I’ve said it before: I’m not the world’s biggest Thai fan. Sure, I love a good curry from time to time, but my obsession with Thai food can honestly be boiled down to two key dishes: tom kha and peanut sauce. I just can’t live my life without them. Or, well, if hyperbole isn’t your thing, then let’s say, I’d really, really rather not live my life without them. It’s easy to understand the tom kha Thai coconut soup (And my Whole30 Thai coconut chicken soup recipe will be coming out shortly, so make sure you subscribe to my new posts!): creamy, salty, spicy, sour, sweet, savory, and filling? It’s literally everything your mouth can even experience, all in one dish. One bite and I was done.
The Thai peanut sauce, though? It’s something else. I can’t even quite explain it, how peanut butter blends with coconut milk and palm sugar and chiles and lime juice to create this otherworldly sauce. In fact, it might just be the same genius as tom kha: it’s everything all at once! Creamy and sweet and spicy and salty and a tiny bit bright and sour. All I know is… I want it on everything. And I had an amazing recipe for it until recently! I used brown sugar and soy sauce and peanut butter, and it was oh so sweet, salty, and rich. Then, of course, we did a Whole30, realized it was absolutely the missing piece for us, and stayed paleo after that. In other words? No más peanuts, man. Or brown sugar. Or soy sauce. But that’s OK. Pretty much everything else about our lives post-Whole30 makes it worth it. So a while back, I shared my peanut-free chicken satay recipe (Whole30 + paleo!), having stumbled upon a way to mimic the peanut flavor without the peanut funkiness. In fact, I think I even like it better than peanut sauce, and not just for health reasons! The combination of rich almonds with sesame oil creates a complexity that you simply don’t get with plain peanuts, and I’m so into it. I decided to take the same sauce and create a Whole30 Thai chicken zoodle bowl with my Whole30 peanut sauce (or “peanut sauce,” if you prefer): something light yet filling and flavorful and bright and bursting with freshness. Perfect for the warmer weather.
This Whole30 Thai chicken zoodle bowl has everything good I could think of loaded into one bowl: tender chicken marinaded in my Whole30 peanut sauce then broiled for a nice, smoky char; chunks of sweet mango; refreshing zoodles; crunchy red cabbage. And if you’re fancy? Microgreens! Not required, but hey, they’re especially Instagram-worthy, right? You’ll love this Whole30 Thai chicken zoodle bowl because it’s the ultimate Whole30 zoodle bowl. The zoodle bowl with everything, yet all of the flavors somehow blend so beautifully. It’s light but filling, which I’m all about during spring and summer.
