I made a High Protein Chicken Pita with a special sauce...

0:00 This chicken pa is nothing special.

0:02 However, that all changes when you add this roasted red pepper sauce.

0:06 It's sweet, a little smoky, a little spicy,

0:08 and is lower calorie than you might think.

0:11 The whole pa is around 630 calories and 48 g of protein,

0:15 which in my opinion is pretty solid.

0:17 So, let me show you how to make this, and then

0:18 I'll meet you back here for the taste test.

0:27 So, I had a bunch of leftover peppers from the vegetable

0:30 deep dive that I made on the main channel,

0:31 and I thought this was a perfect excuse to turn them into something useful.

0:35 And my idea here was simple.

0:37 Roast the peppers, blend them with mayo,

0:39 and maybe a couple of other spices to see if I could make

0:41 a quick red pepper mayo that I can store in the fridge for sandwiches,

0:44 wraps, salads, or really anything that needs a creamy sauce.

0:48 So, to start, I grabbed the peppers, cut them in half,

0:50 and then laid them onto a baking sheet.

0:53 Then I added a little salt to the inside of the pepper

0:55 and kind of rubbed that in before flipping them over.

0:58 Then on the outside, I gave them a quick spritz of oil,

1:00 mostly to help the skins brown more evenly in the oven.

1:03 Then I slid those under the broiler on high.

1:06 Now the goal here is not to fully char them into oblivion.

1:08 I just want to soften the peppers, develop some browning,

1:11 evaporate a little water, and concentrate some of that natural sweetness.

1:15 And after about 4 to 5 minutes,

1:16 you can see they started to seam collapse and wrinkle on the outside.

1:20 So, at this point, I pulled them out and tossed them

1:22 into a camro container to let them steam for 3 to four minutes,

1:25 which makes the skin easier to remove.

1:28 And after 4 minutes, I removed the skin and tossed them into the food processor.

1:32 So, to the peppers, I added a big squeeze of mayo, around 130 g.

1:36 And this is roughly a two parts pepper to one part mayo ratio,

1:39 but you could adjust this as you please.

1:42 Next, I added a spoonful of Aleppo pepper,

1:44 but you could use red pepper flakes or a little cayenne if you want

1:46 some spice before blending everything up just to see where the flavor was at.

1:51 And right away, you can see this turns into a really nice bright orange sauce.

1:55 Now, I gave this a taste and while it was good,

1:57 I felt like it needed a little more

1:59 smokiness to really lean into that roasted flavor.

2:01 So, I added a small sprinkle of smoked paprika for a little

2:04 extra smoke and color before giving it one final blitz.

2:08 And once I was happy with it,

2:09 I grabbed a squeeze bottle and a funnel and poured everything in.

2:12 And this sauce is really simple, but quite good.

2:14 You've got the natural sweetness from the roasted peppers,

2:17 a little smokiness from the paprika,

2:18 richness from the mayo, and then that fruity heat from the Aleppo pepper.

2:22 And from a calorie perspective, it's quite a bit less than a lot

2:25 of mayo based sauces because instead of being almost entirely

2:28 mayo with just a few flavorings mixed in, this is

2:31 more like two parts pepper to one part mayo.

2:34 So, we're still able to get that kind of creamy texture,

2:36 but with way more volume and flavor coming from the peppers themselves.

2:41 So, now that the sauce is ready to sit in the fridge,

2:44 let's quickly prep the other pa components.

2:47 For the chicken, all I did was grab out a chicken

2:49 breast and butterfly it really thin across the entire piece.

2:52 And this was a larger breast with the rib meat still attached.

2:56 After thinning, I salted one side, flipped it over,

2:58 salted the other side, and then headed over to the stove.

3:01 I set a stainless steel pan down over high heat, added a drizzle of olive oil.

3:05 And then once that was hot, laid down the chicken.

3:08 And you'll see the chicken sticking a bit on the side,

3:11 but that's completely normal with stainless steel.

3:13 As the pan continues to heat and the proteins brown,

3:16 it's naturally going to release on its own.

3:19 So, while it was happening, I actually just stepped away and washed a couple

3:22 of dishes in the sink before coming back.

3:24 And when I got back to the chicken,

3:26 you can see we've got that really nice browning on the first side,

3:28 which is exactly what we're after.

3:31 So, I actually let the chicken finish

3:32 cooking while I prep the remaining pa components.

3:35 For the vegetables, I grabbed some arugula, tomato, and shallot.

3:38 The shallot I just slice very thin into little rings,

3:41 and the tomato I cut into a few thicker, juicy pieces.

3:44 Then for the pa, these are a thicker,

3:46 fluffier style that I really like because you

3:48 can cut them in half hamburger bun style.

3:50 They are around 240 calories each,

3:52 but you can really fill them up a lot more than a traditional pita pocket.

3:57 Now, once that chicken was done,

3:58 I brought it back over to the cutting board and give

4:00 it a rough chop while everything is absolutely steaming hot.

4:03 And as one final little move,

4:05 I spooned some of the drippings from the pan back over

4:07 the chicken because there's still a ton of flavor sitting there.

4:10 And this chicken smelled so good, Hopper was praying that I would drop him some.

4:14 I don't like to feed him while I'm actually cooking,

4:16 but he did get a chicken snack after I was done in his dog bowl.

4:19 I need to tell you about a great

4:20 new feature we just built into the Cookwell app, and we're calling them guides.

4:24 And there's kind of two types here.

4:26 So, first we're adding just a meal plan of the week where

4:29 if you don't want to do any thinking and you're just like,

4:31 "Just give me four meals and give me all the groceries." You can kind of look

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4:46 Then the other part of guides we have are going to be more about ingredients.

4:51 So, kind of like we've done a little bit on the main channel,

4:53 but talking about using fresh citrus,

4:56 how to use canned tuna or boreo rice, anchovies, weekn night stir fry basics,

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5:04 of these meals that you can quickly

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5:08 So, if you guys want to check that out, that's going to be linked down below.

5:10 And if you sign up for the yearly plan,

5:12 you will get 30% off the full year's price.

5:15 So, link down below if you guys want to check it out.

5:16 But now, let's get back to our chicken pa.

5:20 So to assemble, I started by opening up

5:22 the pa and loading in a big handful of arugula.

5:25 And I gave the greens a little squirt of that red pepper

5:27 sauce directly first because arugula can have a pretty sharp bitterness to it.

5:31 And the sweetness from the roasted peppers helps balance that out really nicely.

5:35 After that came the tomato slices and the thinly sliced shallots.

5:38 Then for a little saltiness and richness,

5:40 I crumbled some feta cheese over the top before

5:42 piling on a generous amount of that chopped chicken.

5:46 And to finish it off, I hit everything with one more good drizzle

5:49 of that red pepper sauce right over the top.

5:52 And even though it looks like a ton of sauce coming out of the bottle,

5:55 I actually used only about 20 or 25 g here.

5:58 Then I added the top half of the pa over the top, gave it a slice,

6:01 and brought everything to a sheet of wrap paper and rolled it up tightly.

6:05 And this step always matters more than people think.

6:08 I let the pa sit for about 2 to 3 minutes,

6:10 so everything kind of settles together.

6:12 The bread softens a little bit,

6:13 the warmth from the chicken carries through the sandwich,

6:15 and all the flavors start mixing together.

6:17 And while that rested, I just cleaned up a couple of things around the kitchen.

6:20 And then finally, we are ready for the taste test.

6:24 Got it opened up.

6:25 Let's see how it tastes.

6:30 Little more sauce on the side.

6:42 This is a phenomenal chicken pa.

6:45 Perfect for a week night.

6:46 Pretty healthy.

6:47 We'll pop up the macros on screen.

6:48 And then I mean this sauce.

6:50 And really, we didn't really use that much honestly.

6:52 Like that's I barely even used it.

6:54 Maybe like 15 20 g worth for the pa.

6:56 And you got to think like this isn't just pure mayo.

6:59 It's probably 50/50 like between the red pepper and the mayo.

7:03 So, you know, a little bit healthier than kind

7:04 of a a 90% mayo based sauce like a lot of them are.

7:08 It's juicy from the tomatoes, from the sauce, the chicken in there, the shallot.

7:12 I love that aroma of the shallot,

7:13 and then the kind of the pepperiness from the arugula.

7:16 Now, with the arugula, definitely the roasted red pepper is a great contrast

7:19 to that because it is a little bit sweeter and creamier.

7:22 You know, you got to be careful when using arugula.

7:24 We talked about this in the vegetable deep dive I made on the main channel.

7:28 If you eat arugula plain,

7:29 it's going to be very peppery and kind of overpowering.

7:31 But in a pa like this, balanced with the sauce, the tomato, the chicken,

7:36 feta cheese for a little bit of saltiness,

7:38 fresh mozzarella I think would be really good.

7:39 I have some in the fridge.

7:40 I might make another one tomorrow with some fresh maus.

7:42 The recipe will be up on the Cookwell website as well as insider app

7:46 if you guys want to use that which now has guides and meal plans.

7:49 And we are working on adding macros.

7:51 It might be in now or it's going to be coming very soon.

7:54 But anyway, that is going to wrap it up for me in this one.

7:56 I will catch you all in the next one.

7:57 Peace y'all.