Thai Chicken Skewers with Peanut Sauce

I had a hard time naming this recipe. After I tried it I wanted to name it “OMGChickenInPeanutSauce” or “YUM, Make This Right Now” but neither of those are very descriptive. I almost called it a chicken satay because it’s marinated chicken skewers with peanut sauce, but I think the marinade has to have turmeric in it to be considered a traditional satay, so I landed on Thai Chicken Skewers with Peanut Sauce. Regardless of what you want to call this, I really encourage you to make it. It’s one of my favorite things that I’ve made in a while and it’s incredibly easy. The marinade makes the chicken really flavorful and the peanut sauce is absolutely to die for. Seriously, I want to put it on everything. I served the skewers with grilled veggies (highly recommended) for dinner and they also went really well with the peanut sauce. 

I generally try to only use ingredients in my recipes that anyone can easily find in their grocery stores, but I made an exception here and finally tried PB2 by Bell Plantation (affiliate link!). It is so worth ordering it online. I believe Whole Foods may also carry it, so if you have one of those you can possibly find it there (Update: After I posted this I received quite a few comments, emails and messages saying that people have found PB2 right in their normal grocery stores, so definitely check!). If you’re unfamiliar, PB2 is a powdered peanut butter that gives you all the flavor of traditional peanut butter but with significantly less fat and calories. I’ve been hearing about PB2 for a really long time, and I am so glad I finally tried it. It’s seriously amazing! I’ve already brainstormed a million things I want to make with it, so you might as well buy some now (affiliate link). Besides making this amazing recipe, you’ll be all ready to go when I start putting it in baked goods and breakfast foods and pasta dishes and smoothies. The sky is the limit!

Just a note about the nutrition information and Weight Watchers Points+ for this recipe: If you plug the full amounts of the marinade ingredients listed into a nutrition calculator you will get different nutrition info than I have listed. Since so much of the marinade gets thrown out, I decided to weigh the marinade before adding the chicken and then again after removing the chicken several hours later. More than ¾ of the marinade was still in the bag so when I calculated the nutritional values I only plugged in ¼ of the amounts of each marinade ingredient. The totals below should be pretty accurate reflections of what actually makes it onto your plate! 

Thai Chicken Skewers with Peanut Sauce

Yield: 4 (1 skewer with sauce) servings

Ingredients:

Chicken & Marinade Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil (found by the Asian sauces)
• Juice from one lime
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 teaspoon Sriracha (Asian chili sauce found with the other Asian ingredients)
• 1/8 teaspoon of red pepper flakes
• 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
• 1 ½ pounds (24 oz) raw boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite sized chunks
• You’ll also need 9” skewers – if using wooden skewers you should soak them in water for about 30 minutes before use

Peanut Sauce Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons PB2 powdered peanut butter
• 1 tablespoon low sodium soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
• ¼ teaspoon black pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon Sriracha
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon sesame oil

Directions:

1. To create the marinade, combine the soy sauce, honey, sesame oil, lime juice, garlic, sriracha, red pepper flakes and cilantro from the first set of ingredients and mix thoroughly. Pour marinade into a gallon Ziploc bag and add chicken. Seal bag and shake to coat chicken in the marinade. Place the bag in the refrigerator so that the chicken is covered in the marinade and refrigerate for at least 3-4 hours (but can marinate longer – i.e. all day, overnight, etc).
2. Pre-heat the grill until hot. Divide the chicken evenly onto the four skewers. Place the skewers on the grill over low heat. Depending on your grill, cooking times may vary. On our 4-burner grill the chicken skewers cooked in about 10 minutes, so I suggest cooking yours for about 5-6 minutes and then flipping them and continuing to cook until chicken is cooked through.
3. To make the sauce, place all sauce ingredients in a bowl and whisk together until combined. Serve each chicken skewer with about a tablespoon of peanut sauce for dipping.

MyWW SmartPoints per (1 skewer + 1 tablespoon sauce) serving:(SP calculated using the recipe builder on weightwatchers.com)

Green: 4 SmartPoints/ Blue: 1 SmartPoints/ Purple: 1 SmartPoints

Weight Watchers Points Plus:
5 per (1 skewer + 1 tablespoon sauce) serving (P+ calculated using the recipe builder on weightwatchers.com)

Nutrition Information:
220 calories, 6 g carbs, 3 g sugars, 4 g fat, 0 g saturated fat, 41 g protein, 1 g fiber (from myfitnesspal.com)

Chicken slightly adapted from Kitchen Meets Girl, sauce from Bell Plantation

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