This Spicy Thai Chicken is a go-to every summer – a Thai inspired dish with chicken, bell peppers and lots of basil.
Photos Updated August 2017
Originally posted September 21, 2007 – This is a go-to recipe every summer for me. I love all of the garden fresh peppers, and you can never go wrong with lots of basil! I don’t have a garden to pull my ingredients from this year – hopefully next year! – but it’s the perfect time to hit up the farmers market. I love to load mine up with toppings – the more peanuts and cilantro the better. And I throw on some extra basil just for good measure. 🙂 I keep it fairly mild so the kids will eat, but I load mine up with Sriracha. I love that it is super adaptable for different tastes!
The original post follows:
This Spicy Thai Chicken is one of the reasons I love the bounty of fresh veggies and herbs in the summer/fall. My sister told me about this Rachael Ray dish a while ago. I think it was back in the spring when I first planted my basil, and she told me that she had this dish and would like to make it more often, but basil is too expensive – and this recipe calls for 2 cups of basil! The other expensive ingredient is red bell peppers. I can usually find green bell peppers for a decent price, but red peppers usually run over $2 a piece, except for a time in the late summer. Well, this basil came from my garden, as well as the red bell peppers!! I’m becoming addicted to this gardening thing – there is quite a bit of satisfaction to need something for dinner and to be able to walk back into your backyard and pick it instead of having to buy it.
This Spicy Thai Chicken was as good as my sister said. I ate it for dinner that night (my husband was not home that night) and ended up eating all of the leftovers myself!! I left out the hot chili oil because I thought my husband would want some of the leftovers, but I should have used it because he never ended up eating any. To add a little bit of the spicy heat for myself, I stirred in a generous amount of Sriracha.
This is definitely going to be a summer favorite now!
Looking for more Thai inspired dishes?
Thai Style Tacos with Lime-Cilantro Slaw
Thai Chopped Chicken Salad
Thai Chicken Wraps with Quinoa
Shrimp in Thai Coconut Sauce from FoodieCrush
Thai Cucumber Salad from Rasa Malaysia
Thai Sticky Chicken Fingers from Iowa Girl Eats
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Spicy Thai Chicken
This Spicy Thai Chicken is a go-to every summer – a Thai inspired dish with chicken, bell peppers and lots of basil.
- Prep Time: 20 mins
- Cook Time: 10 mins
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings
- Category: Main Dish
Ingredients
- 1 cup rice, uncooked
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 1 1/2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
- 1 medium onion, cut in half and thinly sliced into half moons
- 2 red bell peppers, cut into strips
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
- 1/4 cup tamari (can substitute soy sauce)
- 1 teaspoon fish sauce
- red pepper flakes, to taste
- 2 cups lightly packed fresh basil
- 1/4 cup salted peanuts, roughly chopped
- fresh cilantro
- Sriracha, if desired
Instructions
Cook the rice according to the package directions.
Heat the vegetable oil in a large skillet over high heat. Add the chicken to hot oil and cook until no longer pink, 3-4 minutes. Add the onions and the bell pepper and continue to cook another 2-3 minutes. Add the garlic and pepper and continue to cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in the tamari and the fish sauce. Add red pepper flakes to taste, (I use just a pinch when I’m feeding my family, but add a bit more when it’s just me), then wilt in the basil.
Remove the chicken from the heat. Serve the chicken over the rice, toped with peanuts and cilantro. If more heat is desired, also serve with Sriracha.
Notes
adapted from The Rachael Ray Show
Nutrition information provided as an estimate only. Various brands and products can change the counts.
Nutrition
- Calories: 436
- Sugar: 4 g
- Sodium: 1348 mg
- Fat: 12 g
- Saturated Fat: 2 g
- Unsaturated Fat: 7 g
- Trans Fat: 0 g
- Carbohydrates: 30 g
- Fiber: 3 g
- Protein: 44 g
- Cholesterol: 98 mg
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The red pepper here is just as expensive!Luckily I can get mine from the farmer’s market for less than a dollar. But nothing beats growing your own!
I don’t know why peppers are so expensive, maybe they just hike the price because so many of us like them 🙂
Great dish, I love Asian inspired food, mmm.
What an interesting dish. I have never really tried cooking Thai. There must be a lot of satisfaction in growing your own produce.
2 cups of basil, yummy!!! I love the flavor of basil and red pepper. Yes red peppers are rather expensive!!!
Isn’t it a great sense of satisfaction when you can grow your own food and just walk outdoors, get what you want and head to the kitchen? 🙂
Looks good. I like using peanuts in spicy/savoury dishes.
What a beautiful dish! All the colors are so vivid, and it has the Asian flavors that so many of us love. Thanks for that.
Wow, Deborah…how wonderful that you grew those beautiful red peppers…they ARE expensive, but I just love them, so I always give in and pay the exhorbitant prices when I have to! This recipe sounds delicious. 🙂