Chipotle Chicken Skewers with Creamy Dipping Sauce
These chipotle chicken skewers with creamy dipping sauce are a perfect light, healthy dinner for the warm months ahead!
If you only make one thing from my blog, please make this. Please? I’m begging and pleading and groveling and I’m not ashamed to admit it.
Because these chicken skewers are amazing. Like, knock-it-out-of-the-park amazing.
I was a little worried about the spice level because I’ve used chipotle chiles in the past and while I love the flavor, the heat is a bit much for the kids (and sometimes me, to be honest).
But in this recipe? It works. Really, really, really works.
The grilled chicken skewers pack a bit of spice (which you can dumb down even more by scraping the seeds first) but dipped in the cool, creamy sauce and it is like an instant cooling pool party on your palate.
A perfect light, healthy dinner for the warm months ahead, I am not exaggerating when I say I could eat this every night for a week and still be craving it come the next Monday.
The tender chicken is a perfect marriage of sweet and heat and is so refreshing and tasty with the dipping sauce that it nearly left me speechless. Except my one real talent on this earth is that I’m never speechless. Close call only.
To say this was well-received amongst the family is an understatement. I had to cut my two oldest boys off after four skewers apiece. I mean, a mom needs her protein too, right?
Oh, and by the way, I served these with the golden skillet potatoes of yesterweek which made the already fabulous meal absolutely exceptional.
One Year Ago: Blueberry Coconut Cake with Lemon Sauce
Two Years Ago: Mexican Rice
Three Years Ago: Giant Cookie!
Chipotle Chicken Skewers with Creamy Dipping Sauce
Ingredients
Chicken Skewers:
- 2 ½ pounds boneless skinless chicken breasts (4-5 medium chicken breasts)
- ¼ cup packed light brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, minced
- 1 chipotle chile in adobo sauce, minced (scrape out the seeds before mincing to reduce spiciness)
- 2 teaspoons adobo sauce
- 1 ½ teaspoons salt
- ½ teaspoon chili powder
- ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 12 bamboo or metal skewers
Creamy Dipping Sauce:
- ¾ cup lowfat sour cream
- ¼ cup lowfat mayonnaise or Greek yogurt
- ¼ cup lime juice, from 2-3 limes
- ⅛ teaspoon garlic powder
- 2 tablespoons cilantro leaves, minced
- 2 green onions, finely chopped
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ⅛ teaspoon ground black pepper
Instructions
- Slice the chicken breasts into long, thin strips, about 1/2-inch thick. You should have right around 30 strips. In a small bowl, stir together the brown sugar, cilantro, chipotle chile, adobo sauce, salt, chili powder, garlic powder, and pepper. Toss the chicken with the brown sugar mixture coating all the pieces evenly. Cover the chicken (or place in a ziploc bag) and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes and up to 24 hours.
- For the dipping sauce, in a bowl, stir all the ingredients together. Cover the mixture and let stand at room temperature for 30 minutes until the flavors combine. Alternately, you can make the dipping sauce in advance and refrigerate for up to 2 days. Be sure to season the dipping sauce with additional lime juice, salt and pepper to taste before serving.
- 30 minutes before grilling, cover the bamboo skewers with water and soak. Skip this step if using metal skewers.
- Preheat an oven broiler or gas/charcoal grill. Weave two strips of chicken onto each skewer. Broil or grill the chicken for 5-8 minutes until cooked through, using nonstick cooking spray on a foil-lined pan if you are broiling. Serve immediately (if you broil, you may need to cook in batches) with the dipping sauce.
Notes
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Recipe Source: adapted slightly from America’s Test Kitchen Healthy Cookbook sent to me by Rebecca L (thanks, Rebecca!)
Came out delicious! Used this marinade with breasts on the stove (the rain foiled my grilling plans) and served with potato wedges and your mexican street corn salad. The dipping sauce was great for the potatoes and the chicken, and all the flavors went together perfectly ❤
I am one of those people who doesn’t like cilantro. Is there a substitute for it, or can I just omit it? I’m thinking about putting it on our camping menu in a couple of weekends and cooking it on our Blackstone grill.
I think you can omit it.
Thank you for your reply!
Loved this recipe and was skeptical because I too have used chipotles and it was too hot. But it worked and it wasn’t hot. I didn’t make the dressing only because I didn’t have everything needed. I am on WW and this was a low point dinner for me! Mel’s recipes never let me down.
I’ve made this for several years now. It’s our fave summer dish!
So so good! My whole family LOVED it! We made your homemade flatbread and topped it with lettuce, red pepper, red onion, the chipotle chicken, and then topped it all off with a drizzle of that SUPER delicious cilantro lime sauce. Definitely another great recipe Mel!
This one is a winner!
I cheated and used your yummy chipotle sauce on some diced up leftover rotisserie chicken. Heated it up in a skillet. Worked great! And with the yogurt sauce, it was even better. I’m sure it’s even tastier as written.
Last night I made dinner almost completely from your website by pulling a bit of this and that from different posts. We had this chicken (which I marinated and grilled in whole thinly sliced breasts rather than skewering) and served in warm flour tortillas with slices of avocado, chopped tomatoes, and those amazing pickled onions from your marinated fajita recipe from last week. I had half a jar of your creamy cilantro lime dressing leftover from another meal (FAVE – thanks SO much-LITERALLY could drink it with a straw) and so we topped off those beauties with it. Alongside was your easy homemade cilantro lime rice and some smoky black beans I threw together with onions, garlic, poblano peppers, tomato paste, smoked paprika, a little orange zest and, of course, cilantro -I dunno about you but I’m seeing a pattern here, JS. WHAT a meal – flavorful, satisfying, just delicious. Thanks so much Mel – you’re the BEST!
Holy cow, Lisa – wish I had been eating at YOUR house! Sounds amazing!
Loved the chicken! Marinade was delish. I didn’t love the dip though. I don’t know if it was too limey.
We loved this!!! Will make again soon – kept a couple seeds only – was perfect spice for kids!
Yummy! Maybe I needed to marinate longer, or the thighs didn’t hold on to the flavor as well, but I could have used a little more of that chipotle flavor. Also, thighs are no fun to skewer, haha! Definitely making this again though, mmm mmm mmm.
I have a few questions. Can I just leave the cilantro out, or should I try and replace with a similar flavor? And also, what on earth do I do with the remaining chipotle?
I forgot one: I did this thing where I only have chicken thighs, do I need to cook it any longer? (If I don’t buy chicken breasts before I make this over the weekend 🙂 )
Hi Diane – yes, you’ll need to cook longer for chicken thighs – probably an extra 5-7 minutes (use an instant-read thermometer if you can).
All ready to throw the chicken on the grill and we discover the grill has kicked the bucket…wondering what the best plan of action is now…cast iron skillet? Broiler??
I think either of those would work, Cyndi! (sorry about your grill)
Thanks for the quick response…my guy saved the day with the grill…he’s a keeper…chicken and sauce was super yummy…also a keeper…thanks so much for all you do here…I don’t bother looking anywhere else when I need a recipe…you’ve never let me down!
In the America’s Test Kitchen “The Best Light Recipe” 2006 edition cookbook, which contains this same recipe, it says to use the broiler. Line a pan with aluminum foil and place the rack on top. Be sure to grease the rack with cooking spray so the chicken doesn’t stick to it.
How many days can I still use the sauce??
It depends on how fresh the ingredients were that you used for it but I’d say up to a week.
I’ve made this recipe so often over the last few months that I have it memorized. It’s one of my families favorites. We like it so much we served it at a BBQ with guests and everyone wanted the recipe. Thanks for sharing!
I made these for dinner last night, I didn’t have skewers, so I just cut the meat up like fajitas. I had it marinading for 24 hours, & I added bell peppers & grilled onions to make them like tacos! These are killer, such a great flavor! Thank you!
All ingredients say: “oh Yeah”…..I already tasted the final dish….with dipping sauce, make enough of my own stuff to KNOW you got the winner, contact me….we can share, I am very grill oriented….John Boy….San Miguel CA, on the Terrace
Once again, you come through with an awesome recipe that left people in awe of my cooking. You make me look so good. We all thank you! These chicken kabobs were amazing.
Oh and we don’t currently have a grill so I just broiled the chicken and it was delicious.
I made this recipe last week for the missionaries and it was a huge hit! I scraped out the seeds and there was no spice to the chicken, so today I am going to make it with the seeds. My husband put the creamy sauce on his baked potato and loved it! And I can’t stop thinking about eating the chicken and sauce with naan.
This chicken has become a favorite in our house this summer! I’ve made it at least 3 times this month and we’re not tired of it yet. Thank you for such a delicious recipe!!
Made these last night with the full amount of spice and it didn’t scare anyone away. These were absolutely fantastic. We rate new recipes in our house on a scale of 1-5 and keep the scores for future reference. My two boys and hubbie all rated these a 5.5! Me, I would rate them a 6 because nothing has ever scored a perfect 5 or above across the board before. Well done!
p.s. I used pork tenderloin instead of chicken, which my 12 yr old does not usually like, and the recipe was delicious!
These were amazing! My new favorite dinner!
Holy moly! I made these with pork chops that I skewered and it was quite possibly one of the best things I’ve tasted in a long time! Thanks for such a great recipe, Mel!
Made these and they are awesome. Everyone liked them. Perfect blend of spicy chicken and cool sauce. The only complaint anyone had was that I didn’t make enough. I would suggest keeping a bit of chopped chives or some of the green onion bits on the side and sprinkle it over the top of the dipping sauce for visual appeal.