Looking for a healthy meal that has minimal clean-up? Try this delicious chicken and vegetable stir fry with a turmeric coconut sauce.
It’s loaded with essential vitamins and minerals to support your children’s immune systems, and is easy enough to cook after a day of exploring a new destination.
Ingredients:
- 2 heads of broccoli
- ½ red cabbage, finely sliced
- 2 bok choy, roughly sliced
- 2 pak choy, roughly sliced
- 1 red capsicum, finely sliced
- 1 yellow capsicum, finely sliced
- 8 red radishes, finely sliced
- 500 grams of chicken breast
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Salt
- Pepper
- 3 tablespoons of turmeric
- 4 cups of coconut cream
- ¼ cup of light soy sauce
- Instant noodles (Indomie Mi Goreng noodles work well)
Equipment:
- Frying pan
- Chef’s knife
- Tenderiser (optional)
- 2 mixing bowls
- Spoon
- Kettle
- Saucepan or large microwavable container
Time: 40 minutes (including preparation)
Serves: 4
Instructions:
- Slice the chicken breast into thin strips and then tenderise them. This will help break down the fibres, allowing the strips to absorb more marinade and cook faster.
- Add roughly ¼ cup of soy sauce, ¼ cup of olive oil and ½ cup of water into the mixing bowl, along with a ¼ teaspoon of pepper and a ½ teaspoon of salt. Mix thoroughly, but don’t worry if the oil and water don’t combine (they won’t). There should be enough marinade to fully submerge the chicken strips.
- Add the chicken strips into the bowl. The marinade should completely cover them.
- Leave the pieces to soak.
- Start cutting cut up the vegetables.
- Begin with the broccoli and red cabbage – as soon as they’re cut, put them straight into the frying pan. These two vegetables take longer to cook than the others in this recipe, so it’s important to start cooking them first.
- Add a healthy drizzle of olive oil to the pan.
- Cut up and add the capsicum and radishes.
- Add a healthy drizzle of olive oil to the pan.
- Cut up and add the pak choy and bok choy.
- Add a healthy drizzle of olive oil to the pan.
- Let the vegetables cook on medium/medium-high heat for about 5 minutes. Stir frequently, and turn down the heat if they start to sear or burn.
- Add the marinated chicken pieces to the frying pan.
- Mix the turmeric and coconut cream together in a bowl, and pour into the pan.
- Cook for roughly 10 more minutes, stirring frequently.
- At this point, the chicken pieces should be cooked through and the vegetables should be soft.
- Turn the frying pan down to a low heat.
- Boil a kettle of water, and add four packets of instant noodles to the saucepan or microwave container.
- Cover them with boiling water from the kettle, then cover the saucepan/container with a lid for about 5 minutes.
- When the noodles are sufficiently cooked, drain the water and turn the frying pan off. Optional: you can add the instant noodle flavourings to your noodles for extra flavour.
- Your meal is ready to eat! Mix the stir fry and noodles and then plate up.
Chef’s Notes:
- If you, your partner or your children suffer from gluten intolerances, replace the noodles with rice.
- If your kids prefer their vegetables soft, you can steam the broccoli separately and then add it in at Step 13.
- It’s often easier to cook the chicken in a separate frying pan, and then add it to the stir fry once’s it’s fully cooked. This allows for better control over the cooking process. If you do this, make sure to cook the pieces in some of the turmeric-coconut sauce so it stays moist.
- Turmeric stains! Don’t wear good clothes while cooking.
- You can add virtually any vegetable to this stir fry – kale, carrots, silverbeet and onions all work well.
How to Get the Kids Involved:
- Let your kids mix the turmeric-coconut sauce, drizzle the olive oil and stir the vegetables as they cook. Make sure you keep them away from sharp/hot objects, like knives, the lids from the coconut cream cans, hot plates and boiling water.
- If you have a family of fussy eaters, challenge your little ones to eat vegetables of different colours. Ask them to find a green vegetable, then a yellow one, then a red one, and so on. This will keep them from remembering that they hate the taste of veggies!