This is a brand new recipe that’s part of our Spring 2023 SOS Series – in other words, EASY recipes! View our full collection of SOS recipes here.

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JUICINESS alert! This golden Cilantro Orange Chicken is so flavorful, crisped to golden brown perfection, and just very finger-licking good. You’re going to need some napkins.

When I’m being normal, I usually serve it with rice, beans, and quick homemade pineapple salsa – which all just works together so well, you know? It has a Cuban feel to it: a mojo-like sauce with rice and beans and some tropical fruit on the plate for good measure. Yum. Yum yum yum.

But the beautiful thing is that if you don’t have time or patience for the extras, or you’re your most hungry and desperate self, the chicken can very much stand on its own.

It’s rare for me to really love a “plain chicken” recipe, but this chicken is eat-directly-off-the-pan delicious. Just brush that burnished chicken with some extra sauce straight out of the oven, pass me a couple skewers, and I am done. It’s all I need! Just a snack-turned-dinner standing over the stove.

Source Notes: I got the idea for this recipe from this Milkstreet cookbook. I played around with it a lot with things I thought I wanted: added limes, added spices, etc. but ended up just loving the original version plus vinegar for more punch! It’s delicious.

This golden Cilantro Orange Chicken is so flavorful, crisped to golden brown perfection, and just very finger-licking good! Served with rice, beans, and a quick homemade pineapple salsa.

Cilantro Orange Sauce:

Chicken:

Optional / For Serving:

My oven has high / low broil settings – I use the high broil for this recipe.

If you’re using wood skewers, make sure you soak them in water for 20-30 minutes before threading the chicken on and baking.

When using parchment paper, mine usually gets a bit brittle around the edges but stays intact throughout the middle of the pan due to the moisture from the sauce and the chicken. This article says you can use parchment for a broil, and it has always worked for me! But if you’re feeling unsure about it you can use aluminum foil.

The sauce has a lot of salt, and that is on purpose – you’re only putting half of the sauce on the chicken, and even then, not all of it will actually bake into the chicken. If you’re worried about it, you can start with 1 teaspoon in the sauce and just add extra salt to taste the chicken itself during or after baking.

I like this yellow rice, and this precooked yellow rice. For beans, I like these refried beans, or these ready-to-serve black beans.

Keywords: cilantro chicken, garlic chicken, cilantro garlic chicken, rice bowl, chicken skewers

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