This 20-minute recipe pairs ground chicken with spices, hot chili paste, honey, and coconut milk to make a protein option that’s loaded with flavor. With 27 grams of protein and just 230 calories per serving, this chicken is perfect for meal prep.
And as an added bonus, there’s no vegetable chopping or prep required! Just throw everything in the pan, give it a stir every now and then, and get ready for a treat!
I’ll run you through the recipe below and answer a few ingredient substitution questions along the way. You can find a printable recipe card at the bottom of the post and a comment section below that. If you have any additional questions about this recipe, drop ’em there.
Step 1: Cook the ground chicken with paprika, garlic powder, ground ginger, salt, and optional ground coriander.
There’s not much to say about step 1. I opted for dry spices for convenience but if you want to use fresh garlic and ginger (you little show pony), I say go for it. You could also skip the ground coriander and add some fresh cilantro when serving.
A little bonus tip for this recipe is to be sure and brown your ground chicken. Like I mentioned in my turkey sausage breakfast skillet recipe, browning the meat creates an extra layer of flavor. And speaking of ground turkey, it will work fine for this recipe.
If you’re having trouble finding ground chicken in your grocery store, you may be able to ask the meat department to grind you some from fresh chicken breast. It’s worth a shot! You could also go with whole chicken breast or thighs by using my spicy coconut pressure cooker pulled chicken recipe.
Step 2: Add gochujang (or a hot chili paste) and honey to the cooked ground chicken.
Gochujang is a spicy and slightly sweet chili paste that’s common in Korean dishes (like my Korean-Style Ground Beef). You can find gochujang in most grocery stores these days but if you’re having trouble finding it, other hot chili pastes should work okay.
If you want to wing it without any chili paste, you’ll probably want to add some more spice via chili flakes and something like the miso paste in my curried chicken and rice bowls for the umami. While I’ve been told sriracha is not a viable replacement (and I totally agree), it’s better than nothing if you want to try this recipe without a grocery run. You could also try something like Swerve brown sugar + a hot sauce like I used for my low carb firecracker ground chicken.
As for the honey, substitutions might include brown sugar (or zero-calorie Swerve Brown like with my Nashville Hot chicken nuggets, maple syrup from my Japanese BBQ chicken, sugar free pancake syrup, or worst case—granulated sugar.
I wouldn’t recommend omitting the honey (or some type of sweetener) altogether as it will help balance out the spice level and flavor profile.
Final Step: Add coconut milk and cook until magical.
This step is entirely up to you and how you plan to serve your ground chicken. As you can see in the photos, I went with a thicker mixture to serve over rice. If you wanted to reserve some liquid, you could remove from the heat after 4-5 minutes (top right photo below).
There’s no right or wrong here. Though if you’re tracking your nutrition intake, the weight of your four servings will vary slightly with more/less liquid remaining.
If you need accuracy, I always recommend weighing your finished recipe and dividing the total weight by the number of servings you’d like. You can learn more about this in my guide on how to use a food scale for cooking.
How to Serve Your Ground Chicken
I’m curious to see how creative readers get with this recipe but until then, the easiest pairing will be some type of rice. If you wanted to reduce the carbs, I have a few ideas to spruce up boring cauliflower rice.
- Pan roast broccoli before cooking the ground chicken and add at the end like in my spicy honey ground chicken and broccoli recipe or make air fryer broccoli like in my orange chicken meal prep bowls.
- You can mask the cauliflower-ness by mixing half cauliflower rice with a “real” rice like in my high volume rice blend.
- Since lime and cilantro go great with the chili and coconut, you could use the cilantro lime cauliflower rice from my firecracker bison rice bowls.
- Use a bit more coconut milk to make a coconut cauliflower rice.
- Swap the rice for quinoa like in my sesame ground beef and quinoa bowls.
And then there’s always the option of slightly lower carb rice products like Right Rice or Banza’s chickpea rice. In fact, I used the cilantro lime Right Rice in my ground chicken and rice enchiladas.
You can also add extra volume to your rice bowls with things like the cucumber crunch salad in my sesame ginger chicken crumbles recipe.
Be sure to let me know what you come up with for pairing ideas. That’s all the notes I have for you. Bone apple tea!
Spicy Coconut Ground Chicken
Ingredients
- 1 lb Ground Chicken, 97% lean
- 1 Tbsp Paprika
- 1 tsp Ground Ginger
- 1 tsp Garlic Powder
- 1/2 tsp Kosher Salt, 1/4 tsp table salt
- 1/2 tsp Ground Coriander, optional
- 2 Tbsp 60g Gochujang or Comparable Hot Chili Paste
- 2 Tbsp 42g Honey
- 13.5 oz can Light Unsweetened Coconut Milk
Instructions
- Heat a skillet over medium heat with nonstick cooking spray. Add the ground chicken to the skillet and mix the dry spices together in a small bowl. Add the mixed spices to the chicken and use a spatula to stir everything together. Fully cook the chicken until no pink remains.
- Add the chili paste and honey to the cooked chicken, stirring until evenly incorporated.
- Add the coconut milk and stir until you can no longer see any white from the milk. Continue cooking for 8-10* minutes, stirring occasionally, until the mixture thickens. Remove from the heat and serve.
Notes
Nutrition Information Notes
- Serving size may vary depending on how much you reduce the coconut milk.
- Nutrition facts do not include any rice—ground chicken only.
- Each serving has 6 WW SmartPoints (blue plan).
So yummy!!! Looks like sweet chili beef has some competition for lunch now. Thank you for another great recipe!
That’s a bold statement! Though I think I agree. Lots of flavor here. 😀 Thanks for the feedback!
To die for…made basmati rice in ip while cooking. Need to now figure out a way to incorporate veggies…thinking just simply add steamed broccoli. Yum!
That would be a great side. I bet you could work some bell pepper and maybe some spinach in. And someone mentioned using the chicken as a filling for lettuce wraps.
Delish! I used only half a can of coconut milk and that was plenty for my taste. I also used Walden farms syrup instead of honey to keep carbs lower. Leaving me more room for rice! Ha! Thanks !
Another great recipe! I subbed the chili paste for chipotle in adobo since I’m trying to limit how much I go to the store- and it worked! Put it over cauliflower rice and some shredded lettuce- delicious!
Terrific addition to my menu rotation! Didn’t have chicken, so I used ground turkey breast – still worked perfectly. Spooned it over cauliflower rice and broccoli (gotta get those veggies in). Made for a great dinner!
This was so easy and surprisingly good! I used ground turkey, and made due with what I had—sweet chili oil and berebere spice, and sautéed diced onions and red peppers In with the meat. I had mine over cauliflower rice, my husband went with jasmine rice. We both really liked it—it’s going into the rotation for sure!
Definitely adding this to the rotation for lunch this week. I’ll be adding in some broccoli slaw or server it over the broccoli slaw instead of rice.
Made this today with some white rice, steamed broccoli and steamed snow peas. So good!! Would recommend!
Thanks for the feedback. Happy to hear it was a hit!
I made this recipe with ground turkey because I cannot find ground chicken anywhere but it was still delicious! Perfect blend of spicy and coconut. I had it with the lime and cilantro cauliflower rice and I was obsessed with how well all the flavors went together. I only had enough cauli rice for 2 servings which made me sad. After I ran out of the cauli rice I had it with regular rice or with broccoli and it was still delicious. I’ve been telling all my friends to try this recipe!
This turned out great and was super easy to make! I used ground turkey instead of chicken and full fat coconut milk since that’s what I had on hand. Added it to jasmine rice and steamed broccoli for my weekly meal prep and it was delicious!
his turned out really great and was quick. I ground my own chicken breasts because I don’t like commercially ground meat and it takes all of 5 minutes to do myself and I substituted Harissa for the pepper paste because that’s what I had. I also added some cilantro and it paired really well.
I actually added ground chicken to my latest grocery order just to try this recipe and it did not disappoint. Its so easy to make. Honestly the hardest part is finding light unsweetened coconut milk. Trader Joe’s has it FYI! Also, I discovered this amazing Korean sauce company called K Pop! Foods and they make the best gochujang sauce I’ve ever had. And it was sitting in my fridge and this is the PERFECT recipe for it. K Pop actually makes several variants of the sauce including a Honey Glaze and a XXX hot version, so I actually used a bit of each of the regular and honey for this recipe and it turned out amazing. Also, when I heat up a serving for a meal, I drizzle a bit more sauce on top before microwaving and it’s sooo good. I will be making this dish regularly from now on.