Everything is more fun on a stick, right? Well, that’s what I thought then I confirmed my suspicion as I sat and watched my family (yes, my husband included) practically fight over the last two of these chicken skewers the other night. Before my girls even knew what this dish was called they desperately needed more of “those things.” And the best part was that it took me no time at all to put this fancy-looking dinner together, which means it’s definitely “good enough” for company!
Coconut Chicken Satay
Serves 4 as an entree
Ingredients
- 1 lb chicken breasts, preferably locally and/or organically raised
- 1/2 cup peanut butter
- 1/2 cup coconut milk, unsweetened
- 1 tablespoon lime juice, plus 1 extra teaspoon (freshly squeezed)
- 1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1/2 jalapeño, seeds and stem removed (use the other half to make some overnight refried beans…yum!)
- 1/8 teaspoon chili powder
- 1/3 cup unsweetened coconut flakes, lightly toasted (note: coconut can burn quickly and needs to be stirred/checked frequently while toasting…we do ours in the toaster oven for no more than 2 or 3 minutes)
Instructions
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Preheat the oven broiler on high.
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Soak skewers in water if you don’t want them to cook/burn in the oven (I didn’t because I like to skip steps).
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Cut the chicken breasts into strips and thread them onto about a dozen skewers. Place the prepared skewers on a foil-lined baking sheet and set aside (you can stick them in the fridge if you’d like).
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In a food processor or blender puree the peanut butter, coconut milk, lime juice, vinegar, honey, garlic, jalapeno, and chili powder together. Remove ¼ cup of the peanut mixture and drizzle/brush it over the raw chicken skewers.
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Place chicken under the broiler to cook. After 4 – 5 minutes take the baking sheet out, turn the skewers over, drizzle another ¼ cup peanut sauce on top, and cook for 4 or 5 more minutes or until cooked all the way through.
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Once the chicken is done take it out, drizzle on the remaining peanut sauce (or serve it as extra dipping sauce on the side), and sprinkle the toasted coconut on top.
Serve warm and enjoy!
Recipe Notes
Also need: skewers and foil lined baking sheet
We recommend organic ingredients when feasible.
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These sound DELICIOUS.
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This looks YUMMY! I wonder if it would work substituting almond butter for the peanut butter? I’m going to give it a try!
I think it would work!
I LOVE chicken satay. I LOVE peanut sauce. I have tried many times to make thai peanut sauce at home and FAILED MISERABLY. I am VERY EXCITED to try this!! I’ve had great luck with your recipes so far. If I succeed, however, I do risk never eating anything else ever again :)
Looks delicious. I am not a coconut fan so I’m assuming I can leave of the shredded coconut. What about the coconut milk? Does it have a strong coconut taste and if so would you recommend a different milk?
I’m not a coconut fan either, but I find that in things like coconut shrimp, like it. I also use coconut milk with no problem.
Have you ever tried toasted coconut? I don’t like plain coconut either, but it’s quite different (and better in my opinion) when it’s toasted!
I have been a fan of chicken satay since coming across it in Holland. We’ve since given up peanuts, and I have missed it. I’m going to try this with a different nut butter, perhaps cashew. Now wondering if I have everything in the pantry for this … I want this for dinner tonight!
I cannot wait to try out this recipe on my family!!
Peanut + Coconut is one of my favorite flavor combos. Plus, the jalapeno for a little extra for zip sounds kind of like perfection. Thanks for sharing this.
This looks amazing! What great flavors – love chicken satay, but haven’t tried it for coconut, bet it is amazing!
We love satay and have a quick tip for cooking. Instead of heating up the oven, if you have George Foreman type grill, just pop them in there. Saves time and energy. Quick cleanup, too! Thanks for the great recipe.
What type of rice vinegar do you buy? I’ve only found ones with HFCS.
Oh wow…HFCS in rice vinegar? Ours is made by Nakano and it’s pretty clean.
I have never had cocunut peanut butter combo, what sides would you serve with this?
It has an Asian flair to it so brown rice, snow peas, bok choy, fried rice, asian noodles, etc….any of that would go nicely with it!
where did you find the coconut? i was looking today for unsweetened coconut with no luck!
Unsweetened shredded coconut can be hard to find. I got mine at Earth Fare, but I have seen it at Bi-Lo in the “healthy food” section.
You can also get it at Asian markets or an Indian food store, places along those lines have it. Sometimes it is called dessicated coconut, which basically means dried coconut.
I was wondering if anyone had a reccomendation for where to get coconut milk? I tried Whole foods, and the two types I found were in the cold section and seemed to have a lot of added ingreadients. I am a little new to the ‘real food’ plan and to coconut milk… but wanted to give it a try. Any help would be appreciated.
Check out the canned coconut milk in the Asian section of any grocery store…I bought organic unsweetened coconut milk in a can. Whole Foods should definitely have the same thing.
I made this tonight and it was awesome. Even my picky five year old loved it.
How many skewers did this make?
A dozen
My boys will freak when I make this!! They are 4 and 8 (and 35, lol) and love all things Thai!!! :-) THANKS SO MUCH for making out “transition” easier. Exited to move from boxed food to food in jars, (eg beans, grains, you know, healthy stuff?) :-)
THANKS AGAIN!!
Kari
I made this for dinner last night. Used almond milk instead of coconut (on a no-buying spree right now), added a big knob of chopped ginger to the sauce, and rolled each skewer on a plate with chia and sesame seeds and the coconut. I didn’t want the topping to burn, so I baked them with the convection fan on for about 20 minutes at 350. I also stirred the extra sauce into some curried lentils and quinoa. Oh, and between each piece of chicken I put a piece of orange pepper. The whole meal came together so efficiently and was delicious. Thanks for the recipe, and for reminding me that skewers are not just a summer food!
This is wonderful! I didn’t have any skewers, though, so I simply dunked all the chicken pieces into the sauce, then stir-fried it with a red pepper and half an onion. We served rice cooked in chicken broth on the side. Next time, I’ll probably go all out and cook the rice in coconut milk, too.
This is an awesome recipe! I made it as directed and it will definitely be on our regular rotation!!! What did you serve it with? We just heated up leftovers, but as I was planning dinner I wasn’t sure what sides you would pair with this.
This dish has an Asian flair so you could do stir fried veggies or brown rice or whole-grain Asian noodles on the side. Glad you enjoyed it!
I made this as written and it was delicious! Just go ahead and double the recipe, peoples!
We made this tonight with a bok choy recipe I found and it was wonderful! Thank you so much Lisa!
Hi Lisa!
I love what you’re doing to cut out processed foods. I’m the expert chef for Guiding Stars (and sometimes blog over at Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution site) I loved the look of this recipe, so I had it rated. We made one minor tweak (changing the regular coconut milk to unsweetened, lite coconut milk to reduce the saturated fat) and it earned a star! Thanks for sharing the delicious goodness!
Erin Dow
Expert Chef, Guiding Stars
http://guidingstars.com/expert-chef/recipe-review-welcome-spring/
Just wanted to let everyone know, I made this with sunbutter (sunflower seeds) because of nut allergies. And it turned out fabulous. I love peanuts, but couldn’t stop eating the sauce. My 7 year old loved it too. (still working on the 2 yr olds, but that’ will come). Thanks for all the great recipes!
I wonder how it would work to marinate the chicken? I like my flavors to be infused, so I think I’ll give it a try. This looks like the perfect dish for an appetizer only retirement get-together.
Give it a try! Let us know how it turns out. Jill
We had a lot of the sauce left over-we aren’t heavy saucers in our house! I’m not good at knowing what is OK to freeze, and what isn’t. Is there anything in the sauce that would make it a bad candidate for freezing for a later recipe?
Hi Christy. I’ve haven’t tried freezing the sauce, but, it’s worth a try. Good luck. Jill
I made this tonight. Great recipe! I used chicken tenderloins instead of breasts, and then I didn’t have to cut them (I hate cutting raw chicken). I had to make some substitutions based on what I had in the house – subbed almond milk for the coconut milk, as I accidentally used up the last of our coconut milk in the morning making popsicles! I left out the jalapeno for the sake of my toddler, who currently hates spicy stuff, and also used white vinegar instead of rice wine. The sauce was great despite all these changes, and this was really easy to make!
This was amazingly delicious and relatively easy to make! Thank you for the recipe!
We tried this tonight, but I used the sauce as a marinade. I marinated 1lb of chicken tenders for a few hours, then rolled the tenders in a mix of panko crumbs and unsweetened coconut flakes. I lined a pan with parchment paper and baked at 475 for 20 min…..fantastic!!! This will be a regular recipe in our house. My kitchen still smells delicious :)
Hi, this recipe looks delicious. My daughter has a life-threatening peanut allergy. Has anyone tried this with no nut butter, or any other suggestions?
Hi Kim – I just made this recipe tonight with WOW butter. It was delicious. My daughter also has a peanut allergy. We really enjoyed this recipe.
Heather, I was just about to ask the same question, because my fifteen month old also has a peanut allergy. But what is WOW butter??
Very similar recipe to this one, with sunflower seed butter (ditto the nasty p-nut allergy here), very very very yummy.
The leftover sauce did freeze and thaw well.
And its also tasty over noodles with “Asian Veggies” of your choosing :-)
I made this tonight! Huge success with my husband. I didn’t have skewers so instead I sliced the chicken into thin pieces and let it marinade in half the sauce for a few hours. Then I dipped each piece in the unsweetened coconut and baked it at 350 for about 25 minutes until the outside was crispy. I used the rest of the sauce for dipping. My daughter is too young to eat this now but I know this will be a favorite when she gets older! SOOOO yummy. Can’t wait to try the original way next time!
Another great recipe from 100 days of real food! I threw everything in my trusty vitamix blender and presto. I had been using a store-bought thai peanut sauce, but was unhappy with the ingredient list, and so tried this. Very easy, and actually more tasty than the one in the jar. It wasn’t too spicy (I followed the no-seed recommendation – I suppose that as I get more experience with this, I can actually adjust the spicy-ness by adding some seeds from the pepper.) I also used a very high quality peanut butter (ingredient = just peanuts.)I served this with rice, and the extra sauce for dipping, and in fact just pouring over the rice… I made the full amount of sauce, for about half the chicken (just my wife and I), so there was plenty of extra. Thanks as always for all of the great recipes.
I made these tonight!! My kids loved them as this is what they always order at the sushi and thai restaurants. It was so easy to bake and loved baking on foil so no messy cleanup! Subbed almond milk and almond butter because I did not have the others.
I’m planning on making this tomorrow and was curious as to what side items you served with it.
Hi Alicia. It sometimes takes us a few days to get through our many comments. Sorry. What did you serve? ~Amy
Made this for dinner tonight and it was a big hit!!! Used the left over peanut sauce for dipping and it was also VERY good!!! We served ours with organic noodles which everyone got to choose what they put on their noodles, and some organic spinach!!! Think I will double this and make for our next wives bunco night!!! ;)
A new family favorite! YUM
We have a peanut allergy in our house. Do you have a recommendation for a good substitute? We sometimes use sunflower seed butter, but that just doesn’t seem like it would taste good.
Really good – next time I will skip the skewers and just marinate and roll as other commenters suggested – just to save time. I doubled the recipe (family of 6) and still have enough for lunch tomorrow and sauce to freeze (thanks for that idea!) I served this with jasmine rice and green beans.
Just made this – it was DELICIOUS. I agree that I will skip the skewers, but I think my husband liked them because then they looked like they were from a restaurant.
We tried this last night. Husband was doubtful, and not interested in the sticks, but agreed in the end that it was really good. Definitely a keeper recipe. Thanks for sharing this!
What can I do with the leftover coconut milk?
Hi Julie. We use it in cereal and oatmeal all the time. ~Amy
Julie, I like to use coconut milk in my smoothies, it makes them extra creamy.
We’ve made this before, but today I finally found some unsweetened coconut at a local health store, so we made the ‘exact’ recipe. Yum! This has become one of our favorites served with grilled vegetables. My young boys think the sticks are fun, of course.
would the recipe change a whole lot if i just used regular 1% milk? thanks!
Hi Meredith. The coconut milk adds a lot of flavor. ~Amy
I’ve been following your blog for a while and I love all your recipes…but I have to say, the sauce for this chicken is INSANELY GOOD!!!
What happened to the recipe? I was going to make this tonight and I can’t see it!
Hi. We had a brief technical problem. All is well. :)
Good but not more. I used extra fresh pressed garlic as well, sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, freshly squeezed lemon juice plus the rest of the ingredients. I also added red bell pepper & red onion to the skewers. I did ours under broil. I`d use another recipe ext time.
Hi,
What’s the calorie count? I prepped the skewers to stick in the oven when I get home, can’t wait.
Hi Tina. We do not provide nutrition information. This post will help you understand why: https://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2013/01/04/healthy-eating-defined/.
This was great. My kids both loved it. I made brown ride and steamed broccoli and red peppers. The sauce worked well with getting my little guy to eat his veggies!
Yeahh…finally you made this Satay recipe, Even I come from Australia and ate Chicken Satay many times, I have’nt post any Satay recipe, because took a long time to make this with a lot of ingredients. You’re right, grounding peanuts is a hard work. Normally I used 100% peanut butter that I bought at Asia shop or organic shop. Amazing Satay pictures
I can’t find unsweetened coconut milk. Has anyone used sweetened coconut milk? If so what were your results?
I made this a few weeks back, and it was a huge hit. My three year old was asking to eat the leftovers as he got ready for bed that night… We made him wait until the next day. ;) I got a good price on chicken today, and this is on the menu for tonight. Thanks for a great recipe my family loves.
Hey there! Are these spicy at all? I’m wanting to feed them to my 1 and 2 year old, but I don’t want to spice it up too much! Thanks in advance, Claire :)
Hello Claire. You can always leave out the jalapeno.
My picky boyfriend gobbled these up! I’m going to try the sauce on stirfry next time. Thanks for sharing this with us!
Sounds yummy! Broil on high or low?
Thanks!
High.