Twinkle's Kitchen | One Pan Meal Plan: Coconut Curry Chicken

One of my favorite flavors to cook with is coconut milk. It can truly elevate a boring weeknight stir-fry into something spectacular.

Coconut Curry Chicken is one of my go-to weeknight meals. It’s all cooked in one pan, it’s loaded with healthy vegetables and usually there isn’t even a nibble left over.

The ingredients are pretty simple, and it can easily be a strictly vegetarian or meat-eater friendly dish. It’s also one of those dishes that can also be added to our gluten-free list.

The best part about this dish is that it can be made with ingredients you already have. Choose your own vegetables or meat. Last night’s chicken leftovers can easily be added, or you can grill up a steak and slice it up to serve on top.

Or you can simply use vegetables. Fresh carrots, mushrooms snow peas are perfect. Throw in a fresh tomato if you like, or use up those leftover sautéed zucchini slices.

It’s like a Far Eastern-style goulash.

Coconut Curry Stir-Fry

• 8 oz. coconut milk
• 1 8 oz. package brown rice maifun (rice noodles)
• 2 cups vegetable stock + 1 cup for addition
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 inch of ginger, finely chopped
• 4 carrots, peeled and cut into ½ inch circles
• 2 scallions, diced
• 1 cup quartered mushrooms
• ¼ cup chopped cilantro
• ¼ cup chopped basil
• 1 tbs. curry powder
• 1 tsp. cumin powder
• 1 tbs. salt
• 1 tbs. black pepper
• 1 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
• 3 cardamom pods, crushed and seeds minced
• 3 tbs. soy sauce
• Diced cooked chicken, shrimp, tofu all optional

In a large heavy pot, sauté the garlic and scallions on medium low for two minutes.

Add in ginger, carrots, mushrooms and cilantro and cook on low for about 5-6 minutes.

Begin adding the coconut milk and cook for another five minutes, stirring gently.

Add everything else – including your meat additions– except noodles and 1 cup of the vegetable stock.

Cook on medium low until the pot just begins to boil.

Add a little stock and turn down to low and simmer for about 20 minutes

While your stir-fry is simmering, rinse your rice noodles with cold water 5-6 times.

Add the rest of the stock to your pot and dial up the heat to medium.

Once the pot is just beginning to boil, add the rice noodles and stir until soft.

Lower your temperature back down and let cook for five minutes.

Serve immediately with fresh basil for garnish.

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Twinkle VanWinkle was born in a small town in Mississippi. A life-long lover of music, media and food, she grew up following those three things along her path. She has almost 20 years of professional cooking under her apron strings, feeding thousands of friends, family and other folks while working in restaurants and bakeries in Oxford, Miss. She baked apple pies for the “Oprah Winfrey Show” and appeared on Food Network's “The Best Of...” in the same year. Along with producing dynamic lifestyle content for LIN Media, she is a mother, musician and social media fanatic.

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