If you're ever on the hunt for healthy, easy leftover chicken recipes, this Thai-style leftover chicken bowl needs to be on your list. It's really quick and easy to make, packed with goodness and delicious too.

Thai-style leftover chicken Buddha bowl with fork in top of bowl from overhead

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For whatever reason, it has been a while since I have made a bowl to use up leftovers. They're so easy to adapt to what you have and you can get some delicious combinations, like my leftover steak and quinoa bowl. In fact, if I have any leftover steak, that bowl (or a version of it) is always top of my list.

This time, however, I was looking for ways a quick and easy leftover chicken recipe to make something for lunch.

Thai-style leftover chicken Buddha bowl close up in bowl with sauce in middle

My typical go-to is Vietnamese chicken salad, but I didn't have any cabbage or mint so that was off the cards. Since chicken satay were on my mind, for some reason, it didn't take much to come up with this tasty bowl.

What's in this chicken and grain bowl?

This is a variation on the theme of what some describe as a Buddha bowl, or else a protein and grain bowl. They typically include:

protein, either meat or vegetarian
some grains
some greens
a tasty sauce
anything else you feel like, particularly other veggies.

As you can see, this chicken version has all of those, and it's a delicious combination.

rice, chicken and salad ingredients mixed up ready to eat

While I've described what's in my bowl in the recipe below, this is by no means a hard and fast list. You can easily change up the components depending on what you have or prefer - it works just as well with leftover turkey, for example.

However I recommend adding something with a bit of crunch, mix up the colors and, of course, don't forget the delicious peanut sauce.

Make ahead tips

One of the great things about this bowl is that everything is pretty robust so it's great for meal prep as well. Not only is it a great way to use leftover cooked chicken and rice, you can also put everything together in the bowl and store in the fridge, ready for lunch the next day.

You can even make extra on purpose to make this for a few days - everything should keep a good two days or more refrigerated.

I'd suggest you don't mix the sauce in until you are eating, and if keeping more than overnight, you might want to wait in adding the arugula to keep it extra crisp. You can also make extra sauce and store in a separate container, if you prefer, ready to use.

If you're looking for other easy Asian-inspired chicken dishes, why not try some chicken satay burgers, chicken and green beans or fragrant chicken curry with chard. Or another idea for leftover chicken is grilled chicken burritos.

Thai-style leftover chicken Buddha bowl in bowl with fork to side

This Thai-style leftover chicken bowl is an easy, delicious and healthy combination that's also the perfect way to use up leftovers and solve the lunch question. How could you not give it a try?!

Try these other tasty uses for leftover chicken:

Pastilla (savory Moroccan pie)
Aji de gallina (Peruvian chicken stew)
Thai red curry (with a homemade sauce that's easier than you might think!)
Plus get more Holiday leftovers ideas, as well as many more lunch recipes in the archives.

Thai style leftover chicken Buddha bowl from overhead

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5 from 2 votes