Thai Peanut Butter Chicken with Rice Noodles

So this one day, I was at the store, and I saw a bottle of "Thai Peanut Sauce,"  and I thought, "YUM!  That sounds delicious!"  Turns out, it was horrible.  I'll spare you (and the makers) from telling you what brand it was.  No need to knock them down.  After all, I do like other items in their line.

In an effort to still get to enjoy some Thai Peanut Butter Chicken, I read the ingredients on the back of the bottle and decided to give it a try myself. 

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup crunchy peanut butter
1/2 cup soy sauce
3 Tbsp sweet chili sauce
1 cup low sodium chicken broth
1 Tbsp fresh ginger or ginger paste
1 Tbsp minced garlic
Dash red pepper flakes
1 lb chicken breast, cooked and cut into small pieces
1 cup frozen shelled eda mame
1 cup carrots (match-stick shredded or thinly sliced)
8 oz rice noodles, cooked per package instructions (like pasta)

DIRECTIONS:


Cook eda mame and carrots.  I use a microwave rice cooker/vegetable steamer.  You can also just put them in a microwave-safe bowl with a couple Tablespoons of water.  On the stovetop, cook rice noodles per package directions.

 Meanwhile, place sauce ingredients (peanut butter through red pepper flakes) in a saucepan over medium heat until peanut butter is melted.  (If you're sauteing the chicken, you can use the same pan you sauteed the chicken in.)  Add chicken, vegetables, and rice noodles to sauce and stir until coated.  Serve.

HANDY TIPS:

Have some leftover chicken broth and not sure what to do with it?  Freeze in ice cube trays or these fantastic silicone ice cube thingy-ma-bobs that take up much less space in your freezer.  Then, when you need just a little broth to lighten up a dish, you've got it!

For the chicken, you have several options.  1) Cut up raw chicken and saute in a small amount of oil with salt and pepper.  Use this same pan for the sauce (no need to wash out the pan - the chicken "drippings" will add more flavor. 2) Use pre-cooked chicken from the deli section of your grocery store.  Not as much flavor here, but easy-peasy.  3) Pan-sear and then oven-bake chicken breasts when you buy them.  Freeze individually, and then wrap in foil.  When you need one (or two), thaw, cut and use appropriately.  That's what I did here, using 2 chicken breasts.

Cooking for one isn't nearly as difficult as we make it out to be.  It just makes me make better use of my freezer space and my math skills. (I cut this recipe in half tonight so I didn't have as many leftovers.)  Its the cleaning up after myself that I hate so much...