I love bulgur and think it is highly underrated! I´d say it´s better than pasta, yet no one seems to know about it! I love serving my creamy bulgur with this sauce made with lemon chicken, chickpeas and spinach. As one of my university lecturers likes to say, it is what it says on the tin – chicken, chickpeas and spinach, with plenty of lemon juice and chicken stock to make a lovely “sauce”.
This is a great recipe for a healthy weeknight dinner, that takes only 20 minutes to make and any leftovers will keep in the fridge! The inspiration for this recipe came from the BBC Good Food website. I have made the recipe loads of time, adding my own tweaks here and there to come up with “my version” of the dish below.
How to make this Lemon Chicken, Chickpeas and Spinach Dish
This dish is really easy to make as you add everything to one pot! Make sure you use a large frying pan for which you have a lid to cover it!
First, you fry the onion, garlic and chilli. If you like spice, leave the seeds in for an extra kick, or leave out the chilli completely for a mild version. Then the chicken is added and cooked until it is starting to brown. You don´t want to cook it fully at this point as it will cook more later in the stock.
Then the lemon zest and spices go in – ground cumin, coriander and cinnamon. Yes! I really mean cinnamon, that´s not a typo! It works really well in this dish, you´ll be surprised!
Once the spices are in, pour in the chickpeas and stock, cover, then leave it all to simmer. This is great, as in the meantime, you can cook the bulgur!
The last thing to do is to add the fresh spinach. It may look a lot, and you might have to add it in two goes, but it will quickly wilt away into nothing! If you don´t have fresh spinach, you could also add frozen spinach at the same time as you add the chickpeas, which will give it enough time to thaw and cook in the sauce.
How many does this recipe serve? What about leftovers?
I´d say the quantities below are enough to serve 2 hungry people, perhaps three if you are less hungry. It is really easy to double or even triple the recipe if you are cooking for more than two!
What´s also excellent news, is that any leftovers keep really well in the fridge for a day or two, and can easily be reheated in the microwave. I often cook the quantities of sauce and bulgur below, to make enough dinner for two nights! Easy peasy lemon squeezy (See what I did there? Lemon chicken? Bad joke, sorry. Let´s swiftly move on!).
What could you serve with it?
My absolute go-to with this chicken, chickpea and spinach sauce is bulgur! If you´ve not heard much about it before or are unsure of how to cook it, check out my Cooking Basics Post.
You could also serve this dish with rice, however, if you haven’t tried bulgur before, then this is the perfect time for you to give it a try! It´s SO good! It´s lovely and creamy as it is cooked in a similar way (but much quicker) to risotto, and the chicken stock cube just adds that certain je-ne-sais-quoi!
More Recipe Ideas
Are you looking for more cooking recipes? I have left some of my favourite recipes down below for you to check out.
- Creamy Chicken, Bacon and Leek Pie with Hot Water Crust Pastry
- Curried Cauliflower and Chickpea Pilaf
- Mediterranean Roasted Vegetable Lasagne
- Chicken, Sweet Potato and Spinach Curry
- Spaghetti and Meatballs | Lady and the Tramp
- Thai Green Curry
- Homemade Sourdough Pizza
- Grandma´s Thick Vegetable Soup
Lemon Chicken, Chickpeas and Spinach | With Bulgur
Recipe
Ingredients (serves 2):
FOR THE LEMON CHICKEN, CHICKPEA AND SPINACH SAUCE:
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 onion, sliced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 green chilli, sliced
- pinch ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- Zest and juice of 1 lemon
- 200g chicken breast fillet, diced
- 400g tin chickpeas, drained
- ½ chicken stock cube
- 175g fresh spinach
FOR THE BULGUR:
- A little olive oil
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 1 chicken stock cube
- 100g bulgur wheat
- ~400ml boiling water
Method:
- Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan, then gently fry the onions for about 5 minutes until starting to soften. Add in the garlic and chilli and fry for a further 2 minutes.
- Turn up the heat a little, then add the chicken and fry until sealed (i.e. until you can´t see any pink) and starting to turn golden.
- Add the lemon zest and spices and stir until everything is coated in the spice.
- Dissolve half a chicken stock cube in 100ml of boiling water, then pour the stock and drained chickpeas into the frying pan. Cover the pan with a lid and simmer for 5 minutes.
- Finally, add in the spinach leaves, cover and leave for a further 2-3 minutes until the spinach has wilted. Squeeze over the lemon juice just before serving.
- Start cooking the bulgur whilst the chicken is frying (step 2). Heat a little olive oil in a pot, then add in the onions and fry gently for a few minutes. Crumble in the stock cube, add in the bulgur and pour in about 100ml of the boiling water. Stir well between each addition, waiting for most of the water to be absorbed before gradually adding the remaining 300ml bit by bit. Check out this post here for more information on how to cook bulgur.
- Serve the bulgur with your chicken, chickpea, and spinach sauce. Feel free to squeeze a little more lemon juice on top and scatter with some freshly chopped parsley!
