Ground Chicken Arrabbiata
This spicy dish features juicy ground chicken in a fiery arrabbiata sauce. Just like cherished pasta sauce, but spiked with chicken, which makes it gluten-free, low-carb, and incredibly healthy! Sure, you can spoon the chicken and sauce over pasta, or rice, or your favorite grain, but you can also eat it just like this!
I’m sort of obsessed with this dish! I wanted to create a low-carb, high protein chicken dish that was reminiscent of traditional arrabbiata, but I didn’t want to serve pasta. I have nothing against pasta, but I wanted chicken this time! The sauce is meaty, garlicky, and crammed with fiery crushed red pepper flakes. Arrabbiata means “angry” in Italian, which means HOT! And that’s what this dish delivers. It’s perfection.
As mentioned above, you can serve this over pasta for a more traditional way to serve the sauce. You could also spoon it over couscous, quinoa, rice, or mashed potatoes. I served the chicken just like this with some roasted potatoes and warm Italian bread. Add a salad and the meal is complete.
I used ground chicken but turkey would be great too. I was going for a poultry-based meal and used ground chicken. If you have turkey on hand, use that instead. You could certainly use ground beef too.
Feel free to make this dish as spicy as you want. A true arrabbiata sauce is spicy because it’s made with crushed red pepper flakes. That said, you control the heat by the amount of crushed red pepper flakes you add.
Ground Chicken Arrabbiata
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 pound ground chicken
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, or more/less to taste
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 2 14-ounce cans diced tomatoes, regular or fire-roasted
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
Instructions
- Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chicken and cook until no longer pink, breaking up the meat as it cooks.
- Add the garlic, red pepper flakes, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon black pepper and stir to coat. Cook for 1 minute, until fragrant.
- Add the tomatoes and tomato paste and bring to a simmer, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes.
- Season to taste with salt and black pepper (and more crushed red pepper if desired).
- Top with parmesan cheese and serve.