Smoky chipotle chicken grilled to perfection, with a chunky fun sauce featuring pistachios, avocado, lemon, and chives! This is so good!
Chipotle Chicken with Chunky Pistachio Sauce
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SOOO GOOD!!! We used breasts, thin sliced and scored so the marinade soaked in – and sub’d rice for roasted sweet potato’s – whole family loved it!! The leftovers were just as delish- we threw them in some corn taco shells and added slaw to the mix chicken and mash and WOWEE!
Georgia Beglin
Why Is Chunky Sauce So Fun?
I make a lot of blended, smooth green sauces – but this lady is a whole new vibe. Spoonable, chunky, and fun. She is the exact thing I didn’t realize my smoky grilled chicken was needing.
The combination of avocado, pistachio, chives, and lemon is like a mashup of guacamole, gremolata, and springtime brightness and it is SO good.
I know some of you are going to look at the sauce ingredients and think you want a lime in there, but give the lemon a chance. The lemon with the chives and the roasty pistachios… it’s so fresh and unique. I want this for you.
What I like this with:
- my go-to easy rice method which is absolutely hands off
- the simple green salad my kids love
- multiple types of roasted veggies – but this broccoli especially
If you’re worried about things getting spicy, use smoked paprika instead of chipotle! It’ll give you the smokiness without the spicy. Delish.
I hope you love this!
And if you’re doing some meal planning, don’t miss this list of all my favorite easy dinners!
Watch How To Make This Recipe
Chipotle Chicken with Chunky Pistachio Sauce
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
Description
Smoky chipotle chicken grilled to perfection, with a chunky fun sauce featuring pistachios, avocado, lemon, and chives! This is so good!
Ingredients
Units
Scale
Chipotle Chicken:
- 1 lb. boneless skinless chicken thighs
- 2 1/2 – 3 tablespoons taco seasoning (I use Siete Mild Taco Seasoning, a little more than half the packet)
- 1/8 teaspoon chipotle powder (spicy! sub 1/4 tsp smoked paprika if you don’t want it spicy)
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
Sauce:
- 1 large avocado, diced (more firm)
- 1/2 cup roasted, salted pistachios
- 1/2 cup packed cilantro
- a small bundle of chives (.5 oz, a full package)
- juice and zest of one lemon
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt (more to taste)
Instructions
- Prep the Chicken: Trim the fat from the chicken thighs, if you want. Then toss the chicken with the spices and olive oil. You want them to be nicely coated with the spices.
- Cook Chicken: Heat the olive oil in a skillet or grill pan (affiliate link) over medium high heat. Grill or saute the chicken, flipping once, until nice and browned on both sides with an internal temperature of 165 degrees. (See notes for alternate cooking methods.)
- Make the Sauce: While the chicken is cooking, use a mini-chopper (affiliate link) or food processor to pulse the pistachios, cilantro, and chives until finely chopped.
- Finish Sauce: Add to a bowl with the avocado chunks, lemon juice and zest, olive oil, and salt. Stir it up – it’ll be thick, chunky, and a little bit irresistible.
- Serve: Cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces (makes it easier to build a bowl and eat)! Season with salt. Top with spoonfuls of the chunky pistachio sauce. I love this with rice and a salad. The flavors!! So good.
Notes
Boneless skinless chicken breasts will also work in this recipe!
If you don’t have chipotle powder, mince or smash a single chipotle pepper from a can and throw it in with the chicken and taco seasoning instead! Or, 2-3 teaspoons of the adobo sauce from the can is also great!
This is the grill pan I use! (affiliate link) You can also grill the chicken, or air fry it for 10-12 minutes at 375 degrees.
The salt level for the chicken will be dependent on your taco seasoning, since they all have a different level of saltiness. I would suggest waiting until after cooking the chicken to season with salt! However, if your taco seasoning doesn’t have any salt, you could add 1/2 teaspoon to 1 teaspoon in step 1 along with the dry spices.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: Mexican-Inspired
Keywords: chipotle chicken, chicken bowls, avocado, pistachio, burrito bowl
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you use chicken breasts instead of thighs?
Yes! Works just fine.
Can you use fish instead of chicken?
Yes, I think this would be great with salmon or even shrimp! For shrimp, probably use less spices overall (less surface area) – just enough to coat.
Can you use a different nut besides pistachios?
I feel like toasted pine nuts would be good. Even finely crushed almonds could be a good sub!
How should I cook the chicken if I don’t have a grill pan?
You can grill the chicken on an actual grill, sear/sauté it in a hot pan, or air fry it for 10-12 minutes at 375 degrees. If you do want to get a grill pan, this is the one I use! (affiliate link)
What veggies could I add to this?
You can basically take any veggie and just throw it into the grill pan for a minute after the chicken! Or make air fryer broccoli, or simple green salad, or a bagged salad.
More Really Delicious Chicken Bowls
Filed Under: All Recipes Avocado Bowls Dairy-Free Dinner Gluten-Free Healthy Lemon Meat and Chicken Quick and Easy Recipes SOS Series Stovetop
April 22, 2025
Nice to meet you!
I’m Lindsay and I ♡ FOOD. I used to be a teacher, and now making food and writing about it online is my full-time job. I love talking with people about food, and I'm so glad you're here.
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ooh this sounds like a great variation on crockpot chicken bowls with cilantro pesto, can’t wait to try and add to my rotation!
This looks delicious! I’d like to air fry the chicken but my air fryer won’t do 375, it will only do 370 or 380. Which would you suggest,and for how many minutes?
Hello! You could do 370 degrees at 1 minute longer than recipe instructs, or 380 and 1 minute less.
I just made this for my family of six and they all loved it! I seasoned my chicken and air fried because I have mastered that to make moist chicken. I chopped it up and served it with rice… added some corn and salsa to appease the kiddos and they all asked for me to make it again!
Great to hear that the family loved it, Lauren!
MAKE THIS RIGHT NOW!!! Holy cow, the sauce is so good and the lemon perks it up and it pairs so well with the chicken! I made the thighs in the oven because I hate cooking chicken, and paired it with yellow rice (from POY!!) and sweet potatoes!
That sounds like an amazing meal!
I’ve never thought to put chipotle with pistachios, but why not?!! It looks fabulous!
Are you using UNSALTED pistachios? Hard to find here, I think. I was wondering because with the taco seasoning and the salt in the sauce, won’t salted pistachios be too much even if I leave out the salt in the sauce?
Hi! We use roasted, salted pistachios and do not find the meal to be too salty. If you prefer, you can leave it out of the sauce, taste, and add salt if you’d like.
I made it tonight with chicken breasts in the air fryer & it was great! Cannot get enough SOS recipes!!
Thanks for making the recipe, Trish!
SOOO GOOD!!! We used breasts, thin sliced and scored so the marinade soaked in – and sub’d rice for roasted sweet potato’s – whole family loved it!! The leftovers were just as delish- we threw them in some corn taco shells and added slaw to the mix chicken and mash and WOWEE!
Thanks for making the recipe, Georgia!
Ooooo I made this tonight and it is sooooo good, the sauce (dip as my husband called it) is so yummy, I want snacking on it while getting everyone’s plates together. Our power went out mid way through so I had to use a mortar and pestle but I like the extra chunky-ness.
Great recipe Lindsay and team!
Wow, way to stick with it while the power went out!
PERFECTION! this is the perfect amount of zesty, slightly sweet from the pistachios and buttery from the avocado. Absolute dream bowl! I don’t really like taco seasoning so I used rotisserie chicken seasoning instead and it slapped. Will be making again very soon!
Glad you enjoyed the recipe, and thanks for the note about the seasoning swap!
Can I use green onions instead of chives?
Hi! You could use some of the top green parts of the green onions and that should be fine. The white part would be too strong of an onion flavor.
What nuts would you suggest to substitute ? Pine ?
Toasted pine nuts or toasted cashews would work!
Amazingly delicious!
This was delicious!!! I didn’t have chives so I used green onions. And we didn’t have a taco seasoning packet so we through together our own. So we went a tiny bit rogue but WOW. Super easy, and sooooo so so good. Will have this over and over again
Love that you used what you had!
I don’t own a grill pan and I used breasts instead of thighs because I had them on hand. I really didn’t know what to make of the green sauce but it was sooo good! Everyone liked the meal and it was easy to adapt for my picky eater. Will definitely make this again.
I made this last night. It was delicious! Definately a keeper 🙂
Thanks for making the recipe, Lisa!
This was delicious, the perfect easy summer meal. I sous vided chicken breasts and mixed the sauce with that and rice and it was delightful!! I will be remaking this constantly.
Sous vide, very nice!
This recipe was absolutely delicious, my whole family loved it!
We loved this!
The sauce was definitely the highlight of the dish! Loved it
Everything about this was so good. I had never used the Siete seasoning before, and it’s worth the higher price point for a taco mix. So good. But the real stand out was the pistachio avocado salsa. I never would have thought to use pistachios in something like this, and my partner and I both agreed it was amazing. This was a quick, easy, and super tasty recipe – definitely will be making it again soon!