Five Spice Chicken Pitas Recipe
Flavor-packed chicken thighs with fresh veggies, stuffed into a Five Spice Chicken Pitas Recipe! Optional to buy hoisin or sweet chili sauce!
An easy dinner recipe if you’re menu planning this week is my Five Spice Chicken Pitas recipe. Serve this easy recipe with my favorite Greek Peasant Salad Recipe or Trader Joe’s Macaroni Salad Recipe!
Five Spice Chicken Pitas Recipe
We’re all about easy dinners these days, or should I say, these snowy days. The snow definitely slows our everyday schedule down, and this week we have a TON of it. So this chicken pita recipe is perfect for a cozy meal.
If you love Five-Spice, then you might want to try my Baked Chicken Breasts with Roasted Grapes or Easy Pear Potato Soup. I also love this Chicken Lentil-Farro Soup and here’s a recipe how to make five spice powder (or you can buy it).
Ingredients for chicken thighs:
- Bone-in chicken thighs (with skin), fresh ginger, garlic, and shallots.
- Five spice powder and salt
- Avocado, olive, or peanut oil
How to make the sauce
NOTE: You can buy hoisin or sweet chili sauce and skip the fig and grape reduction!
Or, grab these ingredients:
- Chili oil (Sambal Olek), dried black mission figs, and red seedless grapes
- Tamari (or soy sauce), molasses, and lime
- Avocado oil
Extra toppings for the chicken pitas
- Cucumbers, shredded carrots, and radish
- Cilantro and mint
- Sesame seeds
- Toasted pitas
How to serve a chicken pita
To serve, remove chicken from the bones and roughly chop.
Fill the inside of a toasted pita with chicken, veggies, and hoisin or chili sauce.
Fixer upper update
Our fixer upper has … well, sort of taken it out of us. As in, we’ve been going non-stop since the day before Thanksgiving. Have you ever seen a house come together so quickly? LOL We just completed the wood on the stairs and 1/2 of the baseboard is in.
We’re excited to add wood accents to 3 of the walls. It’s very trendy now to paint the wood (IE, a dark gray) before putting up on the walls. We’re not going trendy but more mountain-home traditional and keeping the natural cedar.
I can’t wait to start decorating and putting it all together. We have a new rug coming in the living room to make that space a little more cozy.
Cognac Mid Century Huxley Chair
For now, we bought this very affordable Huxley chair from World Market. Click the affiliate link to check it out >> HERE.
It’s super comfortable (otherwise we never would have bought it), and we plan to get a little footstool.
For now, besides cooking easy chicken dinners at night, here are a couple things I’ve learned since it’s the NEW YEAR.
4 things I’ve learned in 2020
- Patience. With the house and life in general, accept delay of gratification and recognize that results are accomplished over time. We live in a world where we want things now, but patience is essential. For me, go with the flow and be patient with the process.
- Get out of a rut. Moving to a new home has helped me embrace change. I’m more open to new ideas and routines, and honestly, I want them to help stimulate my creativity and hosting ideas in our new home. Winter is tough, and it definitely slows down life for us, but it’s a time to prepare, plan, and come up with new ideas.
- Attitude of gratitude. Just being aware of the many blessings and continually verbalizing thanksgiving to those around me is so important. I know that one of my love languages is words of affirmation, so I love to tell people how grateful I am for them, and how much I love them.
- I am not a brand. I am a person who loves people and life, and I constantly want to thank people who have positively contributed to my life.
Amen? Amen.
Thank you for being here, dear readers!
Enjoy this chicken recipe today!
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Get the Recipe:
Five Spice Chicken Pitas Recipe
Ingredients
- 5-6 chicken thighs, about 2.25 pounds bone-in, skin-on
- 4 Tbsp finely chopped fresh ginger, divided
- 4 Tbsp chopped garlic, divided
- 1 small shallot, chopped and divided
- Five spice powder, enough to coat thighs (about 1-2 tsp/thigh)
- Kosher salt
- Avocado, olive, or peanut oil
Sauce and Extras
- 2 Tbsp chili oil, Sambal Olek
- 1 cup dried black mission figs, quartered
- 1 heaping cup red seedless grapes
- 1 cup tamari, or soy sauce
- 2 1/2 Tbsp molasses
- 1 lime, juiced
- 2 Tbsp avocado oil
- Cucumbers
- Shredded carrot
- Radish
- Fresh cilantro and mint
- Sesame seeds
- Toasted pitas
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- Pat the chicken thighs dry with a towel. Sprinkle thighs with salt and five spice powder on both sides.
- Heat oil in the pan on medium-high heat. When oil shimmers, lay the thighs in, skin side down. Cook for about 7 minutes, or when the thighs naturally release from the pan and are browned. Make sure to not move or flip the chicken too early—this will ensure the skin is crispy. When chicken is cooked, flip with tongs and remove from heat.
- Sprinkle 2 Tbsp of ginger, shallots, and garlic to the oil, gently shake the pan and nestle the chicken into the aromatics—skin side up so it stays crisp. Place in the oven for 13-15 minutes—there might be some smoke from the oil, but not too much. When thighs are cooked, remove and allow to cool slightly.
Make the sauce
- While the chicken bakes, in a separate pan, add 2 Tbsp oil. Heat over medium, then add the remaining ginger, shallots, garlic, and the chopped figs and grapes. Cook for about 5 minutes, until ingredients soften, then add molasses, chili oil, and tamari. Reduce down on medium-low heat until the sauce has thickened— 17-20 minutes. When figs, grapes, and aromatics are soft and the liquid has thickened by about half, transfer to a small blender or food processor and pulse until smooth.
- To serve, remove chicken from the bones and roughly chop. Fill the inside of a toasted pita with chicken, veggies, and hoisin or chili sauce.
High five for sharing this recipe! I actually made this yesterday and it was really so good! I’ll share this to my siblings later. I’m sure they’re going to like this as well. Thanks for posting!
Some of the ingredients I’ve never heard of and where do you get them. Thanks