Creamy Orange Ginger Chicken

My husband likes chicken. One of his favorite dishes is chicken curry with vegetables. I’ve made it so many times that this time I wanted to try something different. Something juicy with a subtle bite. When thinking of juicy, orange with its gentle fruitiness goes perfectly with chicken. A piquant touch of ginger gives the bite. I wanted to tie the flavors with something creamy, and sour cream seemed to work well giving its freshly sour note. My husband loved the dish and encouraged me to publish the recipe. Hope you like this as well!

Creamy Orange Ginger Chicken

4 boneless and skinless chicken breast halves (I used 5 oz = 140 g each)
8 oz = 225 g sour cream
2-3 tablespoons freshly grated organic ginger root
juice from 1 small organic orange (3 oz = 85 g)
1 teaspoon unrefined sea salt (or to taste)

Directions

Put all the ingredients in a plastic bag. Close the bag and mix well.
Leave the bag in a cool place to marinate few hours or preferably overnight.
When ready to bake, preheat the oven 400 °F (200 °C).
Lay the chicken and the marinade in a glass or ceramic baking dish and bake some 40 minutes or until the juices run clear.

Nutrition information	Protein	Fat	Net carbs	kcal
In total:	127.7 g	72.0 g	19.5 g	1237 kcal
Per portion if 4 portions:	31.9 g	18.0 g	4.9 g	309 kcal

My experiments with the dish

I don’t know why I immediately thought of orange when I was thinking of a chicken dish. I guess because fruit goes well with chicken.

In my first experiment I tried orange flavor to keep the carb count really low. That was okay, but a bit too artificial to my taste.

I have a cookbook called North African Cooking which includes recipes for Moroccan main courses with orange blossom water. I got the idea to use orange blossom water in this dish. One teaspoon didn’t taste at all, one tablespoon a bit too much.

I have to admit that the flavor was really interesting. Either you love it or hate it. Something between one teaspoon and one tablespoon could have been ideal. However, I didn’t try with orange blossom water anymore but chose another path and gave a try to real orange juice. That gave unquestionably the best flavor. The carb count of a portion is still surprisingly low even with real orange juice.

Tips for variation

Feel free to modify the dish, here are some ideas:

For dairy-free version you can replace sour cream with coconut cream. Coconut milk will also do, but it’s a bit too fluid at least according to my experiments. Nevertheless, the taste is still great
For lower-carb version you can substitute orange juice with orange flavor. Or, if you like the flavor of orange blossom water, you can use that instead
For another lower-carb option you can substitute the orange juice with lime or lemon juice. Cranberry juice might be also worth trying, though I haven’t tried it by myself
If you are not that big fan of ginger, you can replace it with fresh rosemary, thyme or other fresh herb
You can sauté the chicken also in a skillet instead of baking it in the oven.

I would like to use grass-fed chicken more often but it’s not that easy to find. Grass-fed is much healthier than meat produced by intensive farming. Do you like to eat grass-fed meat, if yes, do you find it easily?