30-Minute Sesame Mango Chicken Teriyaki

Hi friends! And happy weekend.

I am coming to you live on a Saturday morning because this 30-Minute Sesame Mango Chicken Teriyaki is too good to wait any longer. It’s a special day when I can find a chicken recipe that I actually like – and that kind of special day is here once again.

We’ve got a lot of delicious but simple yums factoring into this recipe. Starting us off as the most important part of any recipe IMHO – the sauce. For me, and I hope for Pinch of Yum, good recipes are always always always about the sauce.

This homemade teriyaki sauce is thick and velvety, sort of like a take-out or store-bought teriyaki in terms of texture, but made from scratch in, like, two and a half seconds, without refined sugar and without cornstarch. Just whir that baby up in the blender and you’re donesies.

TRU STORY.

The base of the sauce is made with medjool dates soaked in water and pureed with garlic, ginger, soy sauce, and rice vinegar. I KNOW, RIGHT?

It’s thick and sticky by nature, but it doesn’t have to stay that way – you get to take full control of sauce consistency (smooth and velvety? thick and clingy? perfectly dippable? whatchu like?) by adding some chicken broth during the quick simmer in the second part of the recipe.

For me, this sauce is a savory-sweet, lusciously smooth, refined-sugar-free and store bought alternative that is giving new meaning to the words CHICKEN TERIYAKI. I make a lot of recipes around here, and many of them don’t get to come back and visit very often because so much food // so little time, but I have no doubt that this will making regular reappearances at our house with, um, let me see, EVERYTHING. Roasted vegetables, grilled chicken, shrimp, edamame, rice bowls, fresh veggies, rice noodles of all shapes and sizes –> we are drowning in good food opportunities here.

A quick note about the fact that this is Sesame MANGO Chicken Teriyaki.

Meaning: Frozen mangoes. In a bag from Trader Joe’s. Get added to the recipe.

In my defense of frozen mangoes, a) we live in Minnesota and the fresh mangoes, uhhh, don’t exist here, b) frozen fruit is my favorite life hack of all time, and c) these TJ’s frozen mangoes are organic and absolutely DELICIOUS like you wouldn’t even believe that came from a freezer. Tryum.

Keepin’ it classy.

Okay, so we’ve got the refined sugar free, made without cornstarch, super yummy savory-sweet, quick and easy teriyaki sauce (can you tell I love this sauce?) and the frozen mangoes, and the chicken, and now the final piece is topping these big bowls with whatever your heart tells you to top them with.

Sesame seeds. Green onions. Cilantro? Wouldn’t be mad if you did. Sesame oil. Fish sauce, because I’m weird and I think stuff like fish sauce tastes good on recipes like this. Lime juice. Mooooore things.

Your choice, friends! Top creatively and generously and enjoy your 30-Minute Sesame Mango Chicken Teriyaki bowls.

Print 30-Minute Sesame Mango Chicken Teriyaki
Author: Pinch of Yum Serves: 6-8 (nutrition is for one serving out of 8 using 2 lbs. chicken)
Ingredients For the Teriyaki Sauce:

• 15 medjool dates, pitted and soaked in ½ cup hot water (sub about ½ cup sugar – see notes)
• ¾ cup soy sauce, reduced sodium
• ¼ cup rice vinegar
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 tablespoon fresh ginger, minced, smashed, or in paste form
• ½ cup chicken broth

Everything Else:

• 1 yellow onion
• 1-2 lbs. boneless skinless chicken breasts (see notes)
• ¼ cup flour
• a generous pinch of salt and pepper
• a generous pinch of chili powder
• 1 tablespoon oil
• 2-3 cups frozen mango chunks (fresh could also work)
• sesame seeds, green onions, sesame oil, fish sauce, or limes for topping
• cooked rice for serving

Instructions

1. Get your rice cooking, if you’re serving this with rice. I always just start that in the rice cooker right away so it’s ready in time!
2. In a food processor or blender, puree the soaked dates and their water, soy sauce, rice vinegar, garlic, and ginger. Set aside.
3. Thinly slice the onion. Cut the chicken breasts into bite-sized pieces. Combine the flour, salt, pepper, and chili powder in a shallow dish and dredge each piece of chicken in the flour mixture to get a light coating.
4. Heat the oil over medium high heat in a large pan. Add the onions and stir fry for a few minutes. Add the chicken and stir fry for a few minutes until browned. Add the sauce and the broth (turn heat down to avoid splatter) – adding more broth if needed to thin out the sauce. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the mango chunks, stir, and cover and simmer for another 5-10 minutes.
5. Serve over rice topped with sesame seeds, green onions, sesame oil, fish sauce, lime juice, or anything else that strikes your fancy.

Notes If you want an even sauce-to-chicken ratio, I’d suggest using 1½ or 2 pounds of chicken. But if you wanted to add in some veggies and still have extra sauce to coat, then one pound of chicken would work.

If you didn’t have dates and you were okay using sugar, I’d suggest slow simmering the sauce for a while to thicken it up and dissolve the sugar before adding to the pan with the chicken. 15 minutes or so should do the trick.

3.2.2925

PS. I didn’t even go there because there’s too much to say today, but we did get our new dog last night, and she’s here with us now, and I’ve had one panic attack so far because she ate part of a pig’s ear this morning without really chewing it before I swooped in and acted as Trying To Be Responsible Dog Mom by taking it away even though it was a little too late, but other than that, things are going really, really, REALLY well.

I can’t wait to introduce you to her sometime next week with a proper blog post!

Until then, you can catch the live dog updates as they happen on my Facebook VIP group (it’s a private group for my best friends and readers – request to join and I’ll add you! we are 600 strong and we have lots of fun.) and Snapchat! I did a 60-second story on the whole process of getting her yesterday and, I don’t know, I think it’s decently cute considering my total Snapchat dorkiness. I’m @pinchofyum. Do you even do an @ sign with Snapchat? okay, time to end this.

XO

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