Peanut-Braised Chicken Breasts
Peanut-Braised Chicken Breasts cook in an Asian-inspired gingery, slightly spicy peanut sauce served with a limey cabbage carrot salad.
Peanut-Braised Chicken Breasts
I am constantly looking for ways to take boneless, skinless chicken breasts and make them less boring. I personally love dark meat, so adding some flavor is a must! Braising them in this gingery, slightly spicy peanut sauce does the trick. The sauce doesn’t use much peanut butter, just enough for flavor. You can see more tasty chicken breast recipes here. For more peanut sauce recipes, try my Chicken Satay with Spicy Peanut Sauce, Spiralized Summer Roll Bowl with Hoisin Peanut Sauce, and Asian Peanut Noodles with Chicken.
How to Cook Peanut-Braised Chicken
- Season the chicken with salt and pepper and then cook for five minutes in a skillet.
- Flip the chicken over and add the peanut sauce ingredients.
- Turn down the heat and let the chicken and sauce simmer for about 20 minutes until the chicken is cooked through and the sauce is reduced.
What is peanut sauce made of?
This peanut sauce is so simple to make, made of the following ingredients:
- Natural Peanut butter
- Sriracha
- Ginger
- Garlic
How to Serve Peanut Chicken
Slice the chicken and serve it over fluffy white rice, brown or veggie rice, quinoa with thinly sliced raw cabbage and carrots mixed with a little lime juice. Spoon the sauce over everything and top it with cilantro. The rice soaks up the yummy peanut sauce, and the salad with lime is a nice compliment to the spicy peanut sauce.
Variations:
- You can add sliced cucumber to the salad for another crunchy, cooling veggie.
- Buy a bag of coleslaw, which is just pre-shredded cabbage and carrots, to save time.
- Swap the peanut butter for nut-free butter like Wow Butter.
- Serve over cauliflower rice for a low-carb option.
- You can store the chicken with sauce, rice, and salad in separate containers in the refrigerator for up to three days.
More Braised Chicken Recipes You’ll Love:
- Braised Chicken Thighs with Mushrooms and Leeks
- Braised Chicken with Tomatoes and Rosemary
- Braised Chicken Drumsticks in Tomatillo Sauce
- Turmeric Braised Chicken with Golden Beets and Leeks
Peanut-Braised Chicken Breasts
Ingredients
- 1/2 small red cabbage, shredded (about 4 1/2 cups)
- 1 cup shredded carrots
- 2 limes, halved
- 2 tsp olive oil
- 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 4 small organic boneless skinless chicken breasts, (about 6 oz each)
- Pepper, to taste
- 1 1/2 cups water
- 1/4 cup peanut butter, natural no sugar added
- 1 tbsp Sriracha chili sauce, plus more for serving
- 1 tbsp grated ginger
- 1 large garlic clove, grated
- brown rice or veggie rice, optional for serving
- cilantro, optional for garnish
Instructions
- Mix the cabbage and carrots with the juice of 1 lime, 1 tsp olive oil, and 3/4 tsp salt. Taste and add the juice of up to another half lime if you like. Let marinate while you make the chicken.
- Season the chicken with the remaining 3/4 tsp salt and pepper.
- Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat until hot.
- Add the remaining 1 tsp oil and the chicken and cook until the chicken is golden on one side, about 5 minutes.
- Flip the chicken and add the water, peanut butter, Sriracha, ginger, and garlic.
- Bring to a boil and use your spatula to help dissolve the peanut butter.
- Reduce the heat and simmer, flipping the chicken occasionally to baste it and stir the sauce around, until the chicken is cooked through and the sauce has reduced, about 20 minutes, depending on the size of your chicken breasts.
- Let the chicken rest for 5 minutes then slice.
- Juice the last lime half into the peanut sauce and stir so the sauce smooths out again.
- Divide the vegetables among four plates, top each with sliced chicken, spoon the peanut sauce over, and serve with rice on the side.
- Garnish with cilantro.
I want to meal prep this for lunch. Would the cabbage mix hold up for four days? Or should I portion out for each day and add the marinade (portioned out) the day of?
I made this tonight for dinner with PB2 instead of peanut butter and it was delicious! The slow simmer made even chicken breasts tender and juicy. A delicious meal for 2 Blue Points (when using the PB2) is a definite winner!
I added extra fresh ginger and garlic to the sauce. So flavorful and delicious served on the slaw. What a great combination!
Excellent recipe, my husband was impressed (not always easy to do). I did make a couple of changes. I reduced the siracha to 1/2 t. Heat doesn’t agree with my digestion. The only other thing we did was cook our chicken (breast tenders) with our Sous Vide, made the sauce then added the cooked (moist and incredibly tender) chicken to the sauce for a short time. All other ingredients and measurements like the recipe. Will definitely make it again!
Super bland. I made it as written. It needs something. Maybe coconut milk instead of the water? It’s just blah. No payoff for the relatively modest amount of work.
We made this for dinner tonight. It was delicious.
This was delicious! It’s still good on the second day as well. I will definitely be making it again!
I made the other night and it was amazing. I used half regular peanut butter and half Better than Peanut Butter to cut the calories a little bit. It was even better the second day. The whole family loved it.
We loved this recipe! Added more sriracha for more spice. Will definitely make this again!!
I never did get the sauce to thicken up much, even though it did reduce–I did use low sodium broth and PB2 powdered peanut butter. I added some cilantro to the broth as well. I did 1/2 sirachi as I am sensitive to “heat”, so that was good for me. Lime very good in sauce, really makes it to me. So this thinner sauce does lend itself to use a rice or cauliflower rice with it. I like this sauce as no soy sauce that I find way to salty even with reduced sodium type. Must be me. I had different sides as I didn’t have any cabbage –so looked at spicy peanut chicken recipe in “One and Done” and roasted some veggies in the oven–broccoli and sweet potato peeled and cut into cubes. Liked that with this too. See instant pot tried by some with less liquid and that sounds like a nice idea too. Husband really liked it a lot.
Hi, I was wondering if your calorie count includes the rice? Thank you!
AWESOME
I LOVE this recipe! I actually used crunchy natural PB because I already had it, and I really love sautéed cabbage slaw, so I threw it in the skillet separately. My chicken breasts were thick, so my sauce thickened beautifully! I made extra slaw instead of rice. So healthy and good!
This was delicious!! Huge hit at my house. Can’t believe it’s so low cal, and SO tasty. I did cauliflower rice, and added the cucumber to the slaw-nice and refreshing with the spicy chicken! My chicken took a bit longer to cook, so I added some chicken stock along the way to thin out the peanut sauce-I suppose I’ll add a few cals 🙂 great recipe!
Do the 5 points on blue include the rice?
How would I adjust cooking time/directions if I used chicken tenderloins instead of chicken breast.
We made this tonight. Followed the recipe exactly and the sauce never did thicken up really, it stayed kinda watery. So in some respects it was easy to pour over the chicken. Also our chicken breasts didn’t slice up all nice like the picture. The saving grace was the cabbage salad, it was cool and with the lime on it, was perfect.
I love all of Gina’s recipes but this is by far one of the best I’ve made in awhile. So delicious.
Amazing! Super simple to prepare and the flavors were delicious.
Delicious! Easy to make, and easy clean up.
Delicious and super easy to put together. I tasted the slaw on its own and found it a bit tart but it worked perfectly with the spicy chicken. I served it with cauliflower rice.
OMG!!! So tasty! A good amount of heat, cut perfectly by the limey slaw. Slaw was a hit with my kids. I served this with pearled barley to round out the meal and soak up the delicious sauce.
What is the serving size for the points? Is the sauce included?
I have the same question!
This was good not great. The slaw was the best part do the recipe. Usually Skinny taste recipes are amazing. This one fell a little flat for me.
This was a super easy recipe to make. It was also very tasty as well. My son said it is something I can make again!!
Made this for our snowed in Valentine’s Day and it was yummy! We did the thin breast cutlets and just reduced the cooking time by a few minutes.
Used PB2 instead of regular peanut butter and it cut the purple points from 5 to 2. Made this tonight for our Valentines Dinner. Added Birdseye Asian Medley steamed veggies to the slaw and brown rice. Made a wonderful meal.
Made this tonight for our Valentines Dinner. Used PB2 instead of regular peanut butter and it cut the purple points from 5 to 2. Added Birdseye Asian Medley steamed veggies to the slaw and brown rice. Made a wonderful meal.
Love the PB2 powder. How much did you use?
I loved the coleslaw. It was so simple to make with the preshredded carrot/cabbage mix, and it complemented the rest of the meal nicely. I did not realize lime was so good with cabbage. I thought the peanut sauce was a little thin and just ok. I may cook the garlic and ginger with the chicken first , as one reviewer suggested, if I make it again. That said, my partner thought this was really delicious, and loved the whole meal.
This was DELICIOUS. I did not have the sriracha so I substituted chili garlic sauce. This is a keeper.
I made this dish. I enjoyed it.
Next time I will use less ginger and more Sriracha sauce.
Overall a crowd pleaser.
Absolute winner!!
Love this recipe……..next time, I’ll probably cook of the garlic and ginger with the chicken before adding the sauce, just to take a touch of the bitterness out of it but beyond that, it was fantastic!
This recipe was SOOO GOOD. I tossed the cabbage/carrot salad in the leftover sauce in the pan. I regret not making a double batch.
I made it this morning and it was so delicious and easy to make. I made it in instant pot so I didn’t use as much water. Everything else stayed the same. Husband declared this in one his top 10. Thank you for an awesome recipe!
Yum! Do you mind sharing how you cooked in instant pot? Time etc?
Yum! Do you mind sharing how you cooked this in instant pot? Time etc? Thanks!
Sure .. Just know it will come out with some gravy or sauce that you can spoon over rice or noodles.
First season chicken with S+P, set IP on sauté mode, little EVOO, then slightly browned chicken on one side, flipped to the other side. Added Ginger, Garlic, Sriracha and PB.
I only had extra crunchy PB and I was worried about that but it turned out delicious. I added maybe half cup of water. Combined everything – then set mode on Manual with 7 minutes. I actually cut chicken with shears so it was in smaller chunks before setting the lid.
Easy peasy … manual release pressure and I finished a big bowl of it before anyone else could get to it.
Vanessa, did you mean natural release pressure or quick release for the IP recipe?
Thanks.
Sunny
Are the points for just the chicken? Or the rice too?
Rice is not included 🙂
Could I used PB2? if yes, how much would you suggest?
Thanks.
Sure just turn it into peanut butter per the instructions and use the same amount. It wont be as thick and may need some oil added.
Think this would work with almond butter rather than peanut butter? My daughter has a peanut allergy. It looks great!
sure
This was absolutely delish! I threw some cawli and broccoli last 10 mins. Served with Jasmine rice and mango! Yum! 🤗
Hi! Already love all your recipes and it’s only been a few days. Could you tell me, is the nutritional info for the whole dish (rice, veggies) or just the chicken/sauce?
Everything except the rice.
This was soooo good. I didn’t have red cabbage so I just used carrot and cucumber
Our daughter is vegetarian and I wondering if this recipe could be altered with tofu vs. chicken? She loves asian flavors!
I do this substitution a lot – Tofu does really well with peanut sauces. I’d definitely try this, and would probably use a soy/ginger baked tofu.