Smoky Romesco Chicken & Noodles
A quick blender sauce using almond butter, roasted bell peppers, parsley and a few pantry staples helps this noodle dish shine. If you have any sauce leftover, cover and refrigerate it to use throughout the week as a dip for raw vegetables. Instead of cooking the noodles on the stove, we soak the noodles in boiling water from the kettle. Plus, buying a precooked rotisserie chicken and shredding it avoids the cleanup and hassle of cooking it from scratch.
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Awesome Sauce: This flavorful Romesco sauce is quick to make but bursting with nutrients such as the vitamin C from the red peppers – essential to the body’s ability to heal wounds and produce collagen – while the almond butter offers a dose of riboflavin (vitamin B2) and L-carnitine, two nutrients that have been shown to have a positive effect on cognitive function, especially in older adults.
Ingredients
1 cup drained jarred roasted red peppers
½ cup unsweetened almond butter (TRY: Once Again Organic Almond Butter Creamy)
2 tbsp chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley + additional for garnish
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1½ tbsp sherry vinegar
1½ tsp garlic powder
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp sea salt, divided
¼ tsp ground black pepper
8 oz pad Thai brown rice noodles
5 oz baby spinach
1 cooked rotisserie chicken (about 2 lb)
Preparation
1. Make sauce: In a food processor or high-speed blender, process roasted peppers, almond butter, parsley, oil, vinegar, garlic powder and paprika until smooth, stopping to scrape down processor a few times. Season with ¾ tsp salt and pepper. (NOTE: Sauce will be thick.)
2. To a large heat-proof bowl, add noodles. Cover with boiling water; stir in remaining ¼ tsp salt. Cover bowl with a clean towel and let noodles soak for 10 minutes, adding spinach for final 2 minutes. Meanwhile, remove skin from chicken, pull meat off bones and roughly chop or pull into long pieces.
3. Drain noodle mixture well in a colander. Dry the bowl then place noodle mixture and chicken in bowl. Add half of sauce and toss. Toss in more sauce as desired. Garnish with additional parsley.
Nutrition Information
- Serving Size 1/6 of recipe
- Calories 432
- Carbohydrate Content 41 g
- Cholesterol Content 37 mg
- Fat Content 26 g
- Fiber Content 8 g
- Protein Content 19 g
- Saturated Fat Content 5 g
- Sodium Content 676 mg
- Sugar Content 3 g
- Monounsaturated Fat Content 14 g
- Polyunsaturated Fat Content 5 g