An old colleague told me once that a stay at home mom doesn’t know how to manage her time, and I used to agree with that until now. Since becoming a stay at home mom, I’ve learned that I do need to manage my time…plan my day, just like I did at work. That is if I want to accomplish anything when 3 o’clock rolls around. With all of the after school activities, homework, laundry, and meals planning, I’ve found myself pulling out my crock pot more often than not. So what’s on the menu at our house this week? It’s coconut ginger chicken made in the crock pot.
What’s coconut ginger chicken?
This dish is very simple. I made a marinade consisting of ginger, garlic, brown sugar, Red Boat fish sauce, coconut milk, oil, pepper and garlic chili sauce. Tossed the marinade and chicken thighs (or chicken breasts) in the crock pot and turned it on low to cook while we went ice skating and the game. I added some carrots to the crock pot as well to make sure we get our veggies in 😊.
Crock pot cooking
Growing up in Vietnam, I had no idea about the crock pot or the fact that you can cook something without tending to it 😲. However, I wasn’t quite sold on it at first because I found that I still needed to scrub the pot afterwards from the food that got “burnt” to the sides of the crock pot. Jeez, who has time to be scrubbing pots, right? 🤣. Life is too short for that. One day, my husband came home with crock pot liners. This is such a game changer if you haven’t started using them yet. No more scrubbing and clean up is a breeze.
Don’t have a crock pot? No problem. This chicken tastes delicious when grilled.
Serving coconut ginger chicken
Of course you can serve coconut ginger chicken with plain old Jasmine rice, but why not jazz it up a bit and use coconut rice? Sounds complicated? Nope. Just add some coconut milk into the rice and you’re good to go. Check out my “Perfect Jasmine Rice” post for more tips on how to make perfect rice. Now of course there are many different brands of coconut milk, but the one I like to use is the Thai Kitchen coconut milk.
Storing leftovers
You can store the coconut ginger chicken and coconut rice in separate air tight containers in the fridge. However, if you’re like me and want to just grab something out of the fridge after a long day, pop it in the microwave and serve, then portion it out in single servings using these Bentgo prep. containers. The compartments will keep the rice from getting mushy.
Coconut Ginger Chicken
Equipment
- 1 Crock pot
Ingredients
Ingredients for the chicken marinade:
- 3 tsp ginger powder or freshly grated ginger
- 3 cloves freshly chopped garlic
- 1 tsp brown sugar
- 1 tbsp fish sauce I used the Red Boat brand
- ½ cup coconut milk I used the Thai Kitchen brand
- ¼ cup vegetable oil
- ½ tsp pepper
- ½ tsp salt
- 2 pounds chicken thighs I used boneless, skinless but you can use bone in, skin on if you prefer
- 1 tbsp garlic chili sauce
- 6 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 1.5 inches optional
Ingredients for coconut rice:
- ½ cup coconut milk
- 2 cups Jasmine rice
- water
Instructions
Instructions for the coconut ginger chicken:
- Combine all the ingredients for the marinade except for the chicken thighs in a bowl. Mix well to combine. I like to give the marinade a taste at this time and adjust the seasonings accordingly if needed.
- Line the crock pot with the crock pot liner.
- If using carrots, add the carrots on the bottom of the crock pot.
- Put the chicken thighs in the crock pot (I like to fold the chicken thighs up…like how it arrived in the package. This way it'll look nice after it's done cooking) then add the marinade on top.
- Using a gloved hand, gently mix the chicken and marinade so that all the chicken thighs are coated with the marinade.
- Close the crock pot lid and turn it on low to cook for 8 hours.
Instructions for the coconut rice:
- Put the desired amount of rice into the rice cooker.
- Add water to the rice to rinse the rice.
- Discard the water & repeat this 2 more times.
- After the rice has been rinsed. Gently tap the rice cooker and make sure all the rice is evenly spread out on the bottom of the rice cooker.
- Add ¼ inch. of water to the rice. I use my index finger to measure the amount of water.
- Now that the right amount of water is added, stir in ½ cup of coconut milk.
- Make sure the rice is leveled and evenly spread out on the rice cooker. Then close the lid and turn the rice cooker on.
- Let the rice cook until it's done. Once the rice goes from "cook" to "warm", leave the lid closed for another 5 minutes. After the 5 minutes, give the rice a stir & serve.
If you find yourself short on time and need to get food on the table, pull out your crock pot and give this recipe a try.
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