When Saturday nights arrive I’m always hunting out a treat for dinner let alone dessert. Of days gone by this treat would be a Chinese take-away with all of the trimmings.  Since starting my healthy living journey I have alternate ways to make my favourite treat foods more healthy…thank goodness!

One of my all time favourite meals is Chicken Pad Thai, but all of those noodles can leave me feeling a little bit bloated and heavy afterwards.  Luckily I’ve whipped up a light and summery alternative which uses less noodles than a traditional recipe, but doesn’t skimp on flavour.

Ingredients

2 chicken breasts

2 eggs

200g of thick rice noodles

1 clove of garlic

3 spring onions

1 carrot

1 chilli deseeded

1 courgette

1/2 cup of edamame beans

1 tbsp of brown sugar

Juice of half a lemon

2 tbsp of soy sauce

1 tsp of fish sauce

fresh coriander

Handful of cashew nuts or peanuts

Beat the eggs in a bowl and pour in a hot pan to make an omelet, set aside and shred with a knife.  Use a peeler of spiraliser to create ribbons or noodles with the carrots and courgettes.

Heat a pan with a small amount of oil and add the diced chicken breasts with a minced clove of garlic an cook for 5 minutes. Add the courgette and carrot ribbons along with the edamame beans and cook for 2 minutes. Next mix in the soy sauce, fish sauce, lemon juice, brown sugar, spring onions and chilli and stir through.  Return the shredded omelet back to the pan and add the rice noodles and nuts, ensuring that they are well coated with the sauce.

Serve piping hot and sprinkle with freshly chopped coriander.

This pad Thai has the perfect balance of chilli heat, sour and sweetness…it has a really zing!  Obviously you can control the amount of heat depending on how daring you are with chilli.  I just loved how fresh and surprisingly light this was by reducing the amount of noodles and bulking it out with carrot and courgette noodles, yum!

I couldn’t wait to get stuck in!

What take-away meals do you like to put a healthy spin on?

Do you have a high chilli heat threshold?