This mango chicken meal prep with fresh mango salsa and cilantro lime rice is a zesty, flavourful combo.
There’s something so refreshing and summery about mangoes. When you pair them with the citrusy tang of limes and the subtle heat of jalapenos, you’ve got a wicked good flavour explosion 🔥.
Chicken breasts, as I’ve stressed before, can be bland and dry. Not here.
Marinating the chicken in mango and coconut milk infuses lovely flavour and moisture into your chicken.
Plus, we never waste marinade in this house. It is cooked down into a beautiful, luscious sauce for topping the chicken at the end. Yum!
For more yummy chicken breast meal prep try these:
Slow Cooker (or Instant Pot) Chicken Cacciatore with Spaghetti Squash – Radical Strength
Maple Bourbon BBQ Chicken – Radical Strength
Mango Coconut Chili Chicken Salad – Radical Strength
Creamy Tomato Basil Chicken with Zucchini Noodles – Radical Strength
Israeli Chicken Shawarma – Bites and Pieces
See this huge list of Healthy Crockpot Freezer Meal Prep
Mango Coconut Marinade and Sauce
Raise your hand if you love easy! 🙋🏽♀️
For this marinade, all you need to do is blend up a chunked mango with a can of coconut milk! Naturally, I used my trusty Nutribullet.
Add some cayenne on top and you’re good to go.
Pop this bad boy in the fridge to marinate for an hour to overnight.
Feel free to use frozen, thawed mango here. I find amazing frozen mango at Costco and keep it stocked in my freezer pretty much all the time.
For this recipe, I took advantage of the amazing fresh mangoes at my local fruit and veg shop. Especially since I knew I wanted to make mango salsa to go with it.
The sweetness of the mango and creaminess of the coconut milk work perfectly with the heat from the cayenne pepper. Acids in the mango will keep the chicken breast moist and filled with flavour.
When the chicken is finished marinating, remove the chicken and save the marinade. Bake the chicken for 25-30 minutes (perhaps less if your chicken breasts are on the small side) at 375* F or until chicken reaches an internal temperature of 165*F.
Meanwhile, cook down the marinade for about 10 minutes in a small pot to use for topping the chicken.
Make it a Meal
You can make this mango chicken on it’s own any night of the week and pair it with a variety of sides but I like to have it with my favourite cilantro lime rice and top it with some super flavourful fresh mango avocado salsa.
Cilantro lime rice is perfect for soaking up the lovely mango coconut sauce
To make enough for four meal preps, first rinse about a cup (200g) of long-grain white rice under cool water. Rinsing your rice is an important step to prevent it from clumping together and getting overly sticky due to access starch.
Next, add it to your pot with 1 1/2 cups of chicken broth. Water is fine here, but chicken broth really adds to the depth of flavour. Throw in a couple of bay leaves, and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat and cover for 15 minutes. Fluff the rice with a fork and re-cover to allow the steam to soak up and continue to cook the rice.
Afterwards, remove the bay leaves and add in 1/2 cup of finely chopped cilantro (coriander), the juice of 1-2 limes and about a tsp of lime zest. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Add a burst of flavour with fresh Mango Avocado Salsa
You’ll probably want to double or triple this so you have leftovers. It’s so good.
Chunk a mango and an avocado and roughly chop a red pepper and 1/3 cup of red onion. Finely dice a jalapeno and 1/3 cup of cilantro. Squeeze in the juice of a lime, sprinkle in some ground cumin and season with salt and pepper to taste. Stir gently to combine.
That’s it, you’ve got fresh salsa!
To make your Mango Chicken Meal Prep
After your chicken is baked, add it and your rice to the meal prep containers. Top your chicken with the creamy mango sauce.
Store the mango avocado salsa in a separate container and add to your meal prep after re-heating.
The whole thing can also be enjoyed cold or at room temperature if necessary.
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Mango Chicken Meal Prep with Cilanatro Lime Rice and Mango Avocado Salsa
Ingredients
For the Chicken
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 14 ounce can coconut milk
- 1 mango chopped
- 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 4 chicken breasts boneless, skinless
- salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
For the Rice
- 1 cup long-grain white rice 200 g
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 ½ cups chicken broth
- 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice 1-2 limes
- 1 teaspoon lime zest
- kosher salt to taste
- ½ cup fresh cilantro finely chopped
For the Salsa
- 1 mango peeled and diced
- ½ cup red pepper diced
- 1 avocado pitted and cut into chunks
- 1/3 cup red onion diced
- 1/3 cup cilantro leaves coarsely chopped
- 1 jalapeno finely diced
- 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice
- 1/3 teaspoon ground cumin
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
For the Chicken & Mango Sauce
- Add the coconut milk and mango to a blender or Nutribullet and purée until smooth and mixture into a baking dish.
- Add chicken breasts, sprinkle cayenne pepper on top.
- Cover tightly with plastic wrap or foil and refrigerate for an hour to overnight.
- When ready to cook, preheat the oven to 375F.
- Remove the chicken pieces from the marinade and place marinade aside to turn into a sauce later
- Season chicken breasts with salt and pepper to taste and bake in a baking dish for 30 minutes or until browned
- While the chicken is baking, add the remaining marinade to a small saucepan. Simmer for 10 minutes and season to taste with salt and pepper.
For the Cilantro Lime Rice
- Rinse the rice in a sieve or fine colander for a few minutes with cool water
- In a medium saucepan, add the rice, bay leaves, and chicken broth and bring to a boil over high heat.
- After the rice reaches boiling, reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes.
- Remove the lid, fluff the rice with a fork, cover and rest for 10 minutes.
- Remove the bay leaves, squeeze in the lime juice, add lime zest, salt, and cilantro.
- Stir to combine.
For the Mango Avocado Salsa
- Combine the mango, avocado, red pepper, jalapeño, red onion, lime juice and cilantro.
- Mix well without mashing the delicate mango and avocado.
- Season with salt, pepper and cumin.
Nutrition
This is a cool recipe using mango. I would make mango shrimp or chickpeas instead of the chicken.
Shrimp is a fantastic idea! Let me know if you try it. I’d be super interested to see how the sauce would taste on chickpeas too. I bet it would be amazing. Great ideas! 🙂
The name of the recipe is quite mouthful to say but I bet it taste absolutely delicious. Will try to make this someday for dinner.
This recipe sounds amazing. My wife and daughter love mango and I love chicken. Seems like a win win to me.
There you go! Everyone’s happy 🙂 Thanks for the kind words!
I have not cooked lime rice in such a long time that I forgot that it even exists. This is such a fun recipe that I will try the vegetarian version of it. I am not too sure about the mango and avocado mix as I am not a fan of avocadoes except for guacamole.
If you like guacamole you’ll probably like this. It has the same flavours with lime, cilantro, and garlic!
This looks amazing! I love the colors definitely a recipe I’m trying soon!
Thanks so much!
Oh yum, I LOVE mango! This recipe looks absolutely amazing, I can’t wait to try it out!
Oh, thank you, Krysten 🙂
Wow, I love this salsa recipe it is so delicious and look so easy to prepare. I will def try to make this for the whole family.
I would love to try your recipe I love mango and chicken but never made them together. Soiunds so delicious saving your recipe 🙂
Awesome!! Thanks so much, Cynthia 🙂
This recipe sounds so delicious, I love the combination of coconut and mango, especially on chicken. I would leave out the cilantro from the rice as I don’t like it, but other than that I would surely like to make this recipe.
There are definitely two types of people, those who like cilantro and those who can’t stand it! I’m glad you love mango and coconut 🙂
I am mango lover and the recipe looks perfect for mango lovers I will definitely going to try this for sure. Thanks for the recipe
Oh it really is! Lots of mangoey goodness 🙂
I love love loove Mangoes. I have only used them in drink recipes and not for food. I will definitely be trying this out, it looks yummy plus your pictures are so good, I am salivating over here lol
Mango drinks are delish! Try it on savory dishes, I know you’ll like it!
Thank you so much! I appreciate that 🙂
Yes please. I just love mangos, so this sounds like a great dish. Plus I’m all about avocados!
Right? Such a good combo! Thanks, Amber 🙂
This looks delicious! I have been doing meal prep to take to work with me and I think I will be adding this cilantro lime chicken into the mix very soon!
Yay! Glad to hear that 🙂 Enjoy!
The mango salsa is calling my name. I need to buy some mangos so I can make this salsa.
Yes! Hope you like it 🙂
I’m obsessed with mango’s this year and have been buying them in big lots. Now I’m on a hunt for recipes to use them in and this one is going on my list. I love everything in this and I can’t wait to try it.
Awesome Terri! Thanks so much for stopping by.