Korean Chicken Bowls

If you are looking for the perfect 20 minute meal, these Korean chicken rice bowls are just what you need. The hardest part is blending together the sauce, and cooking the rice. With a gorgeous pop of colour from edamame, you've got your proteins, vegetables and starches settled in one perfect bowl of happiness. Topped off with seasoned cucumbers, or better yet, a simple dim sum cucumber salad, if you're feeling fancy! If you are looking for another quick meal idea, try this lemon garlic shrimp pasta!

Jump to:

• Why You'll Love This Recipe
• Recipe Overview
• Ingredients
• Instructions
• Serving Suggestions
• Recipe FAQs
• Korean Chicken Bowls
• 💬 Comments

Why You'll Love This Recipe

• They are a 20 minute meal! If you find yourself scrambling for time at dinner time, or even looking for a quick work-from-home lunch, this is right up your alley! I strongly recommend my Vietnamese vermicelli bowls for a quick dinner, too!
• They're full of flavour! The sauce is packed with ginger-y, garlic-y goodness! Easy does not need to mean bland, and these bowls are far from it! If you love Korean-inspired flavors, you'll love my Korean chicken meatballs, too!
• They are easily customizable! The recipe calls for edamame, but you can use any vegetables you have on hand, to make a perfectly customizable rice bowl.

Recipe Overview

• Flavour: The sauce is a perfect balance of salty and sweet with a little bit of spice. The secret ingredient for the sauce is .... drum roll please .... a regular grated pear! Some Korean-inspired marinades call for grated asian pear, but I find that regular pears give just as good flavour, and I get more use of them at home instead of buying one asian pear specifically for this recipe. Most Korean chicken or even Korean bulgogi marinades use something sweet like pears, so trust me when I say it is the real deal! Now, I strongly urge you to use the pear. It adds the perfect sweet and fruity flavour to the marinade, which is what makes these Korean chicken rice bowls so special!
• Ease: There are few steps to making these chicken rice bowls. All you need to do is blend the marinade, put on some rice, and saute the ground chicken with the sauce. I promise, it is busy girl/guy friendly!
• Time: To make this meal fast, put on your rice before you start making the chicken. This recipe uses ground chicken instead of bigger chunks of chicken, because once you break up the ground meat, it cooks quite fast. If you prefer chicken breast, slice it thinly so it cooks just as fast!

Ingredients

• Ground Chicken: Ground chicken, as I mentioned above cooks quite quickly once it is broken apart. Now, you can use thinly sliced chicken breast but I will say, ground chicken holds onto the sauce a lot better in such a short time. I find that you will likely have to marinate the chicken breast for a little bit before cooking, which would then make this a longer than 20 minute meal.
• Ginger and Garlic: Ok when you read the recipe you're going to be thinking - holy garlic! I love garlic, I have no shame in admitting it. I really think you should put a lot of garlic and ginger in the marinade, because it will cook down with all the other flavours and won't be as overpowering as you think!
• Brown Sugar: The brown sugar with the pear help the sauce get caramelized and sticky, to coat all the meat. If you don't want to use brown sugar, you can substitute with honey.
• Soy sauce, Sesame Oil, Rice Wine Vinegar: These are my holy trinity for asian-inspired dishes. You can use reduced sodium soy sauce if you find regular soy sauce to be too salty.
• Pear: Yes, a regular ol' pear, skin and all. Cut your pear in half, core it, and toss it in the blender. Really, don't leave this out!
• Red Chilli Flakes: Adjust this based on your spice tolerance or how much heat you want in the chicken. I would start with a ¼ teaspoon for some warmth, and work your way up.
• Edamame: Frozen edamame is the perfect addition to quick stir fries, and especially these Korean chicken bowls. If you don't have any, feel free to substitute with snow peas, zucchini, mushrooms, carrots, really anything.

Instructions

1. Cook your rice: Cook your rice (I prefer jasmine). The best measurement is 2:1 - 2 parts water to 1 part rice. Make sure you rinse your rice of excess starch!
2. Grate the pear: Core your pear to get rid of the seeds. Using a regular box grater, grate the pear. It will be relatively mushy, but try not to lose the juice!
3. Mix together the marinade ingredients and blend: Using either a blender or immersion blender with a jar, blend together the ingredients for the marinade, and set aside.
4. Saute ground chicken: In a cast iron skillet, or your skillet of choice, brown the ground chicken in a a tablespoon of olive oil.
5. Add the sauce and edamame: Once the chicken is almost cooked through, add the sauce and edamame to the skillet. Once the sauce has thickened up and coated the chicken, it's done!

Serving Suggestions

• Quick Pickled Cucumber: Ok these aren't really pickled, but thinly slice some cucumbers and top with 1 tablespoon of rice wine vinegar, and some Korean chilli flakes. If you can't find Korean chilli flakes, regular chilli flakes are fine!
• Bean Sprouts: Bean sprouts go fantastic with Asian chicken rice bowls.

Recipe FAQs

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