060 / 75 · Vegetables, fish and hearty plates
Chicken, Cranberry and Sweet Potato Bread Bowls
2 soft bread-and-chicken meals, each with half the complete chicken, sweet potato, bread and cranberry mixture · Active 22 min · Cook 21 min · Total 50 min
Print recipe · PDFSoft bread cubes absorb a little stock around sweet potato and cooked chicken, making a spoonable savory bowl. Dried cranberries soften with onion and celery before the bread goes in, so their sweetness is spread through the meal. This is a moist bread-and-chicken supper with all components measured, rather than an unlisted stuffing side.
The potato leads the cook
Cut sweet potato into even small cubes and steam it to full tenderness first. Onion and celery then soften in the measured stock with sage and cranberries. Keeping those stages in order gives the bread a flavorful moist base rather than asking it to wait while hard vegetables cook.
Fold the bread through gently
Use ordinary ready-to-eat soft wholemeal bread in 2 cm cubes, not raw dough. Fold it through the hot base with the cooked chicken and give the whole bowl an even final heat. Some edges remain recognizable while other cubes soften into the sauce. There is no toasted crust or hollowed-out loaf to prepare separately.
Ingredients
- 300 g (10.6 oz) peeled sweet potato, cut into 1 cm (⅜ in) cubes
- 60 ml (¼ US cup) water
- 200 g (7.1 oz) commercially prepared ready-to-eat cooked chicken, refrigerated, cut into 1 cm (⅜ in) pieces
- 100 g (3.5 oz) ready-to-eat soft wholemeal bread, cut into 2 cm (¾ in) cubes
- 80 g (2.8 oz) celery, washed and finely sliced
- 60 g (2.1 oz) onion, peeled and finely diced
- 120 ml (½ US cup) low-sodium ready-to-eat chicken stock
- 30 g (1.1 oz) soft dried cranberries
- 10 g (0.35 oz) butter
- 0.5 g dried sage, about ½ US tsp
- 0.5 g fine salt, a small pinch, or less if the stock is salty
- 0.2 g ground black pepper, a small pinch
Set out
1000 W microwave with turntable, Microwave-safe bowl, 2 L (2.1 US qt) measured capacity, with vented cover, Knife and board, Spoon, Kitchen scale and measuring jug, Food thermometer, Oven mitts, Two serving bowls
Allergens
Wheat, Milk, Celery. Check labels and substitutions.
Make it
- Put the sweet-potato cubes and all the water in the 2 L bowl. Cover with the vented cover and microwave at 1000 W full power for 5 minutes. Stir and cook 3–5 minutes more until all tested cubes are fully knife-tender. Keep the small amount of cooking liquid.
- Fold in celery, onion, stock, cranberries, butter, sage, salt and pepper. Cover and microwave at full power for 3 minutes. Stir from the bottom and heat 2–3 minutes more until the onion and celery are tender and the cranberries have softened in the hot liquid.
- Fold in all the ready-to-eat cooked chicken and bread cubes, distributing them through the moist base without packing the mixture into a dense block. Cover and microwave at full power for 3 minutes. Stir carefully from the bottom and heat 1–2 minutes more until 165°F/74°C in the center and several other positions. Add short bursts and recheck any cooler place.
- Stand covered for 2 minutes. Divide the entire soft chicken, bread, vegetables, cranberries and juices equally between two bowls. Serve promptly; there is no extra butter, gravy or garnish needed to complete the written meal.
Bread cubes are the starch
Each bowl contains half the 100 g bread as well as 150 g raw-weight sweet potato and 100 g prepared cooked chicken. No separate loaf, stuffing or rice side is left for the reader to add.
A soft bowl is intentional
The stock and retained steaming water moisten the bread. The microwave does not toast the cubes; the illustration should show a soft spoonable mixture rather than crisp croutons.
Ingredient labels
Stock, cooked chicken and bread may contain soy, sesame, mustard or additional allergens. Read their actual labels, including any prepared-chicken marinade.
A useful detail
Allow 50 minutes for chopping, up to 10 minutes sweet-potato heating, 6 minutes onion-celery heating and 5 minutes final chicken-bread heating, the covered stand and serving. All stages run sequentially in one oven. Ready-to-eat cooked chicken is reheated here, not cooked from raw; follow any additional or shorter label limits. Extra vegetable or temperature-check bursts can extend the clock.
Another way
- Replace the cooked chicken with 200 g (7.1 oz) commercially prepared ready-to-eat cooked turkey, using the same small pieces and full final heating checks.
- Replace dried cranberries with 30 g (1.1 oz) chopped soft dried apricots, adding them with the stock at the same stage.
Keep it well
Best freshly made. Refrigerate shallow saved portions within 2 hours, or 1 hour above 90°F/32°C, at 40°F/4°C or below and use within 2 days or sooner if the chicken label directs. Eat saved portions cold rather than reheating the already-reheated cooked chicken again. Do not use old chicken beyond its original safe storage period; mixing it into this bowl does not restart that clock.