Garlic-chile chicken breasts with cucumbers and green ginger sauce from Dinner: Changing the Game (page 35) by Melissa Clark

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Notes about this recipe

  • mpo on February 22, 2026

    This is why I need to use this website more- as I was making the green sauce, I remembered that I had made it before and it is too grainy with all that ginger and no, the chicken will not cook in the time she says.

  • kajicebaby on December 24, 2025

    This took quite a while for us to make. The chicken took much longer than expected. I only put one jalapeño in the sauce, and it was spicy enough for me. The sauce was pretty watery, but overall we really liked this meal. I might try making it again as my partner really loved it!

  • halfchefc on March 13, 2025

    Too much garlic in the green sauce, will cut that down next time. Easy dish with pantry ingredients. I overcooked the chicken so I'll make sure to watch that more closely.

  • twoyolks on February 25, 2024

    The cucumbers are the best part of this. The chicken was a little bland but the sauce did help with that. The chicken took quite a bit longer to cook than the recipe specified.

  • bernalgirl on November 10, 2022

    An easy and delicious meal, I used Persian cucumbers and drained them with salt first and loved the texture. I also seeded and deveined the jalapeños to decrease the heat while retaining the flavor. Served with jasmine rice cooked with chicken stock.

  • carlah on December 29, 2021

    I loved this recipe, but I will say that 5 cloves of garlic for the green sauce is way too much (at least if you eat as much of the green sauce as I did in one sitting. You won't feel it at the time, but a few hours later there is an overpowering garlic aftertaste.) One clove should be plenty. Also, I strained and saved all the poaching liquid and made a congee style soup with the liquid and leftover rice and chicken.

  • westminstr on November 17, 2021

    I only made the cucumbers. They were pretty easy and I liked them. E didn’t like and they didn’t transform them for O.

  • cellenly on June 12, 2019

    Like everyone said, the family loved the cucumbers which we doubled. The spicy green sauce was super spicy, and I would skip it next time because we wouldn't miss it. We would just put the cucumbers on the chicken. There was enough spice in the cucumbers for us. We also cut down the jalapeños in half, and we were fine (and we're not a family scared of spice). Actually, it was still on the spicy side for us even when we halved.

  • Delys77 on March 02, 2019

    I also enjoyed this, especially the cucumbers which we doubled.

  • mfranklin125 on October 17, 2017

    Love the cooking style for the chicken.

  • pistachiopeas on June 28, 2017

    Comfort food. Loved everything about this. The only part I'd skip, if short on time, would be the green sauce.

  • bwhip on May 09, 2017

    This was very tasty! We served it over brown rice, and the ccombination of the gently poached chicken breasts with the cool and zippy cucumbers, along with the spicy sauce, made for a really dynamic contrast of flavors, temperatures and textures. Next time I might cut back jalapeño in the sauce to one, or use less of the sauce, because it was really spicy! My lips are still on fire (but smiling).

  • stockholm28 on May 08, 2017

    I hate to be the contrarian, but this was just o.k. for me. I liked it well enough, but not enough to repeat. I would have preferred sriracha over chili garlic paste. I also prefer the Vietnamese cucumber salads made with rice wine vinegar to this one.

  • TrishaCP on May 04, 2017

    The cucumbers are amazing! We also doubled the cukes, and with the larger amount, you actually don't need the sauce anymore. Which is good, because I didn't like the sauce. The chicken was fine (healthy!), and I would make it again just to have with the cucumbers.

  • clcorbi on April 28, 2017

    This is a new favorite from this book, right up next to the harissa chicken with potatoes and leeks. YUM. Per the advice of many on CH, I doubled the cucumber recipe, and that gave us a better proportion of veggies to chicken. It would have been a good call anyway, because the cucumbers are delicious! I liked them so much that I actually made them again later in the week, to serve with another dinner. This cucumber sauce is FAR superior to her recipe for smashed cucumber salad in the back of the book. I will be turning back just for these cukes again and again! Adding a bit of the poaching liquid to the rice really takes this bowl meal from good to great, in my opinion. The combo of tender poached chicken, spicy cucumbers, and comforting rice is really a perfect meal to me. The only criticism I have is that we didn't love the green sauce--I think it had a bit too much ginger for my taste. I'll experiment with that next time. There will be a next time because we loved this meal.

  • mrshalf on March 30, 2017

    Of all the dishes I've tried from Dinner - this was almost...bland. Next time I'll amp up the sauce. The chicken was the bland part - the Green Ginger Sauce was amazing!

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