If you love Chinese 5 spice and chicken, well this recipe is dedicated to you!
After I posted a picture of my Chinese 5 Chicken a few weeks ago on the blog I’ve been inundated with requests for the recipe. To be honest like a lot of my cooking, this recipe was born out of an ad-hoc process of throwing a few ingredients together. I needed a marinade for some chicken pieces and managed to find 3 complementary ingredients in my store cupboard. It has become a firm favourite in my house and we have eaten it a few times since. The fact is that the chicken is just one component of a meal so I have put together a healthy meal idea, which I featured in yesterday’s post.
It’s a lovely mix of protein, vegetables and carbohydrates, so all of the food groups are covered…yay! Lots of this meal can be prepared in advance or in bulk so you can have plenty of leftovers to nibble on throughout the week. Firstly the chicken, for which the marinade only contains 3 easy store cupboard ingredients.
Sweet and sticky chicken…yummy!
- 5 chicken pieces
- 2 tbsps honey
- 2 tbsp soy sauce (I used reduced salt soy sauce)
- 1 tbsp Chinese 5 Spice
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Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
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In a bowl mix together the honey, soy sauce and Chinese 5 Spice until well combined. Pour over the chicken pieces and massage in with your hands or spoon.
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Cook in the oven for 25-35 minutes until cooked through and golden brown.
Now if you don’t know by now, I lurrrrve my stir fries. They are so easy and quick to make and a great way to get more vegetables into your meals. I thought that stir fried mixed vegetables would be the perfect colourful accompaniment to the chicken. They can be cooked whilst the chicken is in the oven, multi-tasking at it’s best!
- Mixed vegetables of your choice
- 1/2 inch of grated garlic
- 1 clove of garlic grated
- 2 tbsps soy sauce
- Coconut oil to cook the vegetables in
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Heat the coconut oil in a pan before adding in the vegetables. Stir in the grated garlic and ginger and cook for a few minutes. Add the soy sauce to taste and cook until the vegetables are tender but still crunchy.
One of Alfie’s favourite foods is rice. I’m sure would eat it every day if he could, so I thought it would finish of the meal nicely. Whenever we eat at a Chinese restaurant he always orders the egg fried rice. I’ve been making my own fried rice for years but haven’t actually blogged the recipe yet…well I thought there was no better time than now.
- 2 cups boiled brown or white basmati rice
- 1 egg
- 2 spring onions sliced
- 1 cup edamame beans
- soy sauce to taste
- sesame seed oil to taste
- Coconut oil to heat in the pan
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Heat the coconut oil in the pan and pour in the rice.
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Add the spring onions and edamame beans and cook for 3 minutes. Next pour in 1 table spoon each of soy sauce and sesame seed oil to start and stir through. Create a well in the rice and crack in the egg. Quickly stir the egg through the rice to cover, making sure that it doesn't burn. Add more soy sauce and sesame seed oil to taste...serve and enjoy!
This meal went down really well in our house and there was plenty of rice and chicken left over for Alfie too, which he was really pleased about. I think that this would be a great meal idea if you were had friends over as you could serve everything up on platters or in bowls so that they can help themselves. Simply double up the ingredients depending on how many guests you are having over.
Please let me know if you enjoyed this style of recipe post. I found it really fun creating an entire meal for a recipe post rather than a single item. Check out more recipe inspiration on my recipe page.
Do you find it easy to put healthy meals together? How do you make sure that you get a nice balance between all of the food groups at meal times?
These look so gorgeously sticky and delicious Jemma! I like the recipe style – often I don’t cook something because I have no idea (I’m not very creative in the kitchen) what will go with it to make a meal, so this is super helpful.
I thought it would be nice to do something a bit different. Glad you liked this style of recipe post1 🙂
This looks amazing Jemma! Will have to give this one a go, thanks for sharing.
You’re welcome Dana. Let me know how you get on.
Yum it all sounds delicious : )
Thanks Tam! It was a hit in my house!
The vegetables look so colourful and tasty. Great meal combination.
Thank you! 🙂
Chinese and healthy in the same sentence is always good.
I’m loving the sound of the Egg Fried Rice, Rice is always so boring but I’ll give this a go 🙂
I think you would really like the rice, full of flavour!
Wow this looks amazing. I bet it’s delicious
Thanks Michelle! 🙂
I am all over the garlic and ginger stir fry veg. I love those two things together.
The perfect combination in my book!
Mmm love the sound of the chicken (and the other two bits as well!). Right up my street being all sticky and sweet. Lovely!
Glad you liked the sounds of it! I like my chicken like that too. 🙂
I make this exact chicken for my husband all the time – he loves it. I am not a huge Chinese food fan though. I make my egg fried rice with loads of shredded cauliflower in it too, to lighten it up a bit 🙂
I love egg fried cauliflower rice, such a lovely alternative and a nice way to get more veggies in 🙂
That’s going on the meal plan for next week! Looks great
Thanks Lucy – hope you like it!
This looks so delicious! I love stir fry and adding the Chinese 5 spice is a great idea!
The 5 spice adds such a lovely flavour! 🙂
The 5 spice chicken is something that both Dan and I would enjoy and I plan on trying it out over the next couple of weeks. It’s so difficult finding meals that suit us both. (He wouldn’t enjoy all the veg, but would settle for peas and carrots!) It looks nice and easy to make too – always a bonus! 🙂
Lots of my meals fall in place by me throwing random items I need to use up into the mixing bowl. It’s not very often I measure stuff out either…go on feel! Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t!