Lime Chicken (marinade – great for grilling!)

Lime Chicken infused with garlicky, savoury lime flavours! The trick to getting depth of flavour in a simple lime marinade is to use soy sauce for saltiness, plus a touch of sugar for great caramelisation.

Fabulous for a quick midweek meal and ESPECIALLY great for the BBQ! Bonus: super healthy at less than 300 calories for a whole chicken breast.

Lime Chicken

If you love lime flavour – and I’m yet to meet anyone who doesn’t – this Lime Chicken has your name written all over it.

It’s juicy. It’s caramelised. And it truly tastes of lime. (gasp shock horror!)

(PS The key is to use lime ZEST. That’s where most of the lime flavour is 👌🏻)

Grill it. Pan fry it. You can even BAKE it!

And it’s HEALTHY, clocking in at under 300 calories per serving!

Lime Marinade for Chicken

The trick with fresh citrus based marinades is getting depth of flavour into it. If you just use lime juice, salt and garlic, the flavour is quite flat and the chicken – especially if using chicken breast – will lack something (because breast has virtually no fat, and fat = flavour).

So I add a bit of sugar and olive oil (so the chicken caramelises when cooked), use soy or fish sauce for the salt (adds complexity but doesn’t taste fishy OR Asiany!) and throw in chopped cilantro / coriander for another layer of flavour!

How long to marinade chicken

For this Lime Marinade, chicken is best marinated for 12 to 24 hours. It will make the outside a touch white because the amount of lime juice in this marinade “cooks” the chicken a bit (think ceviche).

But it doesn’t take it so far that the chicken starts to break down so don’t be alarmed. In fact, this marinade is fine for 48 hours, though I wouldn’t take it further than that.

TIP: I like to prepare freezer bags of the chicken in marinade then immediately pop it in the freezer. Then the night before, put it in the fridge and let it defrost for 24 hours, during which time it will marinate.

What to serve with Lime Chicken

The Lime Marinade makes the chicken juicy on the inside and injects with flavour so you won’t need a sauce with it. And after resting the chicken for a few minutes before serving it, some of those juices will sweat to the surface, like you see below.

As for what to serve on the side, here are a few suggestions!

• Lime coconut rice– lime overload?? Nope! Lime tastes different when cooked with the chicken vs in a coconut rice.