quick chicken and spinach curry
Prep
Cook
Total
Yield 4 servings
So, a quick chicken and spinach curry - we've done a great number of these over the years but this one is enlivened with some mango chutney and the fact it takes no time at all to cook. I'm sure it would be made all the better by a long, slow simmer but if you're already tearing about like your arse is on fire, rest assured it's all done in around twenty five minutes.
Calorie wise this comes in at (roughly) a modest 665 calories per person (with rice) and the recipe serves four. Freezes well too. We work out calories using Nutracheck's app which is terrific, but please read the notes about that.
This is a Hello Fresh recipe which we have tweaked to make more slimming friendly. Normally we would stick in a referral link here but I can't in all good conscience: we're having serious issues with the quality of Hello Fresh at the moment, with lots of the vegetables turning up already past their best and items missing from each bag. If that improves, we will recommend them once more because lord knows they are convenient, but for now, hold off if you're considering it.
Ingredients
- 300g basmati rice
- 2 onions, finely diced
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1 green chilli
- 500g diced chicken thighs
- 4 tbsp korma curry paste (we use Patak)
- 4 tbsp tomato puree
- 1 chicken stock cube
- 200g baby spinach
- 400g passata
- 2 tbsp mango chutney
- 1 bunch coriander
Instructions
- bring a large saucepan of water to the boil with ¼ tsp salt
- when boiling, add the rice and cook for 12 minutes, then drain in a sieve and return to the pan with the lid on until ready to serve
- meanwhile, finely dice the onion and peel and grate the garlic
- halve the chilli lengthways, deseed and finely chop
- spray a large frying pan with a little oil and place over a medium-high heat
- add the diced chicken and stir-fry for 3-4 minutes, until golden
- add the onion and cook for another 2-3 minutes, until softened
- add the korma paste, garlic, tomato puree and half of the green chilli to the pan, stir and cook for one minute
- add the passata, 200ml water and crumble in the stock cube, and simmer until thickened (about 6-8 minutes)
- meanwhile, roughly chop the coriander (stalks and all) - unless you're the sensible sort like me, where you'll scrape it immediately in the bin)
- add the spinach to the pan a handful at a time and cook until wilted, about 1-2 minutes
- simmer until everything has reduced slightly, which will take about 3-4 minutes
- add the mango chutney and half of the coriander to the pan and stir well
- stir the remaining coriander into the rice and serve along with the curry, and sprinkle over the remaining chilli
Notes
Recipe
- rice: if you follow our advice to the letter, you'll have perfect rice - but remember rice is a fickle thing indeed - if you measure out enough for four people you'll get enough for nine hundred, or you'll take a look at the end of the boil and see that there's only three grains of rice in there and they're all sticking their fingers up at you
- feel free to use chicken breast but thighs are so much tastier and worth the insignificant extra calories
- up the amount of spinach as high as you want too - we love spinach here and could cheerfully double or triple the amount
- not sure on syns for this - it won't be high, I think the only thing to syn would be the mango chutney and the chicken thighs, so I'd hazard a guess around 4
Books
- our second cookbook is going great-guns and people are loving it: order yours here!
- the first book is a bit cheaper but still no less glorious: click here to order
- we have a handy diet planner too: here
Recommendations
- three of our favourite bloggers now have either a book out or a book coming, and we encourage you to support them as much as you can:
- The Slimming Foodie has a book out now which is full of recipes that'll make your heart sing - good slimming food which, like us, uses proper ingredients rather than crappy pretend recipes - order it here; and
- Slimming Eats has a book coming out at the end of the year and again, we can't recommend her enough if you want good slimming food that tastes amazing - you can pre-order here
- Sugar Pink Food also has a recipe book out and lord is she the Queen of food that looks like it shouldn't be good for you but is really bloody stunning - give her a whirl here
- both Pip (Slimming Foodie), Siobhan (Slimming Eats) and Latoyah (Sugar Pink) are the kindest, most decent people you could hope for when it comes to other bloggers and it really would mean a lot to us if you could support them. They've both been at this for such a long time (like us) and really know their stuff - so go for it!
Tools
- we are getting a few comments that calories that people have worked out on Nutracheck are slightly different to our total and wondering why - the reason is simple - we may use different brands to you. For example, there's a 60 calorie difference between Tesco and Waitrose chicken thighs, presumably because that extra smugness of the Waitrose chicken adds extra
- to that end, make sure you're adding your recipe as you go along if you use Nutracheck, although if you're happy with the rough estimate, more power to you
Courses evening
Cuisine curry
Recipe by twochubbycubs at https://twochubbycubs.com/2021/08/14/quick-chicken-and-spinach-curry/