Garlic Butter Chicken Bites Recipe with Zucchini Noodles
Ready for a new chicken breast dinner winner? Meet these ridiculously easy chicken bites in garlic butter sauce and zucchini noodles. They’re so juicy, tender, and delicious you’ll eat them hot right off the pan! This chicken breast recipe is a real crowd-pleaser and paleo, whole30, and keto-friendly. It’s ready in 20 minutes, and you don’t even have to cut up the chicken: Ask the people behind the counter at your grocery store to chop your chicken breasts into chunks. Enjoy!
Photo credit: © Eatwell101.com
Ingredients list for the Chicken Bites with Zucchini Noodles
- 3-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized chunks
- 4-5 medium zucchini, rinsed and spiralized (or a pack of store-bought Zucchini Noodles)
- 4 tablespoons butter, divided
- 2 teaspoons minced garlic
- 1 tablespoon hot sauce (we used Sriracha)
- 1/4 cup (60ml) low-sodium chicken broth
- Juice of 1/2 lemon
- 1 tablespoon minced parsley
- 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
- Crushed red chili pepper flakes, optional
- Slices of lemon, for garnish
- For the Chicken Marinade:
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 tablespoon hot sauce (we used Sriracha) or 1 teaspoon chili powder
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon fresh cracked black pepper
- 2 teaspoons garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
Photo credit: © Eatwell101.com
Photo credit: © Eatwell101.com
Photo credit: © Eatwell101.com
Tips To cook chicken bites and zucchini noodles recipe
- Instead of broth, you can enrich the dish with dry white wine.
- Zucchini tends to render a lot of water when cooking, so you can sprinkle with salt after spiralizing and allow to sit for a couple of minutes to take off excess water. Rinse well to get rid of salt and drain thoroughly in a colander and pat dry in a kitchen towel before cooking.
Photo credit: © Eatwell101.com
Photo credit: © Eatwell101.com
Photo credit: © Eatwell101.com
Directions
1. Slice chicken breasts into bite-sized chunks and combine with olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder, Italian seasoning, and hot sauce or chili powder, mixing until evenly seasoned. Marinate in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to one hour.
2. In the meantime, wash and trim the ends of the zucchini. Using a spiralizer, make the zucchini noodles, then set aside.
3. Bring the marinated chicken bites to room temperature and heat two tablespoons of butter in a large skillet over medium-low heat.
Gently stir-fry the chicken pieces on all sides until golden brown. Remove the chicken bites from the skillet and set aside on a plate.
You might have to work in batches to avoid crowding the pan and have steamed chicken instead of browned.
4. In the same skillet over medium-high, add two tablespoons of butter, lemon juice, hot sauce, and chicken broth.
Bring to a simmer and allow to reduce for 1-2 minutes, stirring regularly.
5. Stir in fresh parsley and minced garlic, then add the zucchini noodles and toss for two to three minutes to cook it up.
Allow the cooking juices to reduce for one minute if the zucchini noodles render too much water.
Add the chicken bites back to the pan and stir for another minute to reheat.
Garnish with more parsley, fresh thyme, crushed chili pepper, and lemon slices, and serve immediately. Enjoy!
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Reviews
See what readers thought — or share how it turned out for you.
How did it turn out?
This recipe has now been incorporated into my regular rotation of recipes for the last 6 months or so. I use wine and chicken broth and I make more of the sauce. I do this because I use spaghetti instead of the zucchini noodles and the pasta really absorbs the sauce. 10/10 would and have recommended this recipe.
I don't think it would have been edible if I had used two TABLESPOONS of sriracha. I adjusted the amounts and added a little honey to the marinade. Because there's a zoodle hater in my house, I cubed the zucchini and an onion and cooked it separately and served the chicken and veggies over whole wheat noodles. The chicken was super flavorful and tender :-)
Made this tonight for dinner. It was delicious!!! So much flavor. Will definitely be making this again and again.
So delicious and super flavorful. I used chili powder for the chicken, and sriracha for the noodles, since spice is hard for me, and it was perfect. Not too spicy, but not bland either. I have a couple of really picky youngsters, and they loved it! Thanks for the recipe. Will definitely make again.
Its an automatic family favorite!! Used two packets of Sriracha from left over Chinese on chicken and zucchini and it was just perfect and 1/2 lemon with 5 chicken breasts and 3 zucchini. Wish I made all 7 breasts( but increase zucchini to 4or 5. Left overs for lunch tomorrow. Used one more pat of butter in both and used a large pan on high due to volume to brown. Didn't need Broth with extra butter. Put fresh smeared garlic 4 large cloves(back of knife) and dried garlic one teaspoon( in chicken marinade for only few minutes while melting butter and prepping the rest. I forgot the thyme. Love it! Thanks
