Coconut Milk Chicken with Spinach & Sun Dried Tomatoes
This incredibly easy chicken skillet dinner is made in about 45 minutes, requires chopping only ONE onion, slicing a lime in half and can be made with eye balling ingredients. It is so simple, I promise you, it will quickly become a staple in your week-night family meal repertoire. However, it is special enough to serve to company for a dinner party. Share it with friends, take to a sick friend, new mom or pot luck supper.
The secret is a simple sauce seasoned with coconut milk and Tandoori Masala. Tandoori Masala is an Indian spice blend of paprika, turmeric, cumin, coriander, garlic, cardamom and ginger. It is smoky, earthy, sweet and makes a delicious marinade or, in this recipe, spices up a typical weeknight meal into a very special dinner. You find it in butter chicken or tikka dishes. You can always make your own spice blend at home. But to save time and effort, buy at the grocery store in the spice aisle. I found my blend at Whole Foods (sadly my blend omits turmeric) . Some stores such as Safeway sell a blend simply labeled “Tandoori” in the spice aisle. You can buy a bottle online at Pure Indian Foods which has been in business since 1889 here.
The owners, Sandeep and Nalini Agarwal have a fantastic website full of great Indian cooking ideas. I love this cuisine and hope to experiment with it more. Check it out.
My coconut milk chicken simply has you sauté an onion, brown chicken breasts (bone-in for extra flavor). Mix the coconut milk with lime zest & juice and seasonings. Add the milk mixture back to the pan, pop the chicken in, add in raisins, (trust me-they work and are delicious) cover and simmer for 20-25 minutes until the chicken is tender and fully cooked. Add in baby spinach, and sun dried tomatoes. Serve with basmati rice (what else) and roasted vegetables – we roasted cauliflower, peppers and broccoli. If you want a dish with more heat, add in sriacha. Less heat- sweet chili sauce.
Let me know how you like this dish in the comment section below. Be sure to share my website with friends and don’t forget to subscribe to Pineandpalmkitchen.com for updates about food, travel and cooking in my two kitchens- one under the palms in Florida and one among the pines in Montana . Enjoy!
Meggen
Ingredients
- 3 unit chicken breasts skinless, bone in
- 3 cups baby spinach
- ½ cup golden raisins
- ¼ cup sun dried tomatoes drained.
- 1 cup yellow onion chopped
- 1 TBSP olive oil
- 13.5 oz can full fat coconut milk
- 2 TBSP tandoori Masala
- 1 tsp ginger
- 1 TBSP sweet chili sauce OR sriracha
- 1 unit lime juiced and zested
- ½ tsp salt
- Cooked basmati rice
Instructions
- In a small bowl combine coconut milk, lime zest, lime juice, tandoori spice, ginger, salt and chili sauce or sriracha. Set aside.
- Heat olive oil in a large pan over medium high heat. Brown chicken breasts on each side- about 1 minute per side. Set aside.
- In pan juices, saute onion until translucent- about 3 minutes.
- Add coconut milk mixture to hot pan with onions. Nestle chicken into sauce. Spoon in raisins – be certain to cover them in the sauce. Cover the pan. Reduce heat to low and simmer chicken for 20 minutes until tender. Remove cover. Stir in spinach and sun dried tomatoes. Cover for 5 minutes more on low heat.
- Serve cooked chicken over hot rice and and spoon sauce over entire dish.
- Serves 3-4 .
