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Honey Sesame Chicken Lunch Bowls

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These popular Honey Sesame Chicken Lunch Bowls have chicken breast, rice and veggies tossed in a delicious sticky sauce. Perfect for healthy meal prep lunches.

Stir fries are such a great choice for meal prep because they store and reheat well. Some of my faves include this Cashew Chicken Stir Fry, this Vegan Ginger Teriyaki Stir Fry, and today’s Honey Sesame Chicken Lunch Bowls!

overhead shot of Honey Sesame Chicken Lunch Bowls in meal prep container

This is one of the most popular recipes on the site (it was my first meal prep recipe to go viral!), and I’m pretty sure I know why.

It’s delicious, versatile, easy to prep and keeps so well for meal prep!

Reasons you’ll ♡ honey sesame chicken lunch bowls

  • they taste great, even on day 4
  • you can stash in the fridge or freezer
  • you can make a ton of different swaps, and still have a delicious lunch

Recipe Video

Watch the video below to see exactly how I prepped these meal prep bowls. It’s so easy! You can find more of my recipe videos on my YouTube channel.

Don’t forget to pin this post to save it for later!

honey sesame stir fry sauce in mason jar

The sauce

When it comes to stir fry, the sauce the most important thing (if you care about flavor, that is). This honey sesame sauce takes 5 minutes to shake up and uses simple pantry staples:

  • honey– well, obviously! But if you find yourself in a pinch, you can swap maple syrup and it will be totally fine.
  • reduced sodium soy sauce– I recommend seeking out the low sodium stuff. Regular may end up too salty in this recipe!
  • water or chicken stock– or make your own homemade bone broth for a bigger nutrient boost
  • sesame oil– toasted or regular is fine
  • red pepper flakes– for a little kick; leave it out if you are serving kids
  • corn starch– or swap for arrowroot powder

Looking to switch up your flavors? I have SEVEN different stir fry sauces here!

vegetables and stir fry sauce on cutting board for honey sesame chickenThe stir fry

To make cooking go as easily as possible, I recommend having all your veggies and chicken chopped up ahead of time, and your sauce pre-mixed. That way, you can just work through the recipe without distraction.

Here’s what we’re using in this recipe

  • veggies– go for 4-6 cups. I am using broccoli and snap peas, but you can use pretty much any stir fry vegetable in here.
  • protein– 1 lb of boneless skinless chicken breast (which is roughly 2 large breasts), chopped into 1 inch pieces.
  • carbs– I like basmati rice as it has a high glycemic index, meaning it won’t digest as quickly as regular white rice and will keep you feeling full for longer.

pouring stir fry sauce onto chicken in frying pan

Let’s talk swaps

Just like any stir fry, you can swap out the sauce, the protein, the veggies, the carbs and end up with totally different meals.

Here are some of my fave swaps

  • carbs– swap for quinoa, brown rice, or cauliflower rice
  • sauce– I’m obsessed with this maple ginger stir fry sauce, or go classic with this teriyaki sauce
  • protein– swap the chicken breast for chicken thighs or go vegetarian with tofu
  • veggies– swap for carrots, bell peppers, squash, slaw, or whatever is hiding in your fridge that needs to be used. Keep in mind cook times will change with different veggies.

overhead shot of four Honey Sesame Chicken meal prep Bowls

Other popular meal prep recipes

This post was originally published in 2016. It has been republished with new photos and tips in 2019; same great recipe!

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4.88 from 16 votes

Honey Sesame Chicken Lunch Bowls

Course: Lunch
Cuisine: Chinese
Keyword: chicken, dairy-free, freezer, gluten-free, meal prep
Calories: 483.19kcal
Author: Denise Bustard
Servings: 4
These Honey Sesame Chicken Lunch Bowls have chicken breast, broccoli and asparagus tossed in a sweet and savory honey sesame stir fry sauce. Perfect for healthy meal prep lunches!
Prep Time10 mins
Cook Time20 mins
Total Time30 mins

Ingredients

Honey Sesame Sauce:

  • 1/4 cup chicken stock or water
  • 1/4 cup reduced sodium soy sauce
  • 1/4 cup honey (or maple syrup)
  • 1 tablespoon sesame oil
  • 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
  • 1 teaspoon cornstarch

Chicken Lunch Bowls:

  • 3/4 cup rice (uncooked; or roughly 2 cups cooked)
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil (divided)
  • 3 cups broccoli (chopped into small pieces)
  • 3 cups snap peas (ends trimmed)
  • 2 large chicken breasts (cut into 1 inch cubes)
  • salt & pepper
  • sesame seeds (garnish)

Instructions

  • Shake together all honey sesame sauce ingredients and set aside.
  • Cook rice according to package instructions. Divide between 4 storage containers.
  • Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large pan. Add broccoli and snap peas. Cook for 5-7 minutes, until bright green and tender. Add to the rice in the storage containers.
  • Add remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil to pan. Add the chicken to the pan. Season with salt and pepper, and red pepper flakes (if desired). Cook for 7-10 minutes, until cooked through.
  • Add the sauce to the pan and simmer for 2 minutes, until thickened.
  • Add the chicken to the lunch containers and drizzle with sauce. Garnish with sesame seeds if desired.
  • Store in the fridge for up to 4 days. Reheat to serve.

Notes

* If you are looking for ways to lighten this recipe up, try halving the sauce or swap part of the rice for cauliflower rice
 

Nutrition

Serving: 1bowl | Calories: 483.19kcal | Carbohydrates: 57.74g | Protein: 31.74g | Fat: 14.29g | Saturated Fat: 2.28g | Cholesterol: 72.77mg | Sodium: 716.06mg | Potassium: 876.12mg | Fiber: 4.35g | Sugar: 22.07g | Vitamin A: 1332.17IU | Vitamin C: 106.34mg | Calcium: 81.76mg | Iron: 3.14mg

Reader Interactions

About Denise Bustard

Denise Bustard is the creator of Sweet Peas and Saffron, a meal prep-focussed food blog. With a PhD in biochemistry, Denise takes a scientific approach to perfecting her recipes. You can find Denise's work featured on Huffington Post, MSN, Self and more. read more

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Comments

  1. Paula

    5 stars
    Oh my gosh!!!!! I cannot rate this recipe high enough. I am currently at home with my 3 kids and since quarantine and lockdown began they have been eating me out of house and home. My 2 boys are 13 and 14 and they are always nibbling and grazing all day on whatever is convenient. I made these and stacked the fridge with 2 portions for each of us and they loved it. They would have licked the containers clean if I had let them. I will be trying lots more of your recipes and hopefully this will become a trend they will carry on when school is back.

    Thank you again for sharing your talents!

    Reply

    • Denise Bustard

      Hi Paula! Wow, so so SO happy to hear you’ve enjoyed the recipe so much. I have 2 boys as well and they are still in the picky eater phase…I’m sure we’ll be in the ‘eat me out of house and home’ phase soon though! THanks for taking the time to come back and leave a review.

      Reply

  2. Paige B

    5 stars
    This has been a go-to recipe since I found it a few years back on Instagram. We love it! I use carrots and broccoli and chicken thighs. We leave the sesame oil out for a different taste about half the tine, Delicious!

    Reply

  3. Alison

    4 stars
    took way longer to get sauce to thicken than recipe describes. but this is not a deal-breaker. I had to add a little more corn starch to compensate also. other than that, I used asparagus instead of snap peas. and the results were delicious. thank you!!

    Reply

  7. Raymond U.

    5 stars
    First time cooking for the most part and it came out beautifully! Definitely a good dish to make for beginners I’d say so myself! Only thing I probably could’ve done better was to probably not cook the rice too long 😅. Otherwise I’m so glad that I did this! If I didn’t who knows what I’d be doing for lunch… probably nothing good or anything at all lol!

    Reply

  8. Murielle Curcio

    The amount of honey in the sauce is very sweet and I am trying to reduce my sugars. Can you suggest a low glycemic alternative for 1/4 cup of honey?

    Reply

  9. Noelle

    5 stars
    I just tried this recipe for my very first week of meal-prepping, and holy cow! It’s fantastic! So excited to have it the rest of this week, and looking forward to more meal prepping in the future! (I did make it with bell peppers and asparagus for the veggies, since I’m not a huge fan of broccoli.)

    (Just a note– You mention asparagus a few times, and it’s in the pictures, but the recipe calls for snap peas instead…? Just wanted to let you know in case you wanted to change anything/make a note about it somewhere, because I was super confused when I saw no asparagus on the ingredient list!)

    Reply

  10. Meredith

    5 stars
    Love this recipe! Super quick and easy to make and fit perfectly into my current meal plan. It was also delicious! It smelled so good while cooking I couldn’t wait to eat lunch! I also subbed the veggies for what I already had in my freezer-carrots and broccoli. Thanks!

    Reply

    • Denise

      Janis it depends on which source you look at. This one, which pulls its data from the US FDA clearly states 4-6 days. Cool your rice as quickly as possible and reheat to steaming hot and you should be perfectly safe. But you do you and if you don’t feel comfortable with 4 day storage, then go ahead and move on to another recipe.

      Reply

  14. Dee

    I doubled this recipe thinking it would make 8 meals. Didn’t realize how tiny the containers were that were used here. My 8 meals is basically 4. Hoping it takes just as good as it smells! Might be a bit hangry this week though!

    Reply

    • Denise

      The portions I use are what are in line with what is recommended for daily caloric intake. 1/2 cup rice, 4 oz chicken and 1.5 cups veggies is a pretty good sized portion for most people. Sorry you found it small.

      Reply

  19. Ashley Oliver

    4 stars
    This is my second recipe of yours that I’ve tried. I’m really enjoying these balanced, easy meals. This one is delicious as is. I added some toasted cashews on top for a crunch and subbed carrots for snap peas. Next time, I’d like to add a little onion and eggplant to the sauteed veggies.

    Reply

  20. Anu

    5 stars
    Denise,

    Thank you for sharing the honey-sesame Chicken recipe! Prepped it as is and was an excellent addition to my meal prep game plan! I paired it with brown rice and curried cauliflower… Delish!!

    Reply

  22. Sinead

    Hi Renata,

    I live in Brazi too! . An American cup measurement is about one teacup. A medium/large head of broccoli from the market is about 4 cups. You do get used to the amounts and what they should look like over time! I’ve tried websites to convert but one cup is a different weight for every type of food so I’ve never managed to do it that way.

    Reply

  23. Denise

    Hi Renata! Unfortunately that is not a common way for us to measure here in Canada…I do try to weigh ingredients whenever I’m baking but for cooking I am really just estimating in cups, and I don’t know what it works out to in weights. You might have better luck with European-based blogs as they will weigh their ingredients out and don’t use cups to measure. I hope this helps!

    Reply

  25. Sue

    Can’t have rice and was wondering what nutritional value would be for just the chicken, sauce and vegetables

    Reply

    • Denise

      Hi Sue, that’s a great question. I just popped it into My Fitness Pal and it looks like it is 270 calories without the rice. You can find the full breakdown here

      Reply

    • Beth

      Can you do cauliflower rice? I use it just because it’s less calories and don’t really see a huge difference in taste!

      Reply

      • Denise

        Yes! Absolutely, cauliflower rice is actually great in meal prep! I prefer making my own versus using frozen as it keeps better and doesn’t get as mushy 🙂

        Reply

  26. Tyla Gunning

    5 stars
    This recipe is AMAZING! added a bit to much soy so my end result was very strong in soy sauce but other than that being my own fault it’s INCREDIBLE! Can’t wait to have this amazing meal for lunch for the next few days :D!

    Reply

  27. Erin

    Made this over the weekend and was feeling unsure going into lunch today as my last few attempts at meal prepping have been average at best. However, this was great! A few people told me it smelled amazing and it tasted just as good as it smelled. Even better, it was very filling. This is definitely a keeper for me, easy prep and a delicious meal.

    Reply

    • Denise

      Hi Brianna! You can absolutely sub the carrots for broccoli. I think they’d cook for a similar time, depending on how you cut the carrots 🙂 Hope you enjoy!

      Reply

  30. Ellie

    This looks greats looking to try this for work next week as lunch just a bit confused by the cup measurements? Is there anything I can use instead of cups to measure the ingredients?

    Reply

    • Denise

      Hi Ellie, unfortunately I don’t have weight measurements for these ingredients. I did find in my notes that 3/4 cup uncooked rice is 140g/5 oz. Hope that helps 🙂

      Reply

  31. Christy

    Just ate this for lunch today. So delicious!!! pretty easy to make too. I just did some frozen veggies I had in the freezer, still worked great. Thanks for the recipe!

    Reply

    • Denise

      Hi Mavis, I actually worked for 7 years in cancer research and have NEVER heard that before. In fact if you type ‘olive oil carcinogen’ into PubMed, you will find a whole lot of articles that suggest that olive oil has anti-cancer properties. I wouldn’t recommend heating olive oil over high heat, though, since it has a low smoking point. Hope this answers your question 🙂

      Reply

  39. Naomi

    Hey this looks delicious was just wondering about the chicken. If I used already cooked frozen chicken is it safe to reheat it again to make the meal and then reheat when eating? Or would you say it’s better to use fresh chicken?

    Reply

    • Denise

      Hi Naomi! I haven’t tried making this particular dish with already cooked/frozen chicken, but I have frozen lots of my slow cooker chicken recipes after cooking and they seem to keep well in the fridge after thawing. I can’t find any official food safety information about this though…so if you are nervous, go for the fresh chicken instead.

      Reply

  44. Jamie

    I’m following the SlimFast Plan (2 shakes, up to 3 100-calorie snacks, and 1 healthy 500-calorie meal per day), and these bowls are perfect–tasty, filling, and easy! I now have dinner for the next four nights. Thanks so much!

    Reply

  45. Glenda

    Made this today and it was absolutely amazing! Added a red pepper for part of the broccoli and peas and used brown rice but didn’t change anything else. I could have split the recipe into 6 and would have had plenty. I am trying freezing the other 3 bowls so we will see. I will definitely make this again!

    Reply

  47. Jessica

    A great alternative for soy sauce is liquid aminos…I made this today and swapped the soy sauce for liquid aminos, which a great, healthier alternative.

    Reply

  48. Adam

    Just made this tonight. Watch out for salt levels. Used low sodium broth and soy but might have overseasoned a bit. I would say leave it off the chicken since you can always add. Super excited for lunch this week.

    Reply

    • Denise

      Hi Lauren! I’ve never tried freezing this, actually I’ve never had much luck at freezing rice. If you try it would you let me know how it turns out?

      Reply

  57. Andrew

    This looks great and cant wait to try it. How much of each item (chicken, rice, vegetables) did you put into the containers? Thank you very much.

    Reply

    • Denise

      Hi Andrew, thanks so much! I think it’s about 1/2 cup cooked rice per bowl, 1/2 of a large chicken breast was about 1/3 cup? And lots of veggies, 1.5 cups per bowl. This is an estimation 😉 I hope you enjoy it!

      Reply

  58. Christina M Laney

    How do you reheat the rice without is turning into a hard gritty crunchy mess? I can never reheat rice, even if I pour liquid into it first.. All I have at work to reheat with is a microwave..

    Reply

    • Denise

      Hi Christina! My rice never ends up crunchy…maybe because I use a rice cooker? With this recipe you will have some sauce on the rice so hopefully that will help too.

      Reply

    • Karen

      Just sprinkle a little water on the rice and have a lid loose over it when you microwave it. I also use a rice cooker which may help to start.

      Reply

    • Sandy

      Have you tried putting a moist paper towel on top of your rice container and heating it that way while adding some water directly on the rice? That should work. Or you may want to put the rice on a plate and push the rice to the edges of the plate and leave the middle of the plate empty and try not to put too much time on the microwave, start with 30 secs and put 15 more secs and so forth to get the desired heat.

      Reply

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