This Mango Chicken recipe is a delicious baked chicken made with sweet and spicy chunky mango sauce. It’s a great chicken recipes and you can make it with your favorite cuts of chicken, whether it’s chicken breast, thighs, of the whole chicken. Serve it over some coconut rice and it will feel like a tropical getaway for dinner.
I love combining chicken with sweet, fruity flavors like in this Ginger Peach Baked Chicken and Pineapple Grilled Chicken. A touch of sweetness goes very well with mild flavors of chicken.
MANGO CHICKEN
Mango chicken is a wonderful dish packed with tropical flavors. It’s a beautiful combination of sweet, fruity mango with a touch of spice from red pepper flakes. Don’t be scared of the sweetness because it’s actually very mild and well balanced with the spice and freshly squeezed lime juice.
Chicken is the perfect protein to cook with fruit because chicken meat has such mild flavor. It also has higher fat content than turkey, so it’s much juicier and better adapts the flavors that are cooked with it.
It’s a great weekend fish because it’s simple but takes about an hour to prepare. Pair with some coconut rice and refreshing white wine for a relaxing dinner. It would be a perfect dinner to have with a family on the back patio and watch the sun go down.
WHAT KIND OF CHICKEN CAN I USE
I love using a whole chicken for these kinds of chicken dishes, where I bake it with sauce. That way, everyone gets a choice of light meat or dark meat. To see step by step instructions on how to break down a whole chicken, check out this Garlic Chicken recipe.
Besides the whole chicken, you can use any type of chicken meat. Use chicken breast, boneless skinless thighs, chicken legs, drumsticks, or bone-in thighs.
It is still a good idea to sear chicken first and then pour sauce over it and bake. Make sure to adjust cooking time for boneless meat vs bone-in meat. When cooking chicken with bones, it will take much longer.
For drumsticks, broken down whole chicken, and bone-in chicken thighs – bake for 40-45 minutes, depending on the size of the biggest piece.
Chicken breast – bake for 18-22 minutes, depending on the thickness.
For boneless chicken thigh meat – bake for 16-18 minutes.
HOW TO MAKE MANGO CHICKEN
Mango Sauce
You will need one mango diced and one mango pureed. The easiest way to get some fresh mango puree is to use a fine grater to grate mango meat. So peel 1 mango and grate the meat on the fine grater. Dice the meat of the other mango and dice the onion.
Preheat a medium sauce pot and add some oil. Saute onion until softened and add garlic and diced mango. Cook for about a minute and add grated mango puree, chicken broth, lime juice, lime zest, ginger, salt, and red pepper flakes. Cook over for 5-7 minutes over medium heat. Stir in cilantro and take it off the heat.
Chicken
Preheat the oven to 375°. Preheat a large skillet or an oven-safe cooking pan over medium-high heat and add some oil. Sear chicken for a couple of minutes on both sides, until browned.
Spread mango sauce all over the chicken, gently shake the pan to help spread it around, and transfer the pan into the oven. Bake for 40-45 minutes.
WHAT TO SERVE WITH MANGO CHICKEN
The absolute best side dish for Mango Chicken is coconut rice. It completes the tropical theme and goes beautifully with mango and lime flavors.
Any rice will also be great topped with this chicken and sauce, as well as quinoa.
For a lighter option, serve this chicken with cauliflower rice, sauteed vegetables, or broccoli.
SOME MORE RECIPES TO TRY:
Sun Dried Tomato Baked Chicken
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Mango Chicken
Ingredients
Mango Sauce:
- 2 ripe mangoes
- 1 medium yellow onion
- 3 garlic cloves
- 1/2 cup chicken broth
- 1 lime - juice and zest
- 1 tsp grated fresh ginger
- 2 tbsp cilantro
- 1 tsp red pepper flakes
- salt
Chicken:
- 2 - 2 1/2 lb whole chicken
- salt
- fresh cracked black pepper
Instructions
Mango Sauce:
- Dice one of the mangoes and onion. Peel the other mango and grate the meat on a fine grater.
- Preheat a medium sauce pot over medium heat and add some oil. Saute onion until softened and add garlic and diced mango.
- Cook for about a minute and add grated mango puree, chicken broth, lime juice, lime zest, ginger, salt, and red pepper flakes.
- Cook over for 5-7 minutes over medium heat. Stir in cilantro and take it off the heat.
Chicken:
- Break down the whole chicken into 10 pieces - 4 quarters of breasts, 2 drums, 2 thighs, and 2 wings. Season each piece with salt and pepper.
- Preheat the oven to 375°.
- Preheat a large skillet or an oven-safe cooking pan over medium-high heat and add some oil.
- Sear chicken for a couple of minutes on both sides, until browned.
- Spread mango sauce all over the chicken, gently shake the pan to help spread it around, and transfer the pan into the oven.
- Bake for 40-45 minutes.
Notes
Nutrition
Sue says
Do you cover the dish for the oven part?
lyuba says
I’m so sorry I didn’t see your comment earlier, Sue! We were having email issues for a few months. No, you don’t need to cover the pan with a lid when you put it in the oven. Just make sure to use an oven safe pan 🙂
Caroline says
I made this Mango Chicken today. My husband asked me please don’t make again. I made the coconut rice with it and the same reaction. Mine looked exactly like your picture. I used all chicken thighs since that is what I had and you do say you can use whatever you have. The only difference I made was I didn’t use the red pepper flakes for heat I used a jalapeno pepper (no seeds). Even after putting in his hot sauce he didn’t like it. I wasn’t crazy about it either to be honest. As for the 15 minutes for prep – no way. If you clean your chicken before using and then do the dicing, grating and peeling the mangoes, grating and peeling ginger, etc. it is way more than that. sorry – but will not make again.
lyuba says
I’m sorry I didn’t see your comment earlier, Caroline!
I’m also sorry that you guys didn’t like it. Is there any specific flavors you didn’t like or any suggestions you had? Please let me know
Melissa A says
I loved this! I did tweak the recipe a little by using boneless skinless chicken thighs (oven time was 15 minutes, followed by 3 minutes under the broiler and 2 minutes in a 450 degree oven). I also used jarred mango slices that we had found at Costco to use some of those up and used a food processor on chop option for the mango that was supposed to be grated. The amount of ginger was probably closer to 1 tbsp since I had a little more to use, and I cut the cilantro down to 1.5 tsps since 2 of the people eating it don’t like cilantro that much. I cut the other mango into about 1/2 inch pieces and added them at the same time as the puree (if the mangoes were fresher and firmer, I would have added them sooner). We served this with coconut rice and it was a huge hit! We will definitely be making this again.
LyubaB says
Thank you , Melissa! I am so glad you liked it! 🙂