Chicken Skewers with Tigernut Butter Sauce {AIP, Gluten-Free, Nut Free}

Tigernut butter is the stand-in for peanut butter in this Asian-ingredient AIP chicken dish. It's savory, creamy, and especially fresh with a cilantro garnish.

If you don't have tigernut butter, you can mix tigernut flour with avocado oil to make your own peanut-like butter at home (it will be a tad gritty, unless you have a high speed blender). Here's my homemade tigernut butter recipe.

While these skewers take no time to cook, for the very best flavor, I recommend marinating the chicken for 30 minutes then grilling the skewers to develop some charred areas.

Jump to:

• 🎥 Video
• 🔪 Instructions
• 💭 Top tip
• 📋 Recipe
• Chicken Skewers with Tigernut Butter Sauce {AIP, Gluten-Free, Nut Free}
• 🥗 Side dishes
• 📖 Variations

On the AIP diet, I often find myself craving rich, fatty foods like peanut butter and really missing a variety of sauces so this recipe really speaks to me (and hopefully you, too)!

Plus, you can make it with simple pantry ingredients (tigernut flour and avocado oil) that you might already have on hand.

🎥 Video

🔪 Instructions

Cut the chicken into large cubes and then massage it with the marinade while you preheat the grill. Chicken only needs to marinate for 30 minutes but you could also marinate it overnight.

One thing I love about this sauce is that you can mix it straight in your measuring container and you don't even have to cook it. Don't worry about any graininess. You can use tigernut flour (¼ cup plus water) or tigernut butter (⅓ cup) in this recipe.

💭 Top tip

When you grill the chicken, be sure not to move it around or it won't get the color (and flavor) you are after. I recommend about 5 minutes per side. Once the chicken is done, you will apply the tigernut butter sauce (off the grill) because it's the kind of sauce that will burn easily if heated.

I just generously pour the sauce over the chicken skewers and then serve right away with chopped cilantro.

📋 Recipe

This recipe is adapted from The Frayed Apron Lemongrass Chicken Satay, a recipe I developed that uses peanut butter. I've modified the recipe to be AIP-compliant and peanut free.

🥗 Side dishes

For a balanced dinner, I'd serve these chicken skewers as the main entrée or appetizer and include a quick side of cucumbers or sautéed broccoli with garlic (or broccoli rice) and a spritz of lemon juice. For dessert, I might enjoy something refreshing like melon with fresh mint or maybe a sparkling water with a scoop of aip vanilla ice cream!

📖 Variations

• tigernut flour vs tigernut butter: This recipe requires the equivalent of ⅓ cup tigernut butter so you can make it yourself or buy it. To make it, you simply combine the tigernut flour with a neutral oil (avocado oil). You could use coconut oil, melted, if that's what you have on hand.
• chicken vs pork: You could easily swap pork for the chicken. I even think steak would work well with this sauce.
• vegetable plus kabobs: You could add Portobello or cremini mushrooms, pineapple, or onion to the chicken marinade and bake vegetable chicken kabobs for a complete meal
• grilling vs roasting vs air frying: I think grilling provides a ton of flavor but if you want to roast the chicken or fry it in a neutral oil, that's fine, too. Just be sure to add the sauce AFTER you've cooked the chicken.
• Chicken thighs vs tenders vs breasts: You can use whatever section of the bird you want in this recipe as long as you cook the meat to 165℉.
• skewers vs lemongrass: If you can't find lemongrass, you can totally use metal or bamboo skewers, the latter require 30 minutes to soak so they don't burn. If you don't have skewers, you can place the entire chicken breast on the grill and then cut it after it's fully cooked. If you cut it first, it may fall through the grill grates.