Coconut Chicken Thighs with Lemongrass

Ready for a vacation, young champions? This chicken dish will transport you to a tropical place! It’s a pretty simple preparation using a wet marinade, and some skillet time.  It’s naturally low in carbs, has some good fat in it, and plenty of flavor. Let me know how you like it!

Why chicken thighs? Chicken thighs are considered a “dark” meat, which in my experience have more flavor and more fat on them. The fat is not a bad thing! It helps with the flavor of your dish, and keeps the meat from getting dried out during cooking. The caution with having high dietary fat in your day is that you don’t want to have high dietary sugar at the same time. That’s when you’re promoting excess fat storage in the body, and your body will get inflamed from the inside- not good!

Marinate 1 package of chicken thighs in a marinade made with the following:
Juice of 2 whole lemons
1 tbsp avocado oil
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp cayenne powder
1/4 tsp sea salt


Anything over 24 hours will run the risk of getting kind of tough, because the lemon juice and salt are cutting deeper into the meat and pulling out water, so the finished cooked chicken will be more like a jerky if you marinate too long.  I recommend marinating your chicken in a glass or ceramic bowl rather than plastic. I wouldn’t be surprised if the lemon juice leached out some of the BPA or other harmful stuff built into the plastic, and you just don’t want that in your food.
Bring your skillet to medium heat and drop in 2 tablespoons of coconut oil. Throw in a crushed up clove of fresh garlic, chop a sweet onion into nickel or quarter sized pieces and cook it for a few minutes, then add your chicken. Let all the marinade into the skillet. Cook for 4 minutes, flipping the chicken halfway through. Add a large handful of dried, unsweetened coconut chips and stir those in. Continue for another 4 minutes, flipping the chicken thighs like before. They will cook through faster than normal because they’re marinated. Enjoy that lemony smell filling up the kitchen.


Serve up the chicken in a bowl instead of a plate, so you can serve it with the juice it’s cooked in. Add one drop of lemongrass essential oil to the bowl and stir that into the juice. That lemongrass adds a whole new level of warmth and depth to the lemon flavor you built with the marinade. Lemongrass is known for helping with digestion and easing anxiety, so consider this a mini-vacation. Relax with yo’ chicken.


Here’s To Your Health!

P.S. If you want a great source for that lemongrass oil, you can order the best stuff I’ve found for a good price here