Paprika & Fennel Chicken Thighs

with tahini drizzle

I’m starting a campaign today of “Seven Sauces For Summer”. All summer long I’ll be posting a new meal highlighting a particular sauce. The first sauce up to the plate is a tahini sauce. Tahini is a smooth paste made from ground sesame seeds. It has a rich, nutty, creamy taste and is similar in texture to peanut butter. A simple all-purpose tahini sauce is tahini + lemon juice + salt + water. Whisk until smooth and pourable. I like to add some spices into mine as written in the recipe below.

I discovered this dinner earlier this year when I was working my way through a 4-week gut reset meal plan. This meal is adapted from Natalie K. Douglas’s Restore & Nourish 4 week Gut-Reset Meal Plan. It’s one of the few meals that I continue to make on repeat! I actually love to eat leftovers for breakfast, swapping in eggs for the rice.

I make the tahini sauce over the weekend when I have more time, and then use it all week long with various meals and snacks. The leftover tahini sauce makes a great dip for raw veggies. Other dinner ideas that would pair well with this sauce are lamb meatballs and a Mediterranean salad of cucumber, tomatoes, parsley, and couscous. Also. the tahini sauce would be delicious drizzled over top of roasted sweet potatoes, cauliflower and chickpeas1

There are so many uses for a tahini sauce. I hope you enjoy this new favorite dinner of mine as you kick off summer!

Ingredients:

• 1.5 lbs of chicken thighs

• 1 Tbsp paprika

• 2 tsp cumin

• 2 tsp fennel seeds

• 1 tsp pink Himalayan salt

• 2 Tbsp olive oil

• 1 zucchini, sliced

• 1 red bell pepper, sliced

• Cilantro, for garnish

• Jasmine rice, cooked, for serving

Tahini Sauce:

• ¼ cup tahini

• ¼ cup water

• ½ - 1 lemon, juiced

• ½ tsp pink Himalayan salt, more to taste

• ½ tsp smoked paprika

• Freshly ground pepper, to taste

Instructions:

1. In a medium bowl, mix the paprika, cumin, fennel seeds and pink salt together. Add olive oil to make a paste. Add chicken and toss to coat. Set aside.

2. Prepare the tahini sauce by whisking together the tahini, water, lemon juice, salt, smoked paprika, and freshly ground pepper. Adjust the lemon juice, salt and ground pepper to taste.

3. Heat a skillet on medium-high heat. Add in the chicken and cook on each side for 6-10 minutes until the internal temperature of chicken reaches 165 F. Remove chicken from pan and set aside. (Alternatively, you can grill the chicken on the grill).

4. In the same pan, add the zucchini and red bell pepper. Season with salt and pepper and cook 4-5 minutes until vegetables are soft. Transfer to plate.

5. Serve the chicken and veggies over cooked Jasmine rice. Drizzle tahini sauce on top of everything as desired. Garnish with cilantro.