Dinner in my home on a weekday is always the easiest, quickest meal of my week. This is for one reason – it has to be! As I run a busy wellness clinic, I am rarely at home before 7pm from Monday to Friday. My husband is home at a similar time from his workplace.
This may sound familiar or even if you are a full-time parent or carer or have a busy schedule working from home, dinner on a weekday can be challenging to navigate if you aspire to eating healthy & nutritious homemade meals.
One of the most common complaints that I hear from clients is that having time to prepare dinner can be terribly challenging and stressful and for this reason dinner time can be the worst time of the day for many people. After a long day at work or looking after kids, the thought of chopping, peeling, preparing and cooking dinner turns most of us into very irritated humans. And I haven’t even mentioned the cleaning up part yet.
So, I invite you to think about putting in place the following strategies to help this frustrating dilemma:
STRATEGY 1: A couple of times a week, keep things really simple. A mountain wrap combining a quality protein such as these Thai chicken balls or stir-fried chicken, felafel, tempeh, mince or smoked salmon works well with humus or chilli sauce, avocado and a few handfuls of healthy salad. This is easy, quick and light which to be honest is really what dinner should be like when all we do is relax at that time of the day. A small dinner is always something I recommend.
STRATEGY 2: Once a month on a Saturday or Sunday spend the whole day cooking and then freezing meals in dinner sized portions for the amount of people in the home that you are feeding. Don’t take this job on your own – share it with your partner or children if you can! I like to cook a Bolognese sauce or a tofu or chickpea and vegetable curry, minestrone soup, Thai chicken balls or rissoles. This way, you have meals to defrost and simply heat up when time is not on your side.
STRATEGY 3: Once or twice a week, make a stir-fry but chop up the vegetables and put in a sealed container on the prior Sunday so that all you need to do is throw the ingredients into the wok on arriving home with your good quality protein, herbs and spices. I even finely slice up my garlic and ginger and put them in a snack bag so that everything and I mean everything is ready to go when I get home from work.
So, in line with these strategies to make your quality of life better and to ensure that you eat healthy dinners during the working week, this yummy Baked Thai Chicken Ball recipe is here to support this mission.
Before I go on to the ingredients for this recipe, I need to remind you that it is important that you buy organic or free range, hormone & antibiotic free chicken meat. When the meat is full of hormones, you digest those hormones, and this may impact your own hormone health. Be wise in these choices.
I also use ingredients with minimal additives where I can, and substitute processed bottled sauces as much as possible with less processed, fresh or more natural ingredients. Bottled sauces I do use have minimal ingredients or additives and are not full of added sugar. Keep an eye on those ingredients.
This recipe makes 12 so if you have a family, I recommend doubling this recipe. I often make double and freeze them.
For my dinner wraps at home I with thin mountain bread, put two chicken balls on a wrap and then fill up with avocado and salad.
Ingredients
- 500 grams organic chicken mince
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced
- 3 tablespoons of coconut balsamic dressing (I use ceres organic coconut balsamic)
- 1 tablespoon fish sauce
- 1 tablespoon of coconut flour or gluten free flour
- 2 teaspoons of maple syrup
- 1 tablespoon tamari
- 1 tablespoon sriracha
- 160 ml coconut milk
- ½ cup finely chopped coriander
- Coconut or Olive oil spray
- 1 teaspoon of sesame seeds
Instructions
Pre heat your oven to 180° Celsius fan forced.
Grease a 12-hole mini muffin tray by spraying with coconut or olive oil spray.
In a mixing bowl, combine all ingredients making sure to add the coconut milk last and mix well.
Bake in the oven until cooked, approximately 30 minutes.
Sprinkle with sesame seeds if desired.
Serve with salad, in a wrap or as a nibble on their own.
These chicken balls freeze well and can be re-heated in the oven or microwaved.
Enjoy!
