1 ½poundsboneless skinless chicken (breasts or thighs), cut into 1-inch chunks
3cupsvegetables cut into 1 ½-inch pieces, such as red onions, bell peppers, mushrooms, zucchini, summer squash, whole cherry tomatoes, or lightly cooked cauliflower or broccoli
Soak about 20 6-inch wooden skewers, or 10 12-inch skewers, in water to cover for 30 minutes. You can also use metal skewers, which do not need soaking.
Combine the orange juice, lemon or lime juice, garlic, olive oil, and basil in a small bowl or plastic container and mix well.
Place the chicken in a large bowl. Add the vegetables, then pour over the citrus-basil marinade and mix well. Marinate for 30 minutes at room temperature, or refrigerate, covered, for at least 2 hours and up to a day.
Thread the skewers with chicken and veggies, creating appealing patterns (the 6-inch skewers will take about 5 pieces of chicken, alternated with veggies, the 12-inch double that amount). Lightly salt and pepper the skewers.
Meanwhile, preheat the grill to medium-high. Grill the kebabs 4 inches from the heat sauce, until the meat or seafood is cooked through and everything has a nice grill-marked exterior, 4 to 6 minutes on each side (longer for dark chicken meat, shorter for white chicken meat), 8 to 12 minutes total. Brush the kebobs with some of the marinade left behind in the bowl as they cook. Serve hot.
Notes
This recipe is for chicken but you can also use shrimp, scallops, or cubes of firm fish (like swordfish) or turkey or tender cuts of meat. In the red meat category, just be sure you don’t grab a package of stewing meat, such as chuck or brisket, because those meats need long, slow cooking to reach tenderness. For pork you’ll want to use pork chop meat, not shoulder or butt or any of the longer cooking tougher cuts.