This 20-minute firecracker ground chicken is the perfect low carb, high protein meal prep recipe. Each serving has 22 grams of protein, 0 grams of carbs, and just 185 calories. It’s super easy to make and goes perfectly with rice or cauliflower rice. Or you can get creative and use it to make things like lettuce wraps or a veggie stir fry with noodles.
How to Make Firecracker Chicken with Ground Chicken
I doubt you’ll need much help with this recipe, but I’ve included a recipe walkthrough and ingredient notes in the post below nonetheless. Feel free to hit the jump to recipe button at the top of the post and hop back here if you have recipe or ingredient questions.
Brown one pound of ground chicken in 1/2 tablespoon of chili oil or your choice of oil.
The recipe calls for 92% lean ground chicken, but you could use leaner. You could also swap the ground chicken for ground turkey or your choice of ground meat.
Like I mention in my ground chicken breakfast sausage recipe, using a little bit of oil is not entirely necessary, but it adds a ton of flavor and helps the chicken brown nicely. That browning adds a ton of flavor you might miss out on otherwise. I would definitely use a leaner cut of ground chicken before omitting the oil if you wanted to save a few calories!
Make the firecracker sauce while the ground chicken cooks.
Everything you’ll need for the firecracker sauce:
- buffalo sauce
- cider or rice vinegar
- zero-calorie Swerve brown sugar (or dark brown sugar)
- garlic powder
- ground ginger
- red pepper flakes
- salt and pepper
Simply mix everything together and you’ll be ready to crack on.
If you’re unfamiliar with Swerve sweeteners, they’re zero-calorie, erythritol-based sugar substitutes that taste and cook like real sugar. I’ve used their brown sugar substitute to make everything from Nashville Hot ground chicken burgers to air fryer apple fritters.
You’ll find notes for nutrition facts with real brown sugar in the recipe card at the bottom of the post. I’ll also mention that my chili crisp ground chicken and spicy coconut ground chicken recipes both use honey and gochujang as a sticky sweetener substitute. That might be an option.
Update: If you like this sauce, you can use it to make my firecracker chicken meatballs recipe!
Mince the ground chicken and finish cooking before adding the sauce. Cook until the sauce thickens, about 2-3 minutes.
You’re looking for a thick, syrupy, slightly sticky sauce. As long as you keep everything moving around, you shouldn’t be at risk of burning anything. Give it time!
Serving Your Firecracker Ground Chicken
The classic rice and protein bowls are my go-to with this recipe. If you wanted to keep things lower carb, using cauliflower rice is the obvious choice. One “hack” you could pull from my ground beef and rice skillet is mixing half cauliflower rice and half regular rice to mask the veggie-ness.
You could also swap the rice for quinoa like in my spicy sesame ground beef and quinoa bowls. And if you wanted to add some veggies, you could pan roast some broccoli or something similar before cooking the chicken like in my sweet and spicy ground chicken and broccoli recipe.
To make things a bit more interesting, you could plug this firecracker ground chicken into something like these chicken lettuce wraps or my low carb noodle stir fry.
That should cover it. If you have a question about this recipe or its ingredients I forgot to cover, leave a comment below. Otherwise, enjoy your firecracker ground chicken! And if you enjoy it, recipe reviews are always appreciated.
Firecracker Ground Chicken
Ingredients
- 1 lb Ground Chicken, 92/8
- 1/2 Tbsp 8g Chili Oil
- 1/2 C 96g Swerve Brown Sugar
- 1/4 C 60g Buffalo Sauce
- 2 Tbsp 30g Cider or Rice Vinegar
- 1 tsp Ground Ginger
- 1 tsp Garlic Powder
- 1/2 tsp Kosher Salt
- 1/2 tsp Black Pepper
- 1/2 tsp Red Pepper Flakes
Instructions
- Heat a skillet over medium-high heat with the chili oil. Brown both sides of the chicken, about 3-4 minutes per side, before mincing and fully cooking.
- While the chicken cooks, whisk the remaining ingredients together in a mixing bowl.
- Once the chicken is fully cooked, add the sauce to the pan and cook until thick and syrupy.
- Serve with scallions and toasted sesame seeds over rice or cauliflower rice.
Notes
Nutrition Info Notes
- Each serving has 4 WW SmartPoints (blue).
- The nutrition facts do not include any nutrition info from the Swerve Brown Sugar. Erythritol has 0.2 calories per gram so the entire recipe has around 20 calories if you'd like to include it.
- With real brown sugar, each serving has 24g of carbs and 275 calories.
- Using 97/3 ground chicken adds 4g of protein and saves 5.5g of fat and 50 calories per serving.
Just tried this tonight. Great flavor profiles and super easy. We didn’t try the cauliflower rice this time but will try half cauliflower and half rice next time and maybe add some vegetables, maybe sautéed broccoli. Thank you this is a great addition to our menus.
This recipe is really good Iwould just be careful with the hot ingredients
So I had ground turkey and needed inspo. Um hello! This was fantastic! My 12 year old ate two servings. I used brown sugar and halved the garlic oil/ mixed with olive oil and lighter on the chili flakes. It was the perfect keep your mouth- hot-but -can -still -taste -it heat. And franks of course…. of course .
Will definitely be doing this again!
OK so the name of this dish intrigued me but before I clicked on the recipe, it made me think of something sriracha-ey. I was wrong. I ended up making alterations as I didn’t have Franks but had Buffalo Wild Wings buffalo sauce instead. I did add the chili oil (w/ the chili) and a bit of sesame oil as well. Instead of 1/2 c of brown sugar, used 1/3 instead since I felt like half a cup was a bit too much (but was necessary to offset the spiciness I feel). Sadly ran out of scallions so topped w/ cilantro and furikake. I made this w/ ground chicken and hot dogs LOL, and had some Taiwan noodles and regular steamed broccoli on the side!
Next time, will use Franks and maybe add some sambal oelek (and possibly even sriracha) too instead of the chili oil. Really good and actually kind of versatile as long as you stick with the buffalo sauce and chili oil. Thank you Mason!
I thought the 1/2 c of brown sugar was too much. I reduced it to 1/4 c and it was still a little sweet, but it was very good. I served it with some brown rice and steamed broccoli.
So very good. Made as directed. Next time just because I like them I plan to add drained sliced water chestnuts.
Helpful Suggestion:
1/2 C of sweetener is a lot
Drop down to 1/4 C or less depending on taste
Make a slurry with 1 tbsp of your starch/flour of choice (almond and coconut flour work. Needs to have actual starch in it) and 1/4 c of water or broth
I shred 3 breasts in a cast iron pan and make street tacos! Top them off with broccoli slaw drizzled in an apple cider vinaigrette and I am in looooove! Thank you for sharing this recipe. It is THE BEST!!
I just tried your Low-Carb Firecracker Ground Chicken recipe, and it’s absolutely amazing! The perfect blend of flavors and spice made it a hit with my family. I love how simple and quick it is to prepare, especially for busy weeknights. Thank you for sharing such a creative and healthy dish! Looking forward to trying more recipes from your site.
I’ve been making this firecracker ground chicken (usually with ground turkey instead) for about two months now and it’s one of my favorite meals – and one of my husband’s favorite meals, too. It meal preps super easily, is delicious every time it gets reheated (though doesn’t last long unless it’s an intentional meal prep) and is super fast to pull together with ingredients I have in the pantry. I love eating it on lettuce, in a wrap, as a super low-carb, high protein meal. It’s also fantastic in a tortilla or low-carb wrap, eaten with buckwheat, or as the recipe suggests on rice. It is rare for me to find a low-fat, low-carb, high protein meal with no added sugar that still tastes amazing, but this recipe. is. it!