Grilled Thai Coconut Chicken Skewers
Smoky grilled chicken skewers recipe, marinated in ginger, garlic, coconut cream and soy sauce. Then finished with a sweet coconut cream glaze and served with a simple peanut sauce. Big on flavor, super easy to throw together!
Servings: 12 skewers
Calories: 190kcal
Ingredients
- 1 kg chicken (dark meat preferably)
Marinade
- 4-5 slices ginger (approx. 2 tablespoons)
- 2 cloves garlic (approx. 1½ tablespoons)
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
- 2 tablespoon coconut cream
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
Coconut Cream Glaze
- 6 tablespoons coconut cream
- 1 ½ tablespoons honey
- 1 teaspoon soy sauce
Simple Peanut Sauce (Optional)
- 2 tablespoons coconut cream
- ¼ cup natural peanut butter (unsweetened)
- 1 teaspoon rice vinegar
- 1 teaspoon Thai red curry paste
- 2 teaspoon maple syrup (or honey)
- 2 teaspoon soy sauce
- 2-3 tablespoons water (or enough to thin it out to the consistency you like)
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil (optional)
- 1 teaspoon chili oil (optional)
- crushed peanuts (optional, sprinkled on top)
Instructions
Quick & Easy Peanut Sauce (Optional)
- In a small bowl, combine all the ingredients from the peanut sauce ingredient list and mix well.
- Set aside until the chicken skewers are ready to be served.
Marinating & Skewering the Chicken
- If you are using wooden skewers, in a tall cup, add water and soak the back ends (the ends that are not pointy) so they don't burn on the grill.
- Cut the chicken up into 1x1 inch chunks and set it in a bowl
- Using your preferred method (mortar and pestle, food processor, or finely chop by hand) chop the garlic and ginger up as finely as you can and add it to the chicken
- Add the rest of the marinade ingredients from the 'Marinade' ingredient list into the bowl and mix everything together.
- Let it marinade in the bowl for a minimum of 1-2 hours in the fridge. I like to marinate them overnight for more flavor.
- Remove them from the fridge 30 minutes before you are about to grill them.
- Skewer the chicken. You may need to skewer some pieces twice so that there are not a lot of loose pieces. The loose pieces usually burn the quickest, so you want the meat to be snug with the skewers. (Also make sure not to run your fingers along the skewers to prevent splinters. Salty marinade splinters are not fun. Use the meat as a shield to run them down the skewers :) )
Making the Coconut Cream Glaze
- In a small bowl, combine the coconut cream, honey and soy sauce and set aside for glazing the chicken at the very end.
Grilling
- Set the charcoal or gas grill to approximately 500F (260C)
- When the grill has reached the temperature, add the skewers on the grill. You want to cook them over direct heat.
- Flip them every 2-3 minutes, 4-5 times or for approximately 15-18 minutes. Do not leave them un-attended, they will burn quickly. Once the meat has browned and charred over the direct heat for 15 minutes, it should feel a bit more solid on the stick and should be cooked.
- Brush on the coconut cream glaze and flip them every minute, 2-3 times to get that sweet and sticky caramelized char.
- Serve over a bed of green lettuce with the peanut sauce. (The green lettuce is not just a garnish, but a great way to do mini chicken lettuce wraps with the peanut sauce! :) )
Notes
- If you can't find coconut cream, you can substitute it with coconut milk however it will not have as strong a coconut flavor and the consistency of the marinade may be runnier. If you use coconut milk, try to find a high full fat content coconut milk and try to find a coconut milk with just 2 ingredients in it - coconut extract and water. Any coconut milk that has chemicals (ie. polysorbate80) tastes less coconutty.
- This recipe works great with pork as well. Try switching up the chicken for chunks of pork shoulder! :)
- When it comes to chicken, I usually prefer dark meat over white meat because it has more flavor albeit less healthier. If you choose to use chicken breast, I find brining it (1 ½ tablespoons of salt with 4 cups of water) for a few hours in a salt water, prior to marinating it makes the chicken breast less dry.
- Chicken skin is added flavour and texture, but it can be removed to make these chicken skewers a bit healthier
- Oyster sauce gives the marinade an extra layer of umami flavor. If you cannot find it, you can substitute it with soy sauce and a pinch of sugar.
- I like to use light soy sauce for as the salt for this recipe. Dark soy is slightly thicker and has a thin syrupy consistency. It gives the chicken its dark brown color. If you cannot find a dark soy sauce, you can substitute it with light soy sauce.
- I like to use honey on the glaze because it is already in syrup form. You can substitute it for sugar, but you will need to melt the sugar in ½ tablespoon of hot water to melt it before mixing it with the coconut cream glaze.
