Bourbon Chicken: Skillet Freezer Meal

When we went to Louisiana last year, I feel in LOVE with Bourbon Chicken- the syrup-y sweet taste is just too good to pass up, so rarely do I resist that urge! Heaped over rice with a little—-okay a lot of extra sauce to make it even better. Guess what? It makes an amazing freezer meal -perfect for our Freezer Skillet Meal series, all you need to do is add rice and you have a tasty dinner in less than 20 minutes! Sweet, syrupy, tender, and full of all the flavor that the fast food joints offer and you can keep your pajamas on. I have given you two options for cooking- either pre cook and then finish off in skillet to heat or bake it through once thawed.

Ingredients:
1 ½ lbs. boneless, skinless chicken breasts
½ cup bourbon
¼ cup apple cider vinegar
¼ cup water
½-¾ cup brown sugar
⅓ cup soy sauce
½ tsp. ginger
2 tsp. cornstarch
1 garlic clove, crushed
¼ tsp. red pepper flakes

Directions:
To Prep:

• Chop chicken breasts into small bite sized pieces- no bigger than 1”x1”
• Place all ingredients in a gallon ziplock bag, press flat.
• Now if you wanted to cook this in a skillet on the stove top you would need to precook the chicken, cool it, dice, add remaining ingredients, and just heat through in a skillet once thawed. However I did not want to cook more than once so for this recipe I prepared raw and will follow the directions below.

To Cook:

• Thaw bag contents.
• Preheat oven to 325°.
• Place thawed ingredients in a large oven safe skillet (a baking sheet or large cake pan will work as well) bake for 1 – ½ hours, basting frequently with juice in pan.
• Serve over rice or Asian noodles, enjoy!