Panang Chicken -Reduced from 50g fat per serving to 6.7g

My boyfriend and I love, love, love the Panang chicken.  We always order it from Thai restaurants.  I wanted to make it at home and was just appalled and probably more surprised than I should have been that the recipes came out to be over 50g of fat per serving.  I set out to make it at least more healthy than what we get in the restaurants and it came out pretty freaking delicious.

You will need:

1.5 lbs  boneless skinless chicken
Panang Curry Paste
4 cups coconut milk
4 Tbs palm sugar
1 Tbs fish sauce
6 Kaffir Lime leaves (torn)
1 red Thai chili
1/4 cup fresh Thai basil leaves
1/2 cup baby corn
1 cup broccoli florets
4 dried Thai chilies

White sticky rice

Much of the fat from the restaurant recipes comes from using full-fat coconut milk.  I shopped around and I think I found one of the healthiest brands (Silk).  It definitely thins out the final product, so if you wanted to, you could thicken the sauce by whipping starch into the curry paste and coconut milk.  I had to go to the international store for the Curry paste and Lime leaves.  I ended up using fresh basil instead of thai basil.  The taste is a bit different and it cooks differently, but they are not cooked in this recipe, so the substitution was just fine.  Also, you will note that there is not amount for the curry paste.  The paste should have a recommended amount per pound of chicken on the container.  I used 4 tsp for this brand, but another recipe I saw called for 5 Tbs- what a big difference that could have made.  I will warn that the palm sugar and fish sauce dramatically change the taste of the dish.  I added both at the end little by little for the perfect taste.  I recommend tasting the sauce before and after adding each.

Here is a photo of some of the ingredients I thought would be difficult to find/recognize:

Let's get cooking!

Prepare rice as directed by package.

1.  Fry the curry paste in a wok or large pan in cooking oil until fragrant
2.  Stir in the coconut milk, chopped fresh pepper and whole dried pepper and bring to a boil
3.  Add the chicken (cubed) and cook until almost done (10-15 min)
4.  Stir in the palm sugar, fish sauce, vegetables and lime leaves.  Allow to simmer for 5 minutes.
5.  Serve over rice, garnish with basil leaves and enjoy!


Here are the approximate nutrition facts (assuming that this makes 4 servings and not including the rice)

Calories 295
Total Fat 6.7g
Saturated Fat 5 g
Cholesterol 82.5 mg
Sodium 1446 mg
Potassium 170 mg
Total Carbs 18.2 g
Fiber 3.3 g
Sugar 10.8 g
Protein 35.5 g