Spicy Peanut Butter "Chicken" | Vegan

11.19.2020

This is a paid collaboration with New Kenji Rice.

If there's two foods I love it's peanut butter and anything spicy (does that count?), well with the two combined I honestly believe it's a match made in heaven. There's something so nice about how the peanut butter compliments the spice from the hot pepper paste in this recipe and if you enjoy the two flavours individually, then you'll no doubt love them together.

This recipe is really simple and can be made within 15 minutes with the help of one of my favourite brands, New Kenji Rice, using their microwavable rice to make the dish quicker and easier to enjoy! I absolutely love this product as it uses minimal effort to make (the best, right?) and is the perfect base to a lot of dishes.

Check out some of my previous recipes with New Kenji Rice:


- SPICY PEANUT BUTTER "CHICKEN" -

Serves: 2   Prep Time: 5 mins   Cook Time: 10 mins

You will need:

- 120g vegan chicken pieces
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tub of New Kenji Rice
- 1 red chilli, chopped (optional)

- 1/2 red pepper, optional
- sesame seeds
- spring onion

For the sauce - 

- 3 heaped tbsp peanut butter
- 2 1/2 tbsp light soy sauce
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp cider vinegar
- 1 tbsp gochujang paste (or other hot red pepper paste)
- 1 tbsp maple syrup
- 1 tsp garlic

Method - 

1. In a medium sized frying pan on medium - low heat, add 1 tbsp olive oil. Once warmed up, throw in the vegan chicken pieces (I used fry's family chicken style pieces, but you could use anything similar). Allow these to cook for 5-8 minutes. 

2. In a small bowl, add the peanut butter and soy sauce. Stir the two together until the peanut butter is really smooth. Add in the olive oil, cider vinegar, Gochujang paste, maple syrup and garlic. Mix everything together until completely combined. This should form a paste, however you need it to be fairly pourable, so begin adding 1/4 water. Stir until smooth. If it's still too thick then slowly add more water, but you don't want to lose the flavours so don't go crazy adding too much.

3. Pour the sauce into the pan with the vegan chicken pieces and stir it all together so that the "chicken" is covered. Keep the heat on low and allow everything to cook for a further 3-4 minutes.

4. If you decide to use a chilli, chop it up and add it to the pan. This step is optional, but perfect if you want a little bit more spice. 

5. While the "chicken" is cooking in the sauce, begin prepping the rice. Simply remove the outer sleeve of the New Kenji Rice and peel back the lid just less than halfway. Add 3 tbsp water and roughly stir it into the rice or give the tub a little shake. Place the tub of rice into the microwave for 2 minutes. Once done, peel back the lid completely and give the rice a stir before serving it up into two bowls, using as much or as little as you like.

6. Everything should be ready to serve at this point, so remove the pan from the heat and serve up the spicy peanut butter "chicken" into the two bowls alongside the rice.

7. If you want a little bit more texture with the dish, you could fry up 1/2 a red bell pepper to serve on the side, however this is completely optional. I also topped mine off with a sprinkle of sesame seeds and some chopped spring onion.

I can't wait to enjoy this meal again soon as it's so enjoyable and is perfect to whip up whenever you want a quick and easy meal that doesn't lack flavour!

New Kenji Rice is available to purchase from Waitrose, Tesco and online at Ocado.

What do you think is best served with rice?

Love Always,
Shannon x 

1 comment