These dinner bowls are a modern twist on the beloved Lebanese chicken fatteh casserole. Lebanese-spiced poached chicken with toasted pita and mint yogurt sauce, served in dinner bowls with Lebanese rice and Mediterranean salad.
What is Fatteh?
In Arabic, the word "fatteh" literally means "crumbs," referring to a genre of Middle Eastern foods where day-old toasted pita and other leftovers are re-purposed to create a new meal.
Fattoush salad is one popular example of the myriad dishes that fall under "fatteh." So does this Lebanese chicken fatteh recipe.
Lebanese Chicken Fatteh
Lebanese chicken fatteh is a simple but thoughtful combination of ingredients. It begins with poaching chicken breasts in water with aromatics like cardamom pods, cinnamon sticks, cloves and bay leaves. Flavors already building!
Later, the chicken is shredded into bite-sized pieces and cooked briefly in a skillet with onions, garlic and more spices.
Traditionally, the spiced shredded chicken tops a layer of toasted pita bread. A generous amount of mint yogurt sauce, along with toasted pine nuts and almonds, make the very top layer of the Lebanese chicken fatteh casserole. And because every family has it's own fatteh recipe, some include a layer of Lebanese rice.
I took a more modern approach to Lebanese chicken fatteh by converting the casserole into easy dinner bowls–like the fatteh version of my Gyro Bowl with Chicken and Feta. Lebanese rice and this 3-ingredient Mediterranean salad added as sides to complete the dinner bowls.
Although there are a few steps to this recipe, this is truly an easy, unpretentious, and flavor-packed Lebanese chicken dinner. You can prepare it ahead and assemble in bowls when you are ready to serve.
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Lebanese Chicken Fatteh
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: serves 6
Description
These dinner bowls are a modern twist on the beloved Lebanese chicken fatteh casserole. Lebanese spiced poached chicken with toasted pita and mint yogurt sauce, served in dinner bowls with Lebanese rice and Mediterranean salad.
Ingredients
- 4 bone-in chicken breasts, skins removed
- Salt
- 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 2 dried bay leaves
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- 4 whole cardamom pods, lightly crushed
- 6 cloves
- Water
- Extra virgin olive oil
- 1 medium yellow onion, peeled and thinly sliced
- 3 garlic cloves, crushed
- 1 tsp sweet Spanish paprika
- 1 tsp ground sumac
- ½ cup toasted pine nuts
- ½ cup toasted sliced almonds
- Fresh parsley leaves for garnish
- 2 loaves Lebanese pita bread, toasted in the oven until lightly brown, and broken into chips
Mint Yogurt Sauce
- 1 ½ cup plain low-fat yogurt (not Greek yogurt)
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- ½ cup chopped fresh mint (or 2-4 tablespoon dried crushed mint)
- pinch salt
To Serve
1 Lebanese Rice Recipe (optional)
1 Mediterranean Salad Recipe (optional)
Instructions
- Prepare the mint yogurt sauce. Place the yogurt, garlic, mint, and salt in a small bowl. Mix with a fork until well-combined. Cover and refrigerate for now.
- If you like, prepare Lebanese rice according to this recipe and set aside. Prepare Mediterranean salad according to this recipe; cover and refrigerate for now.
- Arrange the chicken breasts in a single layer in the bottom of a heavy cooking pot or Dutch oven. Sprinkle with salt. Add apple cider vinegar, bay leaves, cinnamon sticks, cardamom, and cloves. Pour in enough cold water to cover the chicken by 1 inch or so.
- Place the pot of chicken on the stove-top over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil. Skim off the white foam that collects on the surface of the water. Turn heat to low, cover and cook another 15-20 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through registering an internal temperature of 165 degrees F.
- With a slotted spoon, remove the chicken from the cooking broth and place on a cutting board to cool. Strain and reserve the broth for later or other use.
- When cool enough to handle, remove the bones and shred the chicken into bite-sized pieces.
- In a large cast iron skillet like this one, heat 2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil over medium heat. Add the onions and cook for 4 minutes, stirring regularly. Add the garlic and cook for another minute or so. Add the chicken, paprika and sumac. Season with salt and pepper. Stir until the chicken is well-coated. Cook for 5-7 minutes until the chicken is warmed through.
- Remove from heat and add the toasted nuts. Garnish with fresh parsley leaves.
- To serve, divide toasted pita bread among serving bowls. Add the Lebanese chicken;top with a generous scoop of the mint yogurt sauce and more toasted nuts, if you like. If you've gone a step further and prepared the rice and salad, then make room to add them next to the Lebanese chicken fatteh (as in the photos above). Enjoy!
Notes
- If you plan to serve the Lebanese chicken fatteh in bowls as we have here, budget an extra 25 minutes or so to prepare the Lebanese rice and Mediterranean salad. Otherwise, you can serve the Lebanese chicken fatteh in a casserole the traditional way. Begin with the toasted pita chips as the bottom layer, top with the chicken and then the mint yogurt sauce. Add the toasted nuts and garnish of parsley at the very end.
- Recommended for this Recipe: Our Private Reserve Greek extra virgin olive oil (from organically grown and processed Koroneiki olives!)
- Visit our store to browse our spices, olive oils and bundles!
- Prep Time: 5 mins
- Cook Time: 25 mins
- Category: Entree
- Method: Stove Top
- Cuisine: Lebanese
Hi Suzy - love your recipes! My husband is a cardiac patient and we have to closely watch sodium content. Can you please provide the nutritional info on this recipe? I can easily modify things to keep the number down if it’s higher than we like. However I was unable To find the nutritional info. With this recipe like I usually do. Thanks!
Hi, Dawn. Thank you for reaching out. We are making our way through all the recipes to try and provide the nutritional information using our new program. I will make a note of this one and hope to have it up soon. So sorry, as you can imagine, there is hundreds of recipes to go through.
This sounds delicious! I would like to try it, but have a couple questions first. OK, do you think sunflower seeds could substitute for pine nuts? (I have a tree nut allergy). Second, a few in my family really don't like mint. What could we use to substitute for it in the yogurt sauce?
Hi Heidi! Thanks for your great questions! Sorry I couldn't get to this sooner. Yes, you can certainly omit the pine nuts or use sunflower seeds instead. And in place of mint, you can try a different herb you all enjoy...basil, parsley, or dill, for example. Enjoy!
Making this today!!! I will have to rate the recipe later. I'm sure it is 5 star.
Enjoy, Becki! Hope you love it!
Very tasty, everyone loved it! Notes: I put a full teaspoon of ground cardamom instead of the pods. And then used the broth to cook the Israeli couscous to make your salad recipe 🙂 I also used greek yogourt for the mint sauce but added a little bit of evaporated milk to make it a bit more liquid and sweeter. And served with za'atar manakeesh.
Kim, what a wonderful menu! Thank you for giving all these recipes a try. Appreciate your feedback.
I followed this to the letter and it was absolutely delicious!! All the added extras make all the difference - make the rice and the salad as well as the pitta chips. I will def be looking at the rest of your recipes ( being in the UK I struggled a little with the cup to grams converting but that's just me being picky!) All in all, gorgeous!
Fiona, this is one of our favorite dinner bowls too! Thank you for the kind feedback! So glad you enjoyed it
I made this receipt for super tonight. It's very good! Now I think I'll be adding my own touch too! Like for the rice, I would add chicken broth instead of water. I really think that it would add more flavour to it. As for poaching the chicken, I think that a little white wine would be a nice addition! For the salad, I would opp for the fattoush salad, but my fattoush salad is quite different than yours.
I really think It's going to become one of my favourite super !
Christine, thank you so much for giving this a try! And thanks for sharing your own ideas/twist on it! Sounds tasty!
looking forward to making it. I have ground cardamom. How much of that is equivalent to the pods
Maria, wonderful! To answer your question, generally speaking, 10 cardamom Pods = 1.5 tsp ground cardamom. So for this recipe, I'd use about 1/2 tsp ground cardamom. Enjoy!
This looks amazing. I'm planning on trying it next week. I have made so many of your recipes. And they are always a big hit with the family. I wanted to send a quick note to say, "Thank you for making my cooking stand out." And keeping my hungry family happy.
Oh, Joy! Thank you so much for the kind note! I am so happy I could be of help to you. Enjoy the recipes!
I feel exactly the same, Joy! I make nearly all of the recipes here and they are great!
Thank you, Karen. Your comment means a lot to me.
Hi Suzy. This looks delicious. Do you think boneless thighs would work? Also, in step #4 the last sentence is incomplete. What comes after "or until..."? Looking forward to trying this.
Hi Judy, yes boneless chicken would work as well. And thanks for catching the missing tidbit in step #4, I just added it. The chicken needs to be cooked through registering an internal temp of 165 degrees F. Thanks! Enjoy!!!
Hey Suzy,
The moment I saw the pine nuts and the almonds I knew it will become a favorite recipe!
Thanks for sharing!
Awesome! Enjoy
This looks YUMMY! I have a love for Middle Eastern flavors. So fresh.
Thank you! It is!
This is a new dish for me! I love to try new foods. You made it look easy!
Awesome, Dorothy!! Hope you love it.
This is just what I need to change up my at home menu. I even have most of the ingredients!
Wonderful, Matt! Enjoy!
These Lebanese chicken fatteh dinner bowls are going on my must make list for dinner! The flavors sound so delicious! And that mint yogurt sauce! Love! I'll use gluten free pita to go in my bowls, but that should be the only adjustment I'll need to make. Looking forward to this!
Yay!!! Excited for you to try this recipe, Lindsey! And thanks so much for stopping in.
I'm really into bowls for healthy lunches and easy dinners. This version sounds great - love the flavor combo!
YES! I'm totally with ya!
I've never heard of this before, but love trying new ethnic dishes. It sounds amazing!
Oh this is so worth trying, Lisa! Thanks for stopping in!