Coconut Lime Chicken

4.89 from 51 votes

This easy skillet chicken includes a creamy coconut lime sauce and earns rave reviews! It's a quick entree that looks restaurant worthy. Serve over rice, potatoes, or roasted vegetables for a delicious meal in under 30 minutes.

Prep Time5

Cook Time20

Total Time25

Course: Entree

Cuisine: Dairy Free, Gluten Free, Paleo, Sugar Free, Whole30

Keyword: chicken, chicken breasts, cilantro, coconut, lime, skillet

Servings: people

Author: Christina

Ingredients

Chicken

2 tablespoons olive, avocado, or coconut oil
4 chicken breasts skinless and boneless
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon garlic powder
¼ teaspoon black pepper

Coconut Lime Sauce

¼ cup chicken stock or broth
¼ cup lime juice
1½ cups canned coconut milk unsweetened and full fat (should not say lite or low fat)
1 tablespoon minced garlic
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper
⅛ cup fresh chopped cilantro

Instructions

Add the oil to a large skillet and heat on medium high heat.
If your chicken breasts are really thick I recommend slicing them horizontally to create thin cutlets. This way they'll cook faster and more evenly.
Add your chicken breasts to the hot pan. Add salt, garlic powder, and black pepper to the side facing up. Sauté the chicken until each side has some browning and chicken is cooked through or mostly cooked through, about 3 to 4 minutes per side.
Remove chicken from the skillet and set aside on a plate. Lower heat to medium.
Add chicken stock, lime juice, coconut milk (stir it in the can so that you don't have any separation), minced garlic, salt, and pepper to the skillet. You'll have a bit of coconut milk remaining in your can. Set it aside because we'll drizzle some of that on top after everything is finished. Stir your sauce, scraping up any browned bits remaining in the pan from when you cooked your chicken.
Add the chicken breasts back to the skillet with the sauce. Cover. Let simmer on medium to medium low for 5 minutes. Taste and add more salt or pepper as desired.
Right before serving use a spoon to scrape up some of the remaining coconut milk from the can and drizzle it over your chicken. Sprinkle fresh chopped cilantro. Serve with vegetables or potatoes to take full advantage of the yummy coconut lime sauce!

Notes

Do not under any circumstances use any coconut milk other than canned unsweetened coconut milk. I get this question a lot. Canned coconut milk is thick and not as watered down as the kind you'll find in the refrigerated section of the store. This results in a strong coconut flavor and that's what we want in this dish! I prefer Thai Kitchen (make sure it says unsweetened and does not say low fat) but there are other brands that work well too!

Nutritional information is for 1 chicken breast plus 1/4 of the sauce. If you slice each breast in half and end up with 8 thin cutlets remember that 2 of those cutlets is the equivalent of 1 breast. If you only have 1 thin cutlet then you'll need to 1/2 the nutritional info.

Nutrition