Pico De Gallo Chicken Skillet

This Pico De Gallo Chicken Skillet recipe is a quick and easy dinner that’s full of flavor and simple to toss together. Delightful for busy nights!

There was a list. Things to do this summer. But we waited to make it until a few weeks ago — after the camps had ended and just before they left for a week away with their father.

My son, Will, wanted to have a family Yu-Gi-Oh tournament. My daughter, Paige, wanted to go tubing. I wanted to swim in lakes and have a picnic.

Our list, 20-odd items deep, was made with the best of intentions. We’d cross items off the list as we did them, and by the time they started school, it would be almost entirely done. I knew a few outliers — ziplining, for instance — probably wouldn’t happen but with items like paint together and eat outside, how could we go wrong?

What I didn’t anticipate was how truncated the days of my week off from work would feel when Will had to be at cross country practice in the mid-afternoon. And I didn’t anticipate how good a lazy day at home, cleaning, reading, cooking, would feel.

Our list didn’t get done. And I was feeling bad about that until I started going through pictures from the summer and remembered all that we had done — list or no list.

Two trips to Connecticut to hit the beach and visit family. Hiking. A few other swimming days at a local pond and a pool. Games. Late evening ice cream runs. Camps. A musical we saw and another Paige was in (which we also saw). Back to school shopping. A picnic. Drone flying. Lunch at the waterfront. A successful, productive garden.

Plus, there’s still time for more. Summer vacation is over, but summer the season is not. So perhaps we can check off a few more things yet.

And now that school’s in session, our evenings are getting busy again. That means we need quick dinners so we can eat well, even when there’s lots going on.

How to Make Pico De Gallo Chicken Skillet

This Pico De Gallo Chicken Skillet is an excellent quick and easy dinner. It’s a fresh, flavorful dish that combines sauteed chicken breasts with a quick homemade pico de gallo salsa. Yum.

Start with chicken breasts. You can use thin-cut breasts sold in the grocery store or pound full chicken breasts thin, cutting the pieces in half. Either way, you want thin (1/2-inch thick or so) breasts because they cook evenly and will give you the right salsa-to-chicken ratio when eating.

Then you mix up the pico de gallo. That’s as simple as stirring together the ingredients. Set it aside until you need it.

Brown the chicken on both sides. You aren’t looking to cook it all the way through — It will cook more once you smother it with the pico de gallo salsa and let it simmer for 15 minutes.

This delightful Pico De Gallo Chicken Skillet is ready in just about 30 minutes — perfect for these busy nights of fall. And it’s delightful with a baked potato or rice and salad.