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Copycat Chili's Mango-Chili Chicken with Thai Chili
Copycat Chili's Mango-Chili Chicken with Thai Chili
Copycat Chili's Mango-Chili Chicken with Thai Chili is a super tender and delicious yet healthy dinner. Chili's is one of our favorite restaurants for their spicy options, decent price, and healthy options. Their Mango-Chili Chicken breast is one of the more impressive healthy options you can find at a chain restaurant. It is a lean protein with just the right amount of fruit and spice. It is super tender and comes with a healthy broccoli side.
Copycat Chili's Mango Chili Chicken Pinterest Image
Modifications
It comes with rice as well but it's not a whole grain, low glycemic rice so I change it to the asparagus option. I ended up eating too many chips and salsa there as usual so one benefit of making it at home is also that I don't buy tempting but bad stuff like that. If I have chips, I have a more whole grain version at home. Plus, you can reduce the sodium levels significantly when you make it at home. I was really intimidated in trying to copy this recipe because it really is amazing. The presentation and tenderness of the dish as we got it was as good as any 5-star restaurant, in my opinion.
Chili's Mango-Chili Chicken From Restaurant
I didn't think I would be able to reproduce it with my skill set until I found guidance from this blog post done by a registered dietitian. I was able to reproduce the tenderness by splitting each chicken breast in half and grilling over a flame for 5 minutes on each side. The mango pico was pretty easy to reproduce too, I just bought it premade at HEB lol. If you do need a mango pico recipe though there are several on the web. Here is one if you need one. I also ordered it a few times to see what variations I got. Mainly, the only difference was the way the avocados were sliced, nothing else. I love avocados and they are super healthy so I used a little more in my
recipe. You can, of course, add as much or little as you want.
The Thai Chili Substitution
Thai Peppers
Lastly, as the title suggests, I substituted Thai peppers and Thai chili powder for the western version. If you don't know about Thai chilis they are available under the name Bird's eye chilis or bird's eye peppers as well as Thai peppers, depending on where you buy them. They are a little spicier I think that whatever Chili's uses so you might start with a little and you can always add more if it doesn't do it for you.
We have our own recipe you can use to make Thai chili powder if you can't find it at your local market. Here it is below. It is one of our most popular recipes, it is really delicious and easy to make and you save money making it yourself. You can also control what preservatives go into it which makes it healthier. Here is our recipe.
None of these changes really affect the appearance much. I think ours was actually slightly more appealing because I grilled mine on both sides so we liked our appearance better. Of course, taste is subjective so I like a bit more toppings as you can see in the difference in the photo of mine versus the restaurant version.
The Marinade
Copycat Chili's Mango-Chili Chicken with Thai Chili Marinade
In their menu description, it called the mango chili a glaze but it was really less of a glaze and more of a topping in my opinion. You could find and make a glaze if that's disappointing to you. I'd use stevia and or honey to make that glaze healthier. I didn't do that to ours, we made a marinade and I am guessing they did too but I don't know.
Sambal, Chili Garlic Sauce
We also used sambal to make it a little more Thai for my Thai wife, she thought my substitutions were brilliant and used that word to describe me. Be brilliant and try this recipe and let me know any ideas you have. 🙂 Here is our recipe.
Ingredients:
Copycat Chili's Mango-Chili Chicken with Thai Chili Ingredients
Main ingredients
- 2 chicken breasts, cut in half longitudinally to make for skinny breasts
- 1 tablespoon Thai chili powder (see above for recipe.)
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 1 tablespoon sambal
- ¼th teaspoon black pepper
- 3 tablespoon canola oil (If you want it to be like more traditional Thai yet healthier or you can just go in for olive oil.)
Garnish
- 1 avocado
- 1 mango cut into little cubes
- cilantro
- 3 diced Thai, (bird's eye) peppers
- Mango Pico De Gallo 2 cups
Instructions:
- If you didn't buy pre-made mango pico, as I did, find a recipe and make it using Google.
- Add the main ingredients (dry spices and oil) except the chicken into a bowl and mix them all up.
- You may want to taste the spice mix at this point and see if it's going to be too spicy or not spicy enough and adjust your pepper level accordingly.
- Cut little holes in the chicken breasts to absorb the rub and place the breasts in the bowl, mixing and rubbing the spices into the meat thoroughly.
- Place the meat in the rub in the now covered bowl in a refrigerator to marinate for at least an hour.
- Once the meat is marinated grill it for about 5 minutes on each side. You can use a meat thermometer to make sure it is at least 165 degrees if you want to be safe.
- Serve topped with as much or little of the garnish as you like. I bury that shit in mango pico de gallo because I love it but not too much Thai pepper because I can't handle it as much as my wife can. She can eat them by themselves.
Copycat Chili's Mango-Chili Chicken with Thai Chili Garnishing
Mango chili chicken is a common Thai dish. I took the best part of Chili's version and added a Thai twist to make my own delicious and healthy version.
The above image is the one I did and the below one is the one I bought at Chili's last night.
Chili's Mango-Chili Chicken from Chili's
Let me know what you think of the modifications I made and anything you would change in the comments section below. As always, our healthy Thai recipes are as healthy as we can figure out how to make them. Your health situation is fact dependent so if you have special health concerns check with an appropriate health care professional, like your doctor. Please share this recipe and rate it if you like it. 🙂
The printable version is below.
- Main ingredients
- 2 chicken breasts, cut in half longitudinally to make for skinny breasts
- 1 tablespoon Thai chili powder (see above for recipe.)
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 1 tablespoon sambal
- ¼th teaspoon black pepper
- 3 tablespoon canola oil (If you want it to be like more traditional Thai yet healthier or you can just go in for olive oil.)
- Garnish
- 1 avocado
- 1 mango cut into little cubes
- cilantro
- 3 diced Thai, (bird's eye) peppers
- Mango Pico De Gallo 2 cups
- If you didn't buy pre-made mango pico, as I did, find a recipe and make it using Google.
- Add the main ingredients (dry spices and oil) except the chicken into a bowl and mix them all up.
- You may want to taste the spice mix at this point and see if it's going to be too spicy or not spicy enough and adjust your pepper level accordingly.
- Cut little holes in the chicken breasts to absorb the rub and place the breasts in the bowl, mixing and rubbing the spices into the meat thoroughly.
- Place the meat in the rub in the now covered bowl in a refrigerator to marinate for at least an hour.
- Once the meat is marinated grill it for about 5 minutes on each side. You can use a meat thermometer to make sure it is at least 165 degrees if you want to be safe.
- Serve topped with as much or little of the garnish as you like. I bury that shit in mango pico de gallo because I love it but not too much Thai pepper because I can't handle it as much as my wife can. She can eat them by themselves.
If you like this copycat recipe you might also like one of the recipes below.
Copy Cat McDonald’s Signature Sandwich Sriracha Chicken Sandwich
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