INGREDIENTS
- 3 chicken breasts boneless and skinless
- 3 ounces baby spinach
- 1/2 ounce sun-dried tomatoes
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
For the coconut milk curry:
- 13.5 ounce can coconut milk stirred
- 2 tablespoons curry powder
- 1 tablespoon sriracha
- 1 lime juiced
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
INSTRUCTIONS
- Combine all of the coconut milk curry ingredients together in a bowl. Mix well and set aside.
- Heat olive oil in a pan over medium-high heat. Add chicken breasts in a single layer to the pan. Cook until seared on both sides, about 1 minute per side.
- Add the coconut milk curry to the pan, and mix it with the chicken. Cover the pan with a lid. Let the sauce simmer over medium-low heat until the chicken is cooked through, about 20 minutes.
- Uncover the pan. Stir in spinach and sun-dried tomatoes. Serve with rice or noodles.
My favorite ways of cooking chicken are slow cooking and stovetop. I use the slow cooker when I want easily shreddable chicken and I don’t mind the extra time that it takes, and I use the stovetop method when I want fast chicken. Today’s recipe describes the latter; the chicken is given a quick sear on both sides before cooked on lower heat with the lid on. You don’t need to transfer the chicken to the oven to finish it off.
This results in tender and moist chicken, and is easy enough for quick weeknight dinners. To make things more interesting, the chicken is simmered in a flavorful curry sauce with a coconut milk base, and everything cooks together in a single skillet on the stove.
Let’s talk about this Thai-inspired coconut milk curry sauce. It’s a blend of coconut milk, lime juice, ground ginger, a few tablespoons of curry powder (any kind will work), and a bit of sriracha for extra heat. Throw all of that into the skillet to simmer with the chicken, and you end up with a very flavorful sauce that’s great for sopping up with rice or noodles. The curry sauce is almost soup-like and not thick or heavy.
This recipe makes a generous amount of curry sauce, so I recommend pairing this dish with rice or noodles. I’ve even tried it with risotto-like rice, which ended up being a perfect vehicle for getting more of this spicy sauce into my system.
I am in the process of making this dish and wonder if doubling the chicken do I double all the ingredients of the sauce?
Yes, all of the ingredients should be doubled.
This was phenomenal! Only thing I changed was i used Jamaican curry, added sweet chili sauce and chicken stock to the curry mix! I used jasmine rice for fragrance and taste! Excellent!
Those are great additions. Thanks for sharing your feedback, Jessica.
This was delicious, and so easy! I didn’t have two tbsp of curry powder left, which I didn’t realise until I came back from the shop, so I improvised: 4 tsp curry powder, 1 tsp garam masala, 1 tsp red Thai curry paste. If you happen to have this stuff lying around, I’d highly recommend it, but I think even just switching out 1 tsp of the curry powder for garam masala would be great. I also seasoned the chicken with salt, pepper, cumin, and garlic powder before putting it in the pan and again before flipping it, but I never cook plain chicken. 🙂
I do wish the sauce was a little thicker. Any advice on how to accomplish that?
Hi Rachel, I’m so glad that you liked this dish 🙂 To thicken the sauce, you can combine the sauce ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil, letting it simmer until thickened to your liking. Then proceed with searing the chicken, and then adding the thickened sauce with the chicken. Hope that makes sense!
It does indeed, thanks. And even with that addition, this is still a recipe with very little cleanup, which is another excellent feature!
I have some rice noodles lying around and was thinking that after the chicken has simmered in the sauce, I would take the chicken out and put the dry rice noodles in to soak up the sauce. Any thoughts/suggestions?
Hi Lars, I haven’t tried that before but it sounds like a delicious idea. If you give it a try, let me know how it goes!
I did give it a try and it worked out great! I added a little chicken broth and a little more coconut milk (since those rice noodles are thirsty) and it turned out both beautiful and delicious.
Thanks for reporting back! Glad it worked out well 🙂
This looks AMAZING! I have an entire container of coconut milk sitting in my refrigerator that I need to use so this is the perfect recipe for it. My husband and I like spicy food so I might add a bit more Sriracha for some added heat. Thanks for the recipe!
This dish was awesome! I made it tonight for my husband and myself. It was super easy, flavorful and tasty! Although I wanted to, I did not add the sun dried tomatoes because I did not have any. Instead of sirracha I used 1 tablespoon of a chili garlic sauce I had on hand. It still came out delicious. The chicken was moist and I added extra spinach. Yum!! Thank you.
You’re welcome Amanda, glad to hear you liked it!! 🙂
This looks fantastic! I love coconut milk sauces, love the idea of adding sun-dried tomatoes as well
Julia, this dish looks soo good. Thanks for the inspiration! 🙂 Cant’ wait to try it!