Just over a month ago I joined Slimming World. Their food optimising plan has opened my eyes to all the possibilities of filling low calorie foods and its working a charm! My favourite thing about cooking is finding new recipes with unlikely ingredients that turn out to be amazingly delicious.
Diet Coke Chicken is the biggest and best surprise yet. I heard about it a couple of times during Image Therapy and saw people raving about it on facebook but my thoughts on it were simple. “Diet coke + chicken… must = YUCK!” It kept popping up though and I figured if I can eat paprika flavoured crickets and fish with eyes then diet coke chicken deserved a chance too.
I based my recipe on this one: http://www.slimmingeats.com/blog/diet-coke-chicken
but I’ve added pictures of my progress!
Using these ingredients:
- 335ml of Diet Coke (or one can) – any brand!
- Chicken pieces on the bone (I used 2 drumsticks, 2 thighs and one leg!) - all skin and visible fat removed for no Syns!
- 5 Tbsp of Passata
- Splash of Worcestershire Sauce
- Salt to season
- Fry Light
And make sure you have:
- An oven dish
- A frying pan
- A spoon!
For Slimming World members this recipe has O Syns on EE and Original!
The Recipe:
- Preheat oven to 200°c /400f / Gas Mark 6
- After trimming off the skin and visible fat from your chicken pieces, place them in an oven dish, sprinkle salt all over them and liberally spray your fry light all over them. Place them in the oven as soon as its ready whilst you prepare your sauce!
- Pour the diet coke straight into a frying pan and get it bubbling away on a high heat. I used the biggest ring on my hob.
- Add the passata and splash in the Worcestershire Sauce, if you’re using actual tablespoons for the passata make sure they are heaped! I used my measuring spoons
Mix it all together with a spoon and watch things get very bubbly!
- Continuously stir this mixture until the diet coke ‘reduces’. I didn’t know what this meant on the recipe but it literally does just that! It took about 10 minutes of stirring but then it went from bubbly bubbly liquid to looking like a sauce in a split second, 5 minutes later it was lovely,thick, gooey and sticky!
- Get the chicken out of the oven and drizzle about half of the sauce over it using your spoon. Using the round part of the spoon smooth it out over the chicken so it covers it evenly and pop it back into the oven and set a timer. I used 5 pieces of chicken so from this point I gave it 30 minutes. Every 10 minutes I would get it back out and using the same spoon, add more of the sauce and I also scooped up any of the sauce that had run off the chicken and added it back on top!
- After the time is up, check that your chicken is cooked all the way through using a fork to check the fluid running from it is clear and that it is hot all the way through. Then serve however you fancy – with homemade chips, salad.. baked potato or just as a snack! (we had ours with pasta – my daughter’s choice!) Enjoy!
The verdict: As a massive lover of chicken cutting down on my KFC’s and Nando’s trips has been hard! This is the light at the end of the tunnel! This chicken is truly divine! I couldn’t believe how juicy and tasty it was and I would recommend it to anyone now. The saying ‘don’t knock it until you’ve tried it’ couldn’t be more true for this! The flavour is a sweet and sticky Barbecue that works so well it is now high up on our family’s favourite meal options 10/10 amazing.
Does it taste like coke? Ben is coke phobic but I like the sound of this! X
It tastes like sticky barbecue sauce, not like coke at all! If you didn’t tell him it had coke in it he’d have no idea! I love it because barbecue sauce can be pretty naughty whilst you’re dieting but this way its so good it deserves a halo!