Can a keto dinner get easier — and tastier — than this? With 4 simple ingredients, you can create a super-flavorful dish that will satisfy and nourish you and your family at any time.
How to make the 4-Ingredient Sweet, Sour & Hot Chicken
This dish is super-simple and quick to make. It needs some time for marinating, though. For example, you can combine the ingredients in the morning, let them marinate during the day, and then prepare the dish in the evening. Or, you can let the chicken marinate while you do other dinner preparations. Even just half an hour of marinating makes the chicken meat more flavorful, tender, and juicier — though a longer time doesn’t definitely hurt either. However, I don’t recommend a longer marinating time than 12 hours.
Marinating is the key in this recipe: the hot spices and the vinegar help make the chicken more tender, and the meat absorbs the flavors during marinating.
That’s it, let’s take a look at how to prepare this tasty and satisfying keto meal. By the way, you’ll see that this recipe has lots of number 4s (and a few number 1s)!
Take a medium bowl and add 1/4 cup (60 ml) sambal oelek or another food additive-free and sugar-free thick, hot sauce.
Add 1/4 cup (60 ml) raw apple cider vinegar…
…and 1/4 cup (60 ml) powdered erythritol.
Stir…
…until well combined.
Add 4 skinless and boneless chicken breast halves (approximately 6 oz = 170 g each).
Mix…
…until the chicken is completely covered with the marinade.
Cover with a plastic wrap and let marinate at least half an hour in the fridge.
Half an hour before cooking, remove the bowl from the fridge and bring to room temperature.
Heat a skillet over medium heat. Add some butter, olive oil, or ghee.
Place the chicken breast halves in the skillet.
Here we go.
Pour in the marinade.
Cover with a lid and reduce the heat to a minimum.
Cook, about 20 minutes, or until the juices run clear.
Serve with a tasty side dish, like Dill-Marinated Broccoli.
Yum!
How I came up with this easy keto chicken recipe
This is actually a very old recipe of mine. I developed the original version over five years ago and posted the recipe on my Facebook page in May 2015. However, that recipe contained double the amount of sweetener.
Last week, when pondering over ideas for easy recipes to post on my blog, I came across this old recipe in my notes. I remember how good it tasted. However, when I saw the recipe, I thought there is waaaay too much sweetener, a whopping 1/2 cup (120 ml). I thought reducing the amount by half wouldn’t hurt – just the opposite.
I did an experiment with half less sweetener, and indeed, it turned out excellent. As my family was also super-satisfied with the recipe, I thought it’s definitely worth publishing here on my blog.
I bet you’ll also fall in love with this simple, easy, and really delicious recipe!
Here’s the recipe for you to enjoy:
4-Ingredient Sweet, Sour & Hot Chicken
Can a keto dinner get easier — and tastier — than this? With 4 simple ingredients, you can create a super-flavorful dish that will satisfy and nourish you and your family at any time.
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup = 60 ml (or to taste) Sambal Oelek or other unsweetened thick hot chili sauce
- 1/4 cup = 60 ml raw apple cider vinegar
- 1/4 cup = 60 ml powdered erythritol
- 4 skinless and boneless chicken breast halves (approximately 6 oz = 170 g each)
Instructions
- Combine the Sambal Oelek, vinegar, and the sweetener in a large bowl. Mix well.
- Add the chicken and mix well so that the chicken is completely covered with the marinade.
- Cover the bowl with a plastic wrap and let marinate at least half an hour in the fridge – maximum 12 hours.
- Remove the bowl from the fridge half an hour before cooking to bring the chicken to room temperature.
- Heat a skillet over medium heat. Add butter, ghee, or olive oil..
- Add the chicken and the marinade and cover with a lid.
- Reduce the heat to a minimum. Cook the chicken for about 20 minutes, or until the juices run clear.
- Serve immediately with a tasty side like Chantilly Cauliflower or Dill-Marinated Broccoli.
Recommended Products
As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, I earn from qualifying purchases - without any extra costs for you.
-
Bragg Organic Apple Cider Vinegar With the Mother– USDA Certified Organic – Raw, Unfiltered All Natural Ingredients, 16 ounce, 2 Pack -
NOW Natural Foods, Organic Confectioner's Erythritol Powder, Replacement for Powdered Sugar, Zero Calories, 1-Pound (Packaging May Vary) -
Powdered Erythritol Sweetener - 1:1 Sugar Substitute, Keto - 0 Calorie, 0 Net Carb, Non-GMO (2.5 lbs / 40 oz)
| Nutrition information | In total | Per serving if 4 servings in total |
| Protein | 151.2 g | 37.8 g |
| Fat | 13.0 g | 3.2 g |
| Net carbs | 2.1 g | 0.5 g |
| kcal | 745 kcal | 186 kcal |
How to get variation to the recipe
Instead of powdered erythritol, you can use erythritol-based brown sugar substitute like Sukrin Gold or Swerve Brown. If erythritol doesn’t suit you, feel free to sweeten the marinade with stevia or monk fruit.
Actually, you can completely omit the sweetener if you don’t want to use any added sweetness in your diet — then this dish will be just hot and sour, which doesn’t sound bad to me either.
Instead of apple cider vinegar, you can use another variety of vinegar, like coconut vinegar, rice vinegar, or wine vinegar. Just make sure there is no added sugar in the product. I also recommend a mild vinegar variety, so a regular white vinegar is too strong here, in my opinion.
If you don’t want to use chicken, shrimp works well in this dish, also any white fish or even pork chops.
I think this dish doesn’t need any salt (and usually the hot sauce like sambal oelek already has added salt), but if you think the dish cries for more salt, feel free to add natural salt such as Himalayan salt or unrefined sea salt to taste.
For a more family-friendly version, replace the hot sauce with unsweetened tomato sauce or keto ketchup. If you use keto ketchup, reduce the amount of sweetener by half.
By the way, there is quite much leftover liquid in the skillet after cooking the chicken. You can cook the liquid over high heat to reduce it into a thick sauce and serve it over the chicken.
General prattling
I wonder if I have told that I have been studying EFT tapping method? Finally, this week, I became a certified EFT practitioner. I think this education is a great addition to nutritional therapy, as people benefit from this method, especially those who have any problems with eating or self-esteem.
Well, but the absolute highlight of the week was the two-day Biohacker Summit in Helsinki, where I was also speaking on Saturday. We were also presenting our Ketokamu soups.
Here our CEO Olli and his wife Venla are preparing our stand.
Everything is ready!
We also let people taste our soups. Unfortunately, we couldn’t heat the soups, but luckily they also taste great cold!
You could also tweak the soups with different spices, pumpkin seeds, nutritional yeast, lemon juice, and green powder.
Like said, I was speaking at the event.
In my speech, I was encouraging everybody to join us in our ready meal revolution.
As the summit was held in Finland, there was naturally a sauna as well. Actually, there were two saunas, one was this small building, and the other sauna was built inside a van! Unfortunately, I didn’t have the possibility to take a photo of the van sauna – but I have to say the experience was exciting even for a Finn like me. It was very dark inside the sauna, and the stove was heated with wood.
After the sauna, it was fantastic to take a dip in cold water. The temperature of the water was about 44 °F (7 °C). Very refreshing, I have to admit!
In the VIP area, there was some special equipment like this cool gadget that stimulated your brain with different lights. There were dozens of types of programs to choose from activation to focus and relaxing. I took the focus program. I don’t know if it really worked, but at least the experience was fascinating!
The original Biohackers Olli Sovijärvi, Jaakko Halmetoja, and Teemu Arina had a long and extremely interesting speech about immunity and how to boost it.
This recipe sounds wonderful. I just wish my stomach could handle samba oelek. Congratulations on being certified for EFT. I have personally benefitted from that technique. The idea of using it for disordered eating is great.
Thank you so much, Susan! Great to hear that you have also found help from EFT. If your stomach cannot handle sambal oelek, you might want to try unsweetened tomato sauce. How does that sound?