Sweet and Sticky Pomegranate Chicken

by lisa | 12 June 2013 10:14

• Tweet
• Sumo

• Tweet

I remember when I had my first ever pomegranate. I was in the 6th grade and had been begging my mom to buy me one for weeks. They were the “cool” food to bring in your school lunch and I really (desperately) wanted to be cool. The day finally came when a magical pomegranate appeared in my brown paper lunch bag. Unfortunately, I had no idea how to eat it. I cracked it on the ground to try and get it open and that actually worked. Then I found all of the beautiful ruby red seeds inside, and again, I wasn’t quite sure how to eat them. I shoved them in my mouth and crunched them all up and pretended to like them. I actually thought they were kind of yucky. I liked the taste of the juice but didn’t like the little crunchy seeds.

Now that I’m a grown-up, I know my “coolness” can’t be measured by what I have in my lunch box (I eat things like bacon so of course I’m one of the cool kids…duh). I’ve also learned how to eat a pomegranate and decided it was time to figure how to cook with one. This is a great video on how to eat a pomegranate in case you are as clueless as I was.

For this recipe, I needed to get some juice out of my pomegranate. It’s actually pretty easy to do. Roll your whole pomegranate around on the kitchen counter to release juice from the seeds within. Then poke a hole in the pomegranate with a knife and squeeze juice out from the hole. Then, open up your pomegranate and save some of the seeds for garnish.

Ingredients

• 4 chicken breasts
• 2 Tablespoons olive oil or ghee (we used ghee)
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup Thai Sweet Chili Sauce (we make our own-recipe here)
• 1/3 cup pomegranate juice (all the juice from one pomegranate)
• 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1-2 Tablespoons honey or maple syrup
• 1/2 Tablespoon gluten free tamari sauce or coconut aminos
• juice of one lime
• 1 clove of garlic, minced or pressed

Instructions

1. Rinse and pat your chicken breasts dry. Salt and pepper both sides to taste.
2. Heat ghee or olive oil in a skillet over medium high heat and brown the chicken breasts. It takes about 2 minutes per side.
   

   Brown the chicken on both sides

3. Remove chicken to a plate and set aside.
4. Mix all other ingredients together in a small mixing bowl or glass measuring cup and pour into the hot skillet that the chicken just came out of.
5. Stir the sauce and simmer for 2 minutes.
   

   Sticky sauce

6. Return chicken to the skillet with the sauce and turn it to coat it with the sauce.
   

   Ready for the oven

7. Place your skillet (or remove everything to an oven proof dish) in a pre-heated 375 F (190 C) oven for 20 minutes.
8. Remove chicken to a serving platter and spoon sauce over it. If your sauce isn’t thick enough, you can add a little bit of arrowroot powder to thicken it up. Garnish with some of the pomegranate seeds and flat leaf parsley or cilantro.
   

   Sticky Sweet Chicken

This recipe is based on this non-paleo original version.

Source URL: https://swisspaleo.ch/sweet-and-sticky-pomegranate-chicken/

---