Chicken with Balsamic Barbecue Sauce

One of my usual habits is to check cookbooks out from the library in order to save myself from financial ruin by keeping out of the book store. And then to flip through them, sigh happily, and never cook from them. So I'm pretty happy that I've actually been making recipes from a few of them lately as this is giving me hope that I might be able to break my love of browsing amazon for discount books that usually sit on my bookshelf until I fell guilty and usually give them away to my neighbors in order to make room for the new ones that I've been drooling over.

I'm pretty sure that had I followed the recipe exactly I would have ended up more with a actual sauce instead of a marinade. Giada's recipe called for ketchup which I did not have so I threw in a can of fire roasted tomatoes which I cooked on the stovetop hoping it would thicken up some and when it looked like it was not going to happen, I put four chicken breasts in a pan, covered it with the sauce/marinade and let it cook for around an hour at 350 degrees.Partially because the chicken was still half frozen and I was keeping my fingers crossed that this would help some.

While it did not make a sauce, it made a wonderful tasting chicken, especially with the fire roasted tomatoes that took on a vinegary/barbecue taste. And the chicken did cook up with a tasty glaze on top due to the sauce. So I think I would definitely make this again, both as directed and with my adaptation below.


Chicken with Balsamic Vinegar Sauce
Adapted from Giada's Kitchen by Giada de Laurentiis

2 cups assorted vinegar (balsamic, apple cider & white)
1 can (12 oz) fire roasted tomatoes
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 minced garlic clove
2 tbsp worcestershiresauce
2 tbsp dijon mustard
large pinch salt
several gratings freshly ground pepper
4 chicken breasts

Mix ingredients together in a saucepan and cook over low heat until tomatoes soften slightly. Place chicken breasts in baking pan and pour sauce over them. Cook at 350 degrees for approximately 1 hour or until chicken is tender. Serve with  sauce and fire roasted tomatoes on top.