Apricot Chicken Meal Prep
Seared chicken thigh glazed in a glossy apricot sauce, served with sautéed broccoli, green beans, and a bright lemon herb cous cous. Sweet, savoury, and genuinely different to the usual meal prep rotation.
Dice the chicken into even pieces before seasoning, it keeps the fry time consistent across the whole batch instead of some pieces finishing before others. Let the apricot sauce come to a proper simmer before adding the chicken back in too, that’s what activates the cornflour and thickens the sauce properly.
Keeps in the fridge for 4 days or the freezer for 4 months. Reheat in a pan or microwave until hot through.
Apricot Chicken Meal Prep
CHICKEN · MEAL PREP · MEDIUM
Sweet apricot glaze, proper meal prep staple
Apricot nectar makes a glaze that's sweet without being sickly, especially balanced against the soy sauce and garlic. It's a nice change of pace from the usual honey or teriyaki-style sauces.
Searing the chicken in batches keeps it properly browned instead of steaming, and letting the sauce come to a real simmer before the chicken goes back in is what gets you that thick, glossy coating.
Stirring the lemon, parsley, and olive oil through the cous cous while it's still warm means it actually absorbs the flavour instead of just sitting on top. Small step, real difference.
Apricot Chicken Meal Prep
Ingredients
Vegetables
- 15 ml Peanut Oil
- 2 heads Broccoli Trimmed
- 250 g Green Beans Trimmed
- Salt & Pepper To Taste
Chicken
- 15 ml Peanut Oil
- 1 kg Chicken Thigh, Boneless & Skinless Diced
- 6 g Onion Powder
- 6 g Garlic Powder
- Salt & Pepper
Apricot Sauce
- 250 ml Apricot Nectar
- 2 Garlic Cloves Minced
- 37.5 ml Low Sodium Soy Sauce
- 20 g Light Brown Sugar Optional
- 12 g Cornflour Cornstarch
- Salt & Pepper
Cous Cous
- 300 g Dried Cous Cous
- 450 g Chicken Stock
- 15 ml Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- 5 g Flat Leaf Parsley Diced
- ½ Lemon Zest and Juiced
- Salt & Pepper
Method
- Add the chicken thigh, onion powder, garlic powder, and seasoning to a bowl. Mix well and set aside.
- Add the apricot sauce ingredients to a separate bowl and whisk until smooth.
- Place a large pan or wok over medium-high heat. Add the peanut oil, broccoli, and beans, and sauté for 4–5 minutes, until softened. Season to taste, remove, and set aside.
- In a separate pan over medium heat, add the peanut oil and, once hot, add the seasoned chicken in batches. Fry for 5–6 minutes, or until browned all over and the internal temperature reaches 74°C (165°F). Remove and repeat with the remaining batch.
- Once the chicken is cooked and removed, add the apricot sauce to the same pan and bring to a light simmer. Add the chicken back in and mix well until coated and thickened. Cook for 1½–2 minutes. Remove.
- To make the cous cous, bring the chicken stock to a boil in a saucepan. Immediately add the dried cous cous, cover with a lid, and let sit for the package instruction time, undisturbed. Remove the lid, fluff with a fork, and stir through the olive oil, parsley, lemon zest and juice, and seasoning.
- Portion all elements into 5 x 750ml meal prep containers.
Can I use fresh apricots instead of apricot nectar?⌄
You can, blend fresh or tinned apricots with a splash of water until smooth to replace the nectar. You may need to adjust the sugar slightly depending on how ripe they are.
Why let the sauce simmer before adding the chicken back?⌄
The cornflour needs that heat to activate and thicken the sauce properly. Skip the simmer and it stays thin and separated instead of coating the chicken.
Can I swap the cous cous for rice?⌄
Yes, jasmine or basmati rice both work well here. Cook it separately since the liquid ratio and timing are different to cous cous.
Can I leave out the brown sugar?⌄
Yes, it's already optional on the card. The apricot nectar carries plenty of sweetness on its own, the sugar just rounds it out a touch more.
Hi Jack, in quite a few of your recipes you use peanut oil – what would you typically recommend as an alternative for someone with nut allergies? Thanks!
Hi Harry. Any neutral-flavoured oil is a good substitute such as vegetable, sunflower and safflower oil.
Just meal prepped this for the week. I couldn’t find apricot juice so swapped it out for clementine juice and it tastes amazing!! For the cous cous, I used the lemon juice rather than the zest which also turned out brilliant. My firm favourite so far out of all the meal prep series.
That sounds awesome! Clementine juice would add such a nice sweetness — great swap. Glad to hear it’s become a favourite, appreciate you cooking along each week!
Hello, love the recipes, I can’t get apricot nectar where I live. What’s an alternative?
Apricot juice is the next best thing otherwise there’s not much else without making your own sauce with fresh or frozen apricots
Hi Jack,
Love the recipe.
I really appreciate the video and the way you have clearly laid out the ingredients and instructions. Well done….Cheers
Hi, Paul. Thank you very much! Glad it’s clear and helpful.
How do you know that each serving has 0.04 g of trans fats? That’s below the detection limit of the machines used by chemists to know how much of a substance is in a sample.
Because its all the ingredients combined