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.
This is my go to recipe, my kids request it all the time. I serve it with baby broccoli seasoned on the top. All over rice- delicious!
Thanks for a great recipe. I have used both regular brown sugar and the Swerve, they both taste great.
I’m 3 weeks deep on WW and scouring the internet for good recipes. It’s so easy to just ear the same thing everyday on WW and get stuck in a rut. This recipe is DELICIOUS! I didn’t have Swerve but subbed 3 tbls coconut sugar and it was still phenomenal. Thank you!
Made according to recipe for spice measurements. Used 1 tbsp fresh ginger and 2 cloves fresh garlic, minced. Added 1/4 c rice, 1 cup chicken broth for rice to absorb,1 cup sour cream. Poured this over 3 cups bagged coleslaw mixture into casserole dish. Covered and baked at 350 for 45 mins. Good amount of heat, even with addition of rice and cabbage. We like some heat so this was great. Firecracker chicken meets lazy man’s cabbage roll casserole. Book marking this recipe to make again. Easy and delicious!
Can you clarify the brown sugar? Recipe calls for 96g – which at 4Carb per 4g it’s 24g carb per serving not 0? What am I doing wrong
See the note in the recipe card about Swerve brown sugar and erythritol sweeteners.
I used turkey for this and used Thai chili oil and it was the bees knees. Paired it with some cauliflower rice and fresh veggies for the cool down and it was the best dinner!
Can I use a cut up chicken breasts instead?
Yes, go for it.
Lots of heat in this for sure. Sugar and vinegar balances nicely. Incredibly fast to make!
Can I use Splenda Brown Sugar Blend instead of Swerve?
I don’t think it measures 1:1 for sugar like Swerve does, so you may need to adjust the amount. It should say what the conversion is for brown sugar on the packaging.
I didn’t have any brown sugar so I added honey and ketchup and a bit of maple syrup. Also didn’t have enough franks hot sauce so I added some cayenne pepper. It was so good and so easy.
P.s. I used bacon grease with some cayenne pepper instead of chilli oil
This was AMAZING! Put it over cauliflower rice. I used chopped chicken thighs.