This delicious Pan-Seared Chicken & Cheddar Grits recipe post is sponsored by Foster Farms® Simply Raised  

What comes to mind when you hear the words, “comfort food”?

I think about the hours I spent in my grandmother’s kitchen growing up. She spent most of her time in that kitchen, baking cakes, frying chicken, and simmering greens.

We didn’t eat out much in our family, and we didn’t want to.

The food we ate was made with love. My grandma was dedicated to putting fresh, delicious meals on our table every single day. My aunt, uncles, cousins and I all appreciated that.

As I got older, and even after I lost my grandmother, I still found comfort in the recipes she made for us.

Her rich macaroni and cheese with a full stick of butter, whole milk, and nearly 4 cups of cheese send me back to that kitchen I grew up in whenever I’m able to find the time to make it, now with 2% milk.

I make her chicken, but now instead of frying it, I bake it with the same combination of seasoning for the flavor that she perfected, but with less fat.

Comfort food is different Now

Those little changes are what makes comfort food, new comfort food.  

New comfort food is different. The tastes and the feelings behind it are the same, but now there’s a focus on fresh, local ingredients, healthier methods of preparing the food, and faster, easier recipes.

Foster Farms hosted an event celebrating the rise of new comfort food in San Francisco recently. Guests were treated to reimagined recipes that had the same great flavor and feeling of the food we grew up with, but that was better for us all around.

From a baked chicken sandwich to a flatbread pizza with pesto, the good feelings around the tables matched the good food we were eating.

I made Chicken with Cheddar Grits

After attending the event, I was inspired to go home and create my own New Comfort Food creation.

Although my grandparents raised me in Philadelphia, they were from South Carolina, and that influenced a lot of the recipes that my grandmother made.

One of my favorite things that she’d make was seemingly one of the easiest. Grits.

They seemed so simple, but if you weren’t careful, instead of being light and creamy, they could end up heavy and stiff.

I’ve mastered the art of grits over the years, but for this recipe passed the torch to my husband who added butter and cheddar to make it even more rich and delicious.

A lot of folks know about fish and grits or shrimp and grits, but in our family, we didn’t eat a lot of seafood.

Chicken was the preferred protein, and that’s the case in my home today.

Because I know a lot more about food quality than we did back when I was growing up, I choose Foster Farms® Simply Raised chicken.

Foster Farms is locally grown on the West Coast, with no antibiotics ever. The chicken is 100% percent vegetarian fed. That’s what new comfort food is about. It’s fresh and premium quality ingredients, but accessible so that we can have new comfort food every day if we want to!

Pan-Seared Chicken and Cheddar Grits Recipe

Ingredients

– 1.5 lb. Foster Farms® Simply Raised Thin Sliced Breast Fillets, chopped
– 1 clove garlic, chopped
– 2 cups spinach and arugula mix
– 3/4 cups grits
– 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
– salt, pepper, Italian seasoning to taste

Directions

-Cut the Foster Farms® Simply Raised Thin Sliced Breast Fillets into strips. Season heavily with salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning. Add a bit of olive oil to a pan and sauté strips until cooked through. Put to the side.

-In the same pan as you cooked the chicken, add a little more olive oil and the chopped garlic. Once the garlic is soft, add the spinach and arugula. Sauté until wilted.

-Cook the grits according to the package. Once cooked, stir in 2 tablespoons butter and 1 cup sharp cheddar cheese.

-Put cheddar grits in a bowl with the spinach and arugula on top. Add the chicken strips on top. Enjoy.

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Foster Farms® Simply Raised Chicken.