Mediterranean Ground Chicken

Whether you’re looking for a quick and easy weeknight dinner or a new high protein meal prep recipe, this Mediterranean ground chicken is exactly what you’re after. It’s sweet, spicy, and perfect for serving with rice and veggie bowls or inside pitas. You can have it on the table in about 20 minutes with basically 5 ingredients. And every serving has 26 grams of protein with only 10 grams of carbs, 6 grams of fat, and 180 calories.

Ingredients for Mediterranean Ground Chicken

If you don’t count the seasoning, this recipe makes the coveted 5-ingredient recipe cutoff. Here’s everything you’ll need:

• ground chicken
• olive oil
• honey
• harissa paste
• lemon juice
• garlic powder and kosher salt

What is harissa?

Harissa is a chili paste condiment of North African origin consisting of chiles, coriander, caraway, and garlic. There are tons of variations, but I used Trader Joe’s harissa paste for this recipe. It’s on the milder side so tread carefully if you’re using another brand.

If you have trouble finding harissa in your grocery store, you can always make your own.

What can I use instead of harissa?

There are lots of chili pastes out there, but none are that similar to harissa. Gochujang has too much fermented soy flavor. And while Calabrian chili oil (another Trader Joe’s favorite) is pretty similar in flavor but is, as the name suggests, an oil instead of a paste.

I like the suggestion in this PepperScale post on harissa substitutes to add coriander, caraway, and cumin to another chili paste like sambal oelek. They also mention using sriracha with the added spices and as we know from my honey sriracha ground chicken and broccoli, I’m a big fan of that combo.

Ground Chicken

I used two pounds of homemade ground chicken (chopped chicken breast and thighs) with a lean to fat ratio around 97% lean or 97/3. You can use any ground chicken or even ground turkey for this recipe.

Just be sure to get your pan hot and heat the olive oil before adding the chicken. You want to get great browning via the Maillard reaction to create additional layers of flavor in a simple, quick cooking recipe like this. Patting your ground chicken dry with a paper towel can also promote browning. For optimal browning, you want a hot and dry environment.

If you’d prefer pulled chicken and want to keep things easy, you can use leftover rotisserie chicken like in my honey harissa chicken gyros recipe.

Serving Your Honey Harissa Ground Chicken

If you’re a Cava fan, you’ll notice my bowl looks a lot like their Harissa Avocado Bowl, and that’s by design. I made a few changes, but here’s everything I used:

• lemon pepper Right Rice
• cucumber
• fire roasted corn
• avocado
• pickled onion
• hummus
• tzatziki
• goat cheese

Cava also adds their SuperGreens (cabbage, chicory, brussels sprouts, broccoli, and kale) and a harissa vinaigrette. I used a Greek vinaigrette, but you could make your own harissa vinaigrette (you’ll have all these ingredients on hand already) or creamy harissa dressing (tahini + harissa).

This honey harissa ground chicken would also go great with roasted or stewed chickpeas or in a pita with most of the bowl ingredients above.

I’d love to see what you come up with. Come back and let me know what you create in the comments below or in a recipe review. Those are always appreciated!

More Ground Chicken Recipes

• Firecracker Ground Chicken
• Tex-Mex White Bean Chicken Soup
• BBQ Baked Chicken Meatballs
• Dan Dan Noodles
• Ground Chicken Tinga
• Creamy Italian Soup with Ground Chicken