Peanut Sauce-Marinated Chicken Skewers | The Modern Proper (2024)

May 15, 2024

Peanut sauce-marinated chicken skewers—grilled or cooked in the oven!—are an easy, flavorful, and budget-friendly meal to make any day of the week.

Photography by Gayle McLeod

Peanut Butter Chicken Skewers

We are always excited to think of chicken dinner options. And these chicken skewers with peanut sauce marinade offer options upon options because they’re equally delicious cooked in the oven or on the grill! Start with moist, juicy chicken thighs, and marinate them in a rich and creamy peanut sauce until they take on tons of nutty, garlicky, soy sauce-y goodness. Make a batch of White Rice and our Red Cabbage and Apple Slaw for extra crunch and flavor!

Ingredients For The Peanut Butter Sauce Marinade

Our take on peanut sauce chicken uses the homemade peanut sauce as a marinade rather than a dip. This peanut marinade for chicken skewers is so simple. In a bowl big enough to hold all of your chicken, simply whisk together:

• Creamy peanut butter. Look for a “natural” variety without any added sugar or palm oil.

• Garlic. Use fresh cloves—minced, or try grating the garlic with a microplane grater to get it extra fine for easy mixing.

• Soy sauce. Low-sodium variety will still be plenty salty, and make this already-healthy chicken kebab recipe that much healthier!

• Toasted sesame oil. Don’t use untoasted, it just doesn’t have the flavor we’re looking for in this marinade. Read more about various oils in The TMP Guide to Cooking Oils.

• Ground ginger. We know, we know. Usually we call for fresh. Here, we want the ginger to distribute easily throughout the marinade, and ground ginger is better for that. Just be sure yours isn’t too old!

How To Cook Chicken Skewers

You can cook these peanut sauce-slathered chicken skewers in the oven or on the grill! They’re a great recipe to lean on when you’re not sure what the weather is going to do—no grill, no prob. Just remember, whichever kebab cooking method you opt for, look for an internal temp of 165°F, and try to take that reading near the middle of the skewer. Here’s how to cook chicken kebabs on the grill and in the oven:

• In the oven: we’re sort of imitating a grill by using an oven-safe cooling rack in the oven. Just be sure to have a sheet pan under the chicken kebabs as they cook to catch any drips that may fall.

• On the grill: this is probably the easier option, weather permitting. On a gas grill, you’ll want to cook these chicken thigh kebabs at a medium heat, on a charcoal grill that means you want to place them over indirect heat as much as possible.

Tips For Making Peanut Sauce-Marinated Chicken

Call them shish kebabs or call them chicken skewers—cooking meat and veggies on a stick is one of our very favorite things. Bite-sized pieces are evenly and quickly cooked, and the clean up is super-minimal (especially if you grill the peanut butter chicken skewers). A few things to keep in mind about making chicken skewers:

• Have your butcher cut the chicken thigh meat into pieces for you—asking your butcher (nicely) to do some of the messy prep for you is not a big deal.

• Wooden skewers: to soak or not to soak? While some argue that soaking wooden skewers is unnecessary, we’re firmly in the “why risk it?” camp. Soak wooden or bamboo skewers in water for at least 30 minutes before you cook your kebabs to prevent burning. The ends may still take on a bit of char, but that’s OK. If the thought of soaking feels like too much hassle, may we suggest...

• Metal skewers! No need to soak—just skewer the peanut sauce-marinated chicken thigh meat, and cook those kebabs! The only downside of metal skewers is that they do get quite hot.

Obsessed With Peanut Sauce?

Have we mentioned that we’re crazy for peanut butter sauces and marinades? Not only are they richly satisfying and healthy—peanut butter has lots of protein! Lots of iron! Lots of plant-based fat!—they are so easy. Here are a few of our favorite peanut sauce recipes:

• Chicken Satay with Peanut Sauce

• Tofu Stir-Fry with Vegetables

• No Noodle Pad Thai (this one is actually an almond sauce, but it’s really close to peanut sauce and so we’re saying it counts!)

• Spicy Peanut Udon Noodles

Our Favorite Type Of Peanut Gallery

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