Mushroom Chicken Marsala Bowls

This recipe is flexible, full of flavor and easy to make.  The Marsala wine adds a wonderful nutty-semi-sweet quality. In addition to the listed ingredients, you could add dried peanuts, water chestnuts or peas and use pearl barley or brown rice instead of quinoa.  My quinoa came out a little too chewy.  I'm not familiar with it, so I don't know whether I didn't cook it long enough or if that's just the way it is.  After that, I substituted pearl barley, which I love.

4 servings
13 calculated points

Chardonnay, Roussanne

Ingredients

• 2½ tablespoons butter, divided
• 1 cup uncooked barley
• 1½ cups unsalted chicken stock, divided
• ¾ teaspoon kosher salt, divided
• 1½ tablespoons canola oil, divided
• 1 (6-ounce) package fresh baby spinach
• 1 pound mushrooms
• 8 ounces skinless, boneless chicken thighs, cut into bite-sized pieces
• ¼ cup minced shallots
• 1½ tablespoons chopped fresh thyme
• 4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
• ½ cup dry Marsala wine
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Directions

1. Melt 1 1/2 teaspoons butter in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Add barley to pan; sauté 3 minutes or until toasted and fragrant. Add 1 1/4 cups stock; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 12 minutes. Remove from heat; let stand 10 minutes. Stir in 1/4 teaspoon salt.

2. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add 1 1/2 teaspoons oil to pan; swirl to coat. Add spinach; cook 1 1/2 minutes or until beginning to wilt. Remove spinach from pan.

3. Melt 1 1/2 teaspoons butter in pan. Add 1 1/2 teaspoons oil; swirl to coat. Add mushrooms; cook 8 minutes, turning to brown on all sides. Remove mushroom mixture from pan.

4. Add remaining 1 1/2 teaspoons oil to pan; swirl to coat. Add chicken to pan; sauté 4 minutes, browning on all sides. Add shallots, thyme, and garlic; sauté 1 1/2 minutes. Add wine and remaining 1/4 cup stock, scraping pan to loosen browned bits. Cook 2 minutes or until liquid is reduced by two-thirds and becomes slightly syrupy. Remove from heat. Add remaining 1 1/2 tablespoons butter, mustard, pepper, and remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt, stirring constantly until butter melts. Stir in mushrooms and spinach. Serve over barley.