This Paleo Chili Chicken recipe is a Chinese-style stir-fry that’s fabulous when you’re in the mood for healthy Chinese take out food. These bite size pieces of chicken glazed in a toasted sesame oil sauce, flavored with garlic, ginger, and red chilies will knock your socks off. You’ll enjoy every bite so much that you and your friends won’t ever know it’s healthy! We like to serve this Paleo Chili Chicken over Cauliflower Rice, or my Napa Cabbage with Shiitake Mushrooms stir fry recipe.
I love serving this to my family because it’s a high-protein, low-carb recipe that makes a satisfying gluten-free, grain-free, meal. My husband, who has no food restrictions whatsoever, enthusiastically ate it for dinner the other night. I knew then and there that I had to share it with you all!
Chili Chicken
Ingredients
- 2 pounds chicken breasts, rinsed and cut into bite size pieces
- ¼ teaspoon celtic sea salt
- 1 tablespoon ume plum vinegar
- 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
- 4 drops stevia
- 1 tablespoon arrowroot powder
- 2 tablespoons coconut oil or olive oil
- 10 dried chilis, cut in half
- 1 tablespoon ginger, minced
- 1 shallot, minced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- ½ cup water
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, season chicken with salt, ume plum vinegar, sesame oil, stevia, and arrowroot
- In a 9 inch skillet over a high flame, heat coconut oil
- Add chilis and fry until they turn reddish brown, about 2 minutes
- Add seasoned chicken to skillet and stir-fry for 3 minutes
- Add ginger, shallot, garlic, and water and cook for 7 more minutes or until chicken is cooked
- Serve with Cauliflower Rice or Napa Cabbage with Shiitake Mushrooms
This Chili Chicken dish is based on a recipe I found on My Feasts. I “Elana-fied” the recipe by eliminating the sugar, cornstarch, and soy sauce to suit my dietary plan. I then added garlic, and proceeded to simplify the recipe by eliminating various steps so it would take less time to make. The end result? As I devoured this Chili Chicken I was transported back to my days of gluten-filled eating in New York City Chinese restaurants prior to being diagnosed with celiac disease in 1998.
Here are some of my other favorite healthy Chinese “take out” style recipes:
elana says
Hani– Thanks for your feedback, I appreciate it. Per your question regarding the spiciness, it was not all that spicy to us (and I have children –they ate it). I actually think the chili sauce will make it much hotter.
My recommendation would be to find the chili peppers, use them and maybe leave them whole instead of cutting them (the seeds are the super spicy part). Also, if you are very concerned about the spiciness, you could take them out of the pan after they are sauteed so that they merely add a very subtle chili flavor; though in the end we found them to be not all that spicy –and I used the hot peppers.
Gosh, sometimes it’s so challenging to answer questions over the internet as so much of this is subjective. Anyway, I hope your dinner is a smashing success.
Elana
hanni says
hello Elana. Fabulous web site–I am intrigued by so many tasty looking foods that require so few ingredients. I would like to make this chicken but I have a dinner guest who is afraid of spice. Would you say this dish is hot or more towards the medium or mild side? Also i couldn’t find any peppers that were less than 7 on the spicy scale at the store. I purchased some chili sauce from the asian section for a different recipe. do you think the chili sauce can be used in this recipe in place of the fresh peppers or would that just ruin everything?
Thanks!
elana says
~M -I hadn’t heard of it until now. It looks really neat, though my heart does belong to tastespotting at present!
~M says
Have any of you used http://www.cookthink.com/ ?
Elana says
Sarah- Are you one of the people behind tastespotting.com? It is my all time favorite site. Talk about food porn!
Dear lifeinrecipes -thanks for stopping by, I really like your site!
lifeinrecipes says
Elana:this dish(es) looks beautiful – spotted it right off on Tastespotting. thanks for the lead to myfeasts.
sarah says
glad you like tastespotting :)