shake. It will emulsify right back into the dressing.

All right, so let’s get to the good part. Let’s talk about how you’re going to use this basil vinaigrette to make dinner. If you already have a garden going, it is excellent over fresh summer tomatoes that have been sliced. Drizzle the vinaigrette over top and then put a little coarse sea salt or kosher salt or flaky salt over top. It’s delicious. It’s also wonderful served drizzled over roasted fennel or over roasted radishes. Have you ever made roasted radishes? They’re delicious. They actually taste like potatoes. It’s wild. I have a recipe for both the roasted fennel and the roasted radishes that I will link in the show notes for you.

Or you can replace whatever your favorite pasta salad recipe is. You can replace the dressing with this basil vinaigrette, and it makes a delicious, really summery pasta salad that has really fresh flavors. 

Now, those are kind of some side dish ideas. If you want to use this more as a dinner idea, you can use it drizzled over fresh grilled chicken, is wonderful. Now if you love a big old salad in the next episode, episode number 28, I go over how to use this vinaigrette in a big Italian salad. So pop over to the next episode if you want to make that for dinner. 

That does it for today’s episode of Let’s Make Dinner. As always, I will link all of the recipes I talked about right in the show notes so you can find them when you are ready to make dinner.

If you’re loving these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, I would love to have you subscribe or follow whatever your preferred podcast player is. That way you’ll just be able to find all of the new episodes right in your podcast feed.

Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner makes your dinner time a little easier. See ya.

Intro: Welcome to Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can get on the table any night of the week. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich. 

Susie Weinrich: Who here loves a good barbecue? I know I do. I live in Kansas City and we take our barbecue very seriously here. I will say that I am not a barbecue professional, I’m not out there, you know, sitting over my smoker with a brisket all day. But I do love to eat some barbecue. Okay. And we have some great restaurants here in Kansas City. But today we’re going to be making and going over the full recipe for Instant Pot Barbecue Beef Sandwiches. I know you’re probably like, oh, instant pot. That’s not a real barbecue. No, it’s not real barbecue, but it sure is tasty. It’s a super great way to get that tender shredded beef when you don’t have a smoker or a barbecue that you can cook it on, or maybe you just don’t have eight hours to make smoked beef, but you’re craving it. This is the perfect recipe. 

I will also tell you if you don’t have an Instant Pot, I have this recipe available for your oven or your crockpot, and I will put a link to that full recipe in the show notes for you.

Tips and Tricks: Let’s get into some tips for making amazing barbecue shredded beef. First of all, we’re talking chuck roast here. That’s the cut of beef we’re going to use. It is a wonderful cut that has a super delicious beef flavor and so it’s a great option for your barbecue beef. A few things to think about when you’re looking for a chuck roast in the grocery store. You want to find one that is well-marbled. Marbled just means that it looks like it has kind of veins of fat throughout the whole entire piece of beef. 

Next, you want to find one that’s decently large, about three to four pounds. The last tip with your chuck roast is, You do not need to get a prime chuck roast. You can just get a choice or even select if that’s what you have available or you’re trying to save some money. That will work perfectly fine for your barbecue beef. 

With this barbecue beef, I include a complete recipe for a barbecue seasoning or a dry rub. If you have one that is store bought that you love, or you have one that you make that you love, that you know goes really well on beef, you can absolutely use that. You’ll need about a quarter to a third cup of your barbecue seasoning for this recipe. 

One last thing I want to go over before we get into making the full recipe. I get this question a lot. If I double the recipe, do I double the time? The answer is, it depends. With this recipe, we’re cutting the beef into large three or four-inch pieces, so if you double the recipe, there’s no need to double the time. Because all of the pieces of meat are going to be equal in size. Now, if you were going to make this recipe and instead of a three or four-pound chuck roast, you were going to get a six or eight-pound chuck roast and not cut it into pieces, then you would need to increase the time because the size of the one piece of meat would be increasing. So I hope that answers and clears up the question about doubling the time and the recipe. 

Instant Pot BBQ Beef Recipe: Let’s get into making our Instant Pot Shredded Barbecue Beef. You’re going to start with about a three or four-pound chuck roast. You’re going to pat it dry with some paper towels, and then cut it into three or four-inch pieces and trim away any large chunks of fat, and go ahead and discard those. Then set all of that chuck roast aside, we’re going to make the barbecue seasoning. Like I said in the tip section, If you have a barbecue seasoning that you like, go ahead and use that. If you don’t, here’s how you make this recipe. In a small bowl, you’ll combine one and a half tablespoons of brown sugar and one tablespoon of chili powder. Two teaspoons of kosher salt, and then one teaspoon each of black pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder. Then a half teaspoon each of smoked paprika. Make sure you use the smoked, it’s different than sweet or a regular paprika, make sure you get the smoked. So half a teaspoon of smoked paprika and half a teaspoon of dry ground mustard. Go ahead and mix all that up. I like to use a fork. The tip here is to make sure that you get all of the brown sugar worked down into the seasoning. You don’t want any large chunks of brown sugar left in the mixture. Now, you’ll want to remove two tablespoons of the seasoning and set that aside because we will use that after the barbecue beef has cooked to season it again at the end. With the remaining seasoning that you have, you’re going to sprinkle that over all of the cuts of the chuck roast. What I like to do is kind of press it onto the beef so that it adheres to each piece. 

Now we’re going to turn over to the actual Instant Pot. In the liner of the Instant Pot. You want to pour one cup of water, one teaspoon of apple cider vinegar, and one tablespoon of Worcestercershire. Then I like to take one full yellow or white onion, cut it up into eight pieces, and lay that down in the bottom of the Instant Pot. What that base in your Instant Pot is doing, it’s allowing you to add liquid so that your instant pot can come to pressure and cook your beef. It’s also laying down a flavor profile that’s going to cook the beef and infuse more flavor.

All right, then you’re going to take that seasoned beef and place it on top of the onions in the Instant Pot. When I pick the beef chunks up, if any of that seasoning falls off, I like to take those beef pieces and mop up all of that seasoning and get it all stuck so that it goes right into the pot. Then go ahead and put the lid of the instant pot on. Turn it to lock it in place. Turn the pressure valve to seal on top. Then you’re going to set it to cook for 45 minutes on high pressure. At the end of that cook time, you’re going to do something called a natural release for 10 minutes. You don’t have to do anything for your pot to move into natural release. As soon as that 45-minute cook time is up, it will move into natural release where some of the pressure is dissipating. It’s not heating any longer. So let your pot count back up to 10, and then you’ll finish with a quick release by turning that pressure valve on the top. Once that pin drops in the top, you can go ahead and open up your pot. Then remove all of the beef chunks from the Instant Pot. What I like to do is put them on a rimmed baking sheet so that no liquid spills out or anything. It keeps everything contained together. Now, whether or not you add the onions to the beef, that’s totally up to you. This will be super tender, so you should just be able to take two forks and shred everything up.

Some people will ask me what to do with the liquid that’s in the bottom of the pot. You could add some of it to the beef, but I wouldn’t add all of it because sometimes that liquid that’s left over down there can be a little bit greasy. Now that you have your beef all shredded, we have that two tablespoons of reserved seasoning that we saved in the beginning. Give your beef a taste. See how much seasoning you want to add to the beef. Toss it all together, and give it another taste. If you want more seasoning, add more. If it’s good to go, then you can add some barbecue sauce. I don’t have a recipe for barbecue sauce. As I said before, we live in Kansas City, so we have excellent barbecue sauce here. So use whatever your family likes to eat, whatever you like the flavor of, whether it’s sweet, vinegar, smokey, or whatever you guys like. Toss your beef with about a half a cup of barbecue sauce, and then it’s time to serve. 

So let’s get to talking about how to serve your shredded barbecue beef and what side dishes you’re going to have. I recommend serving these as sandwiches and getting some heartier buns, something that’s going to hold all of that juicy barbecue beef. Now, as far as toppings go, some of the things that we like are of course, extra barbecue sauce. Creamy coleslaw is excellent on top of barbecue beef. Onion rings are another kind of fun topping that you might not think of. We also love pickles or pepperoncini slices.

For side dishes, we like to keep it barbecue classic. So we’re talking potato salad, creamy coleslaw, and baked beans. Then maybe add some chips in there. One other combo that we really like is to serve a cheesy potato casserole and then broccoli bacon salad. 

As always, I will link all of the recipes that I talked about in this episode, right in the show notes so you can find them when you are ready to make Instant Pot Barbecue Beef for dinner. 

If you’re loving these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, I would so much appreciate it if you follow or subscribe right in your preferred podcast player. That will just make it easier for you to find all of our future episodes right in your podcast feed. 

Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner Makes your Dinner Time a little easier.

Intro: Welcome to Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can get on the table any night of the week. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich. 

Susie Weinrich: What’s up everybody? Today I have a delicious and healthy recipe for you. We don’t do healthy a ton around here, so I thought I would sneak one in. We are making pizza zucchini boats for dinner. If you like pizza and maybe you’re trying to eat a little bit healthier, this is a great alternative to just ordering pizza or making a frozen pizza. So instead of a pizza crust, we’re actually going to use a hollowed-out zucchini and fill it with all of your favorite pizza toppings. And it is delicious. I promise you, you won’t miss the bread, and in fact, you may want to make your pizzas this way from now on. Although a thick-crust pizza can’t be beat once in a while, right? So this recipe prep is going to take you about 15 minutes. The cook time is about 30 minutes, so you’re about 45 minutes in total. 

The ingredients you’re going to need are, of course, fresh zucchini, Italian sausage, onion, garlic, dried basil and dried oregano, a marinara sauce or pizza sauce, and then some of your favorite pizza toppings. For this recipe, we’re going to recommend black olives, bell peppers, and mushrooms, and then of course you need shredded mozzarella cheese. 

Pizza Zucchini Boats Recipe: Let’s get right into making your pizza zucchini boats, or do we want to call them zucchini pizza boats? I guess it’ll work either way. You’re going to preheat your oven to 350 and you’re going to prepare a large casserole dish, so at least a nine by 13 or larger if you have it. Spread about half a cup of the marinara or pizza sauce across the bottom. Then you’re going to just go ahead and set that aside.

Your next step is to hollow out your zucchini. So what I like to do is line up three to four fresh zucchini. Cut the ends off of each side and then split them in half. So you’re going to end up with six to eight zucchini pizza boats. Next, you want to take a spoon and hollow out the inside of each zucchini, so you’re making literally what looks like a canoe or a boat. You want to leave a little bit at the end to hold the pizza toppings in, but otherwise, just take that spoon and scrape out that seedy middle portion. Then go ahead and set those right into your prepared casserole dish. 

Next, we’re going to prepare the filling that’s going to go in your pizza boats. So you’ll take a skillet over about medium heat, and you’re going to brown and crumble the Italian sausage. One of my favorite kitchen tools that I have is what I call a meat masher. If you’ve listened to some of the other episodes, you’ve probably heard me talk about it. It looks like a little spatula that has about five prongs on it and helps you crumble your ground meat. It works really, really well on any kind of sausage because when you’re crumbling sausage, it can be kind of sticky and it just works right through it. So I will link that product in the show notes for you. 

As soon as your Italian sausage is completely cooked through, drain off any excess grease, then you’re going to lower the heat to medium-low and add half a cup of chopped onions, three chopped garlic cloves, half a teaspoon of dried basil, half a teaspoon of dried oregano, and then just saute that until the onions are slightly softened, so about five minutes. Then you’ll finish by stirring in one cup of marinara sauce or pizza sauce. We highly recommend RAOs pasta sauce. We’re not sponsored by them. We just love the RAOs marinara or the RAOs, what is it? Basil Marinara, I think? I think it’s tomato basil marinara. It is delicious and is perfect for these zucchini pizza boats.

All right, time to put everything together. So in those hollowed-out zucchini boats that you have in that casserole dish, divide the sausage mixture equally among all of those zucchini boats. Then you will divide equally a half a cup of black olives, a half a cup of sliced mushrooms, a half a cup of diced bell peppers across all of the pizza boats. Then you will divide one and a half cups of shredded mozzarella cheese across all of the pizza boats as well. 

Now it’s time to bake. My tip for whenever you’re baking something that has cheese on top and you have to cover it with foil, take your large sheet of foil and spray the underside with some type of non-stick spray. That will make it so that when you actually pull the foil off, it doesn’t pull all the cheese off with it. So spray some foil, cover that dish, and bake it at 350 for 20 minutes. Then once that is up, you’ll remove the foil, pop it back in the oven for about 10 more minutes, and that’s it. You just want to let them cool for about five minutes and it is time to eat. 

These are actually quite filling, so when you’re serving the zucchini boats, I recommend serving two per person. If you have some really hungry people, they might want to eat three. As far as side dishes go, just a simple side salad or a Caesar salad would be delicious paired with your zucchini pizza boats. 

As always, I will link all of the recipes and all of the equipment that I talked about in this episode right in the show notes so you can find them when you’re ready to make these for dinner.

If you are enjoying these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, I would love it if you would subscribe or follow in your preferred podcast player. That will just make it so that you can find all of our future and new episodes right in your podcast feed. 

Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner makes your dinner time a little easier.

Intro: Welcome to Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can get on the table any night of the week. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich. 

Susie Weinrich: Do you ever try to grill chicken for dinner and it just turns out dry and like a little piece of shoe leather? It’s the worst. Chicken has a tendency to dry out so quickly, especially when you’re cooking it over that dry heat, like on the grill.

Intro: But I have a great recipe that’s going to come to your rescue, and you are never going to have to suffer a dried chicken breast again. We’re talking about buttermilk-marinated chicken breasts that are perfect for grilling. You only need four ingredients to make your grilled buttermilk chicken. Obviously, chicken breasts; boneless skinless chicken breasts. I think you could also do this recipe with chicken thighs or really any other type of chicken. But for this recipe, we’re talking about boneless skinless chicken breasts. You obviously need buttermilk, kosher salt, and some garlic cloves. If you want to add a little extra flavor profile in there, you could always add some fresh herbs as well. I’ve definitely used rosemary. You could do thyme, you could do oregano, you could try basil. Any of those would work. 

This definitely isn’t a throw-together dinner. You have to plan ahead just a little bit because you’re marinating the chicken in the buttermilk. So you want at least 12 to 24 hours to do the marinating. 

At the end of this episode, I’m going to give you a few different ways to serve your juicy chicken breasts. 

Tips and Tricks: All right, let’s get into a couple of tips for buying chicken and making this recipe. First of all, when you buy chicken, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Look for air-chilled chicken. Of course, you can buy organic, free-range, vegetarian fed, is that a thing? Vegetarian-fed chicken? I swear I know what I’m talking about. Okay, so when you’re buying chicken, all those other things are great, but the one thing that’s going to make the biggest difference in the flavor and the texture of your chicken is buying air-chilled chicken. 

The next tip, you can absolutely make your own buttermilk. It’s just low fat, maybe 2% milk, and either a little lemon juice or a little vinegar added. However, the buttermilk that you buy in the grocery store is actually a low-fat milk with lactic bacteria added that produces lactic acid. That lactic acid is what does the magic on your chicken in a very soft way. It tenderizes your chicken and makes sure that it stays really juicy when you grill it. 

Next chicken tip. If you have those monster chicken breasts that are super, super thick, and enormous, I highly recommend that you cut each breast lengthwise so that then you end up with two thinner breasts. What that does is it just allows the chicken breast to marinate a little bit better. It also allows it to grill or cook more evenly. If you leave it big and thick like it is. The top thick end will take much longer to cook than the skinny tail end.

Two final tips. Make sure you’re using kosher salt, not iodized table salt. They are completely different. Kosher salt is much milder and has a grainier texture, whereas iodized table salt has almost, when you taste them side by side, the iodized table, salt definitely has more of a chemical flavor than a salty flavor. So if you’re using iodized table salt in your kitchen, I highly recommend grabbing some kosher salt, tasting them side by side, and then making the switch to kosher salt. 

The last tip is with the garlic that you’re going to add to the marinade. When you add garlic to a marinade and then you’re going to cook whatever meat you’re marinating, I highly recommend either just chopping the garlic into large pieces or just cracking the garlic so that the insides are exposed. When you mince the garlic, those tiny garlic pieces will stick to the meat and then possibly burn on the grill. So next time you do a marinade, definitely try just cracking or making the garlic into larger chunks. Those are all my tips. 

Buttermilk Chicken Recipe: Let’s get onto the recipe. Actually, this recipe’s going to take me like two seconds to tell you how to make. You need six fresh boneless skinless chicken breasts. Place those in either a rimmed baking dish or you can use a large Ziploc baggy. You’re going to want to salt the chicken with your kosher salt very generously on both sides. Then crack six fresh whole cloves of garlic and nestle those all around the chicken. Now if you’re going to add any of the fresh herbs as we talked about at the beginning, you can go ahead and nestle those down in there as well. Just like the garlic, I don’t recommend chopping up the herbs because they will stick to the chicken and possibly burn. I recommend if you’re using oregano, thyme, or rosemary, you can just stick the whole sprig of herbs down in with the chicken. Then you’re going to take two cups of the buttermilk and just pour it right into the dish with the chicken, nestle that chicken down into the buttermilk, cover the dish, and pop it in the fridge.

You’re going to marinate it anywhere from 12 to 24 hours. I wouldn’t recommend doing less than 12 because that’s not going to be enough time for that lactic acid to affect the chicken. I wouldn’t do it any more than 24 because, beyond 24, it may start to break the chicken down and get oversaturated. 

All right, then when it’s time to actually cook your chicken, what I recommend is if you’re grilling the chicken, which by the way I think is the very best way to grill this buttermilk marinated chicken. If you’re going to grill it, then pull that chicken out of the fridge and leave it at room temperature until the grill is ready. This is called tempering and I recommend it for almost all meat that you’re going to grill or bake or cook, and it just basically tempers it so it’s not ice cold right out of the fridge and lets it cook a little bit more evenly and retain more of its juices. 

So while your chicken is tempering, you want to set your grill up for direct and indirect grilling. When you pull the chicken out of the buttermilk marinade, just make sure there are no large pieces of garlic stuck to the chicken. Let some of that buttermilk drain off the chicken, and then if there’s a lot left stuck on there, you can always take a paper towel and pat it a little bit, but it’s okay if there’s some excess buttermilk left on the chicken.

Then take your chicken out to your grill and you’re going to start over that direct heat and you’re going to cook it for about four minutes per side. Then what I like to do is move it to the indirect side, check it for the temperature, and if the internal temperature is 160, you can pull that chicken off the grill. If it hasn’t quite reached 160, then you’re going to want to leave it on the indirect heat side. Pop the lid on your grill and let it cook anywhere from, this is going to sound like a long time, anywhere from one minute to five minutes. It really depends on the chicken, because they can vary so much in size. You really want to cook your chicken to temperature, not time. So you have to cook your chicken anywhere from 160 to 165 to be safe to eat. 

So once you have reached 160 to 165, you can remove your chicken from the grill. Let it sit for about five minutes and then it’s time to eat. 

I have some great recipes and ideas for using your tender and juicy grilled buttermilk chicken. The first is just eating it as grilled chicken. I have a killer recipe for a horseradish cream sauce that makes an amazing dip for your grilled chicken. I would serve that with just some grilled veggies, and then I’ve talked about this recipe before. It’s for crispy oven potatoes from my friend Lori over at Josie + Nina. These potatoes are a dream. I talked about them in episode three of garlic steak bites. They would also go really well with your grilled chicken, so I will make sure and link that recipe in the show notes for you. The grilled chicken would also be amazing on top of just Alfredo, so you know, a chicken Alfredo situation, or on top of a Caesar salad if you want something really fresh and light and delicious for a hot summer night. Or the last one would be a grilled chicken sandwich. This is not going to be your average boring grilled chicken sandwich. I’m talking start with a brioche bun. Add a huge slathering of that horseradish cream sauce that I talked about earlier. Add some lettuce, fresh-cut tomato, avocado slices, and then some thick-cut crispy bacon. Add those buttermilk-grilled chicken breasts, and these sandwiches will knock your socks off. Super, super delicious. 

That does it for today’s episode. As always, I will link all of the recipes that we talked about right in the show notes so you can find all of them and make your delicious dinner. 

If you’re enjoying these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, I would love it if you would subscribe or follow in your preferred podcast player. That will just make it easier for you to find all the future episodes, right in your podcast feed. 

Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner makes your dinner time a little easier. See ya.