Tahini Chicken with Cucumber, Tomato, and Mint Salad

One hundred and fourteen degrees on Wednesday. Jessica is thirty-two weeks pregnant in 114-degree heat and she has reached the phase of pregnancy where everything is an affront — the heat, the gravity, the fact that her shoes don't fit, the fact that Diego has decided to use her bladder as a trampoline. She is magnificent and miserable in equal measure, and I am doing everything I can to make the magnificent outweigh the miserable, which mostly means cooking whatever she wants whenever she wants it.

This week she wanted watermelon. Not just watermelon — she wanted watermelon in every possible form. Sliced watermelon for breakfast. Watermelon agua fresca for lunch. Watermelon-feta salad with mint for dinner. I went to Costco and bought a forty-pound watermelon and carried it to the car like a man rescuing a baby from a burning building, except the baby was a fruit and the building was a warehouse store with aggressive air conditioning. By Friday we'd eaten thirty-five pounds of it. The remaining five pounds became a watermelon-lime popsicle batch that I froze in molds and distributed to Sofia, who ate two and got watermelon down her entire front, and to Jessica, who ate three and said "Diego likes these" as if Diego, who is currently the size of a butternut squash, has opinions about popsicles.

On shift, the summer calls ramped up. Heat-related medical emergencies — dehydration, heat exhaustion, heat stroke. Phoenix in summer is genuinely dangerous for the vulnerable: the elderly, the homeless, the workers who can't escape the sun. We responded to a call for a construction worker who collapsed on a job site at 2 PM. He was forty-five, strong, and had been drinking water but not enough. His core temp was 104 when we got there. We cooled him down, got fluids in, transported him. He was okay. But "okay" was closer to "not okay" than anyone wants to think about.

I came home from that shift and stood in the backyard at 7 PM when it was still 108 and I thought about the guys who work outside all day in this — the roofers, the landscapers, the construction crews — and I thought about how I complain about standing at my grill in the heat for fun, by choice, and they do it eight hours a day because they have to. Perspective. The grill gives you a lot of things, but sometimes the most important thing it gives you is perspective.

Didn't grill this week. Too hot even for me. Made cold sesame noodles instead — chilled spaghetti tossed in a sauce of sesame paste, soy sauce, rice vinegar, chili oil, garlic, and ginger, topped with cucumber, scallions, and sesame seeds. Served cold. Eaten cold. Enjoyed cold. Sometimes the best meal for 114 degrees is the one that never touches a flame.

The cold sesame noodles scratched the itch that week, but the flavors stayed with me — that deep, nutty sesame, the cool cucumber, the brightness cutting through the heat — and I wanted to revisit them with something a little more substantial for when Jessica needed real protein and Diego stopped treating her ribs like a speed bag long enough for her to actually eat. Tahini is just sesame paste with a different passport, and pairing it with chicken, cucumber, and fresh mint is the same instinct that sent me to the cold noodles: when it’s 114 outside and you’re trying to take care of someone you love, you reach for the thing that cools everything down.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 18 minutes | Total Time: 33 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 6 oz each)
1/4 cup tahini
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, divided
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
3 cloves garlic, minced, divided
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt, divided
1/2 teaspoon black pepper, divided
2 tablespoons warm water (to thin tahini sauce)
1 English cucumber, diced (about 2 cups)
1 1/2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
1/3 cup fresh mint leaves, roughly torn
1/4 red onion, very thinly sliced
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

Instructions

Make the tahini marinade. In a small bowl, whisk together the tahini, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 2 tablespoons olive oil, 2 minced garlic cloves, cumin, smoked paprika, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon black pepper. Add warm water one tablespoon at a time until the sauce is smooth and pourable. Set aside 3 tablespoons of the sauce for serving.
Coat the chicken. Place chicken breasts in a zip-top bag or shallow dish. Add the remaining tahini marinade and turn to coat evenly. Let marinate at room temperature for at least 10 minutes, or refrigerate for up to 4 hours.
Cook the chicken. Heat the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Remove chicken from marinade, letting excess drip off, and cook 7—8 minutes per side until cooked through and golden, reaching an internal temperature of 165°F. Transfer to a cutting board and rest 5 minutes before slicing.
Build the salad. While the chicken rests, combine cucumber, cherry tomatoes, red onion, and remaining garlic clove in a medium bowl. Drizzle with red wine vinegar and the remaining 1 tablespoon lemon juice. Season with remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon black pepper. Toss to combine, then fold in the fresh mint.
Assemble and serve. Arrange sliced chicken over the cucumber-tomato salad. Drizzle the reserved tahini sauce over the top. Serve immediately at room temperature, or chill the sliced chicken and serve cold — both work, and on a 114-degree day, cold wins every time.

Nutrition (per serving)

Tahini Chicken with Cucumber, Tomato, and Mint Salad — When the Heat Wins, Sesame Does the Work