Grilled Coconut-Lime Chicken Skewers

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Savory, lime-marinated grilled chicken skewers with a crunchy topping of grated coconut, cashews, and cilantro. Serve them up with homemade coconut rice or fresh steamed basmati. Add this to your recipe file and spice up your everyday chicken dinner recipes.

The flavor profile in this coconut lime chicken recipe hits all the notes for me: Ingredients like creamy coconut milk, citrus, and spices jump out toward the Southern Hemisphere.

My favorite cookbooks very often inspire me to dream of culinary paradise. I’ve learned so much about food and cooking from writers who open the doors to cultures I probably wouldn’t ever travel to or experience firsthand. Flipping through a great cookbook can be its own journey, and food is often the best way to discover the heart and soul of a place.

Yogurt marinated grilled chicken kabobs are tops for summer grilling, but this is a dish to make when you’re ready to point your compass toward the tropics.

Flavorful ingredients in this recipe:

• Coconut milk and unsweetened grated coconut.
• Fresh ginger
• Shallot
• Fresh lime juice and zest
• Roasted cashews

Some of the spices you’ll try in this recipe:

• Cardamom and black peppercorns: Both of these aromatic spices grow and thrive in tropical climates. Cardamom’s distinctive floral-citrus note is popular in baked goods, but it’s also really good in curries and savory dishes paired with creamy, fatty coconut milk. Black pepper plays in the background, offering sharpness and warm heat.
• Turmeric: Along with the beautiful golden color it adds to the chicken, ground turmeric brings a sweet, lightly floral note to the marinade.
• Nigella seed: Confusingly, this spice is also known as black onion seed, black cumin, and kalonji — is a great spice to add to your cooking. It looks like a black sesame seed and has a mild, intriguing flavor of toasty onion and oregano. You can find it in some markets, but if it’s hard to track down, leave it out or substitute with sesame seed.

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Coconut-Lime Marinated Grilled Chicken Skewers

Karen Tedesco

Savory and juicy coconut-lime chicken skewers opens the door to Southeast Asian flavors. Quick and delicious.

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5 from 2 community reviews

Prep Time 15 minutes mins

Cook Time 15 minutes mins

Additional Time 30 minutes mins

Total Time 1 hour hr

Course Chicken

Cuisine asia

Servings 4 servings

1x2x3x

Ingredients

Chicken and marinade:

• ▢ 1 ½ pounds (680 g) boneless, skinless chicken (breasts or thighs), sliced into 2-inch chunks
• ▢ 2 inch piece of ginger, peeled and grated
• ▢ 1 shallot, finely chopped
• ▢ 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
• ▢ ½ cup (120 ml) canned unsweetened coconut milk
• ▢ 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• ▢ 2 tablespoons (30 ml) fresh lime juice
• ▢ ½ teaspoon each of ground cardamom, ground black pepper, ground coriander and ground turmeric
• ▢ 8 green onions (scallions)

Cashew-Coconut Crunch

• ▢ 2 tablespoons (30 g) grated, dried unsweetened coconut
• ▢ 2 tablespoons (30 g) roasted unsalted cashews, finely chopped
• ▢ 1 tablespoon grated fresh lime zest, (juice the rest of the lime for marinade)
• ▢ 1 teaspoon nigella seed, or substitute with sesame seed
• ▢ ½ teaspoon kosher salt

Coconut-Lime Sauce

• ▢ ½ cup (120 ml) unsweetened canned coconut cream, or full fat coconut milk
• ▢ 1 serrano or green jalapeno chili pepper, finely chopped
• ▢ 1 tablespoon (15 ml) fresh lime juice
• ▢ ½ teaspoon salt, or to taste

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Instructions 

Prepare the chicken

• Put the chicken in a container suitable for marinating, such as a bowl or baking dish. Combine the grated ginger, shallot, lime juice, coconut milk, salt and spices. Pour over the chicken. Cover and marinate 15-30 minutes at room temperature or up to 6 hours in the refrigerator.
• Heat an oiled stovetop griddle or outdoor grill to medium-high. Thread the chicken onto skewers.
• Cook the chicken until firm and cooked through, rotating the pieces with tongs, about 5 minutes per side. Lay the scallions on the grill and cook until they’re wilted and charred in spots.
• Sprinkle the chicken with about 2 tablespoons of the coconut crunch. Drizzle with the coconut lime sauce. Serve with the scallions, additional crunch on the side.

Mix the coconut crunch

• Stir the ingredients for the gremolata together in a small bowl.

Make the coconut lime sauce

• Whisk together the coconut cream, chili, lime and salt in a bowl.

Karen’s Notes and Tips

• Accompany this chicken with steamed basmati rice or coconut rice.

Chutney recipe inspired by Madhur Jaffrey’s Vegetarian India: A Journey Through the Best of Indian Home Cooking.

 

Nutrition

Calories: 423kcal | Carbohydrates: 10g | Protein: 36g | Fat: 28g | Saturated Fat: 18g | Sodium: 981mg | Potassium: 752mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 2g | Vitamin A: 314IU | Vitamin C: 11mg | Calcium: 54mg | Iron: 4mg

Nutrition facts are calculated by third-party software. If you have specific dietary needs, please refer to your favorite calculator.

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• Chicken
• Dairy Free
• Gluten Free
• Quick (30 Minutes)

Hey, I’m Karen

Creator of Familystyle Food

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I’m a food obsessed super-taster and professionally trained cook ALL about creating elevated dinners with everyday ingredients. Find simplified recipes made from scratch and enjoy incredibly tasty food! Read more about me here.