Eating a healthy dinner always makes me feel better. It’s nice to end the day on a healthy note, even if the rest of my meal choices that day won’t put me on the world’s healthiest list. This is the first of what I hope to make a series of paleo dinner inspiration for you. The most common thing I hear from people when they ask me what eating paleo means is: “hmm..that sounds really hard.” And I get that. If you focus on all of the things that you don’t eat, it can seem hard. But if you focus on yummy recipes that inspire you to eat healthier, then it’s not that hard.

This dinner came together quickly and was ready in less than an hour. Super easy! The winning combo of fresh lemon and fresh basil makes it delightfully light and fresh. I used boneless skinless chicken thighs, but it would be just as tasty with chicken breasts. This is a very easy recipe, and you don’t need many ingredients for the marinade, just one lemon, a handful of basil, a couple cloves of garlic, a couple tablespoons of olive oil and some red pepper flakes.

Marinate the chicken in a ziploc bag for maximum marination power.

Round out your dinner with some steamed chard and a baked sweet potato and you have a deliciously healthy dinner, paleo style!

Lemon Basil Chicken

4 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
juice of 1 lemon
2 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
handful of fresh basil, chopped (approx 3 Tbs)
1 Tbs red pepper flakes to taste (or to taste)
1/2 tsp salt (or to taste)

Combine olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, basil, red pepper flakes and salt. Add chicken pieces and let marinade for 10-20 minutes. Marinating in a bowl works fine, but a ziploc bag seems to help the marinade work faster and gets the flavor evenly distributed throughout the chicken. Place in an un-greased glass or ceramic baking dish and bake uncovered at 375 F for approx. 30 minutes, or until internal temperature of chicken reaches 180 F.

Note, if you’re going to bake sweet potatoes to serve with with the chicken, wash the potatoes and poke all over with a fork.  Put them in the oven before you start making the chicken because they will take longer to cook (approx 1 hr).