Your New Favorite Make-Ahead Dinner Recipe
In my cookbook, Food You Want: For the Life You Crave, I share an amazing island-style chicken adobo recipe that’s perfect for any occasion, from casual weeknight dinner with the fam to a dressed-up dinner party with your girlfriends. But I also love this family-style version, which is a quicker way to get all the goodness of chicken adobo in a pinch.
I shared this family-style recipe on the first episode of my reality series, The Flexible Life, as a means to help my new friend Nani master the art of meal prep. I thought it’d be perfect for Nani’s family, because it’s healthier than what her boys usually gravitate towards without being full-on green juice and garden salad. It also happens to be the most delicious chicken recipe ever, thanks to the crave worthy sauce that has most of my diners licking their plates. Serve it with rice and drizzle some of the magic sauce all over and you’ll thank me forever.
Craving more nourishing, flexible meals (and my special island-style version of this chicken adobo)? Grab a copy of my cookbook, Food You Want: For the Life You Crave, and get to cooking!
Stay Flexible,
Nealy
Family-Style Chicken Adobo
Ingredients
- 8 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs, cut in half
- 0.5 cup white vinegar
- 0.5 cup tamari or soy sauce
- 1 tbs olive oil
- 1 cup chicken broth or water
- 3 carrots, chopped into chunks
- 1 yellow onion, sliced
- 8 garlic cloves, smashed
- 4 bay leaves
- 1 tsp peppercorns or cracked black pepper
Instructions
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After browning the chicken, add the white vinegar and tamari to the pan along with the broth, carrots, onion, garlic, and bay leaves.
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When the chicken and veggies are cooked through, remove them from the pan and reduce the sauce to thicken. Combine and serve!
Recipe Notes
Nail This
When reducing the sauce, don’t leave the dish alone. Keep flipping and playing with the pan covered or uncovered to get the right consistency of the sauce. The secret lies in deglazing the sauce to maximize the flavor. Marinating the night before adds a ton of extra flavor, so it’s best not to skip this step (after all, we’re meal planning here!). If you skip it you’ll survive though—with chicken that’s a tad less robust in flavor.
Flip It
Slow cooker method: Cook either variation approximately 1 hour on high for 5 to 6 hours on low—or until the chicken is cooked through. Do not add more than 1 cup of broth or water, and add the carrots halfway through so that they don’t become too mushy. Transfer the sauce to a saucepan and simmer until it’s reduced, then strain. Pour the reduced sauce over the chicken and serve. Use whole chicken or boneless thighs if that’s what you have. Bone-in thighs are just the moistest.
Leftovers?
(Doubt it, but anything’s possible.) Save the pan gravy from the chicken and add a few tablespoons to rice pilaf or Cauliflower Fried Rice (from my cookbook, Food You Want: For the Life You Crave) to kick their flavor up a notch.
Cut up chicken leftovers for a stir fry—even better add it to the Miracle Chicken and Vegetable Stir Fry (also from my cookbook!) and add some of the adobo sauce to the stir fry gravy.
