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
- 1/2 cup toasted pine nuts
- 1/2 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 1/2 cup plain low-fat yogurt (not Greek yogurt)
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 1/2 cup chopped fresh mint (or 2–4 tbsp 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 tbsp 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
Absolutely delicious! So glad I tried this dish!
I made this tonight for my wife. It was delicious with the cucumber/tomato salad and Lebanese rice. I tasted the chicken after boiling with the spices and didn’t think that step added much to the flavor of the chicken, so added just a bit of cinnamon, cardamom and cloves to the onion, garlic, chicken mix. The instant pot worked well for the rice, roasting the vermicelli on the sauté setting first and using 3.25c water on the rice setting.
Overall would definitely recommend!
I can easily find powdered cardamom. Could I use this instead of whole cardamom, slightly crushed?
Sure, Patrick! That will work.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 delicious! I can’t wait to try it. I was hoping you could help me. My brother’s college roommate used to make a Mediterranean dish for us. He was either Lebanese or from Pakistan. My brother isn’t around and I was in high school–not paying much attention. The dish was (as well as I can remember) chicken, rice, yogurt and cucumber cooked together in a deep skillet. It was delicious! This dish sounds closest. Can you help point me in the right direction???
Hi, Amy… Hmmmm… that’s a tough. I’m not 100 percent sure, but here is a chicken and rice recipe that you might find similar: https://www.themediterraneandish.com/middle-eastern-chicken-and-rice/
To Amy F. If I may, Try Pakistani chicken biryani.
Hi Amy from what you’ve described looks like a Pakistani chicken biryani. Usually served with a yoghurt raita which has cucumber and tomato.
I could not find cinnamon sticks or cardamon pods, so used 1 T of each, ground. I found that some of the spices stuck to 1 piece of chicken and none to the others. Unfortunately, the chicken lacked flavor. I think it’s because the ground is not as potent as the actua l sticks and pods. Next time I’ll look at some exotic stores in our area for those items . Now the rice was so delicious, and of course the salad (always a fan). I didn’t have yogurt so used sour cream for the topping, and it was good as well. Looking forward to making it again, with the right ingredients called for, of couse.
Thank you for sharing, Ellen!
This looks delicious, but do I have to use cardamon pods when I already have cardamon in a bottle? Sometimes I buy spices and they end up in my pantry for years or they expire and I have to pitch them. I hate wasting.
Hi, Ellen! You can use ground cardamom, if that’s what you a have on hand. Generally speaking, 10 cardamom Pods = 1.5 tsp ground cardamom. So for this recipe, I’d use about 1/2 tsp ground cardamom. Enjoy!
it will be a good idea to print the pictures with the recipe
Thanks for sharing, Ahmed!
I am in the process of gathering ingredients for this recipe tonight to cook tomorrow. Cardamom pods have been brought up several times. My question is, black or green cardamom pods? I have the black pods, but have not used them (yet).
We love your recipes. We did Koftedes meatballs the other night and Wow.
We use green cardamom, Nick. Thanks for checking!
I made this the other day as lunch for this week after spending the the previous week convincing my boyfriend — who claims not to “really like much Mediterranean food,” but loves the same Lebanese restaurant as me — that he would probably like it. I’m super pleased to announce that, with a few tweaks, he very much did! I’d been wanting to try something like this for a while now and am pleased as well, so thank you!
Quick question re the cardamon. The grocery store had lots of ground cardamon — but only one offering of “whole” cardamon, which we got. However, they seem to be very small, like pellets about the size of sesame seeds. I can’t imagine the recipe is supposed to be multiples of 4 little seeds?? How much of that would equal a “pod”?
Additionally, as far as the yogurt sauce — I prefer regular yogurt to low fat, but it is thicker, I believe. What’s the best way to thin it? Lemon? Oil? Water?
Also, someone said about not using mint in the yogurt sauce. I made two versions, one with the mint for me, and one without for him — he loves it as is (and the sauce was something I had to convince him on)!
Thank you so much for sharing, Kelley! I am so so glad to hear it worked out for you and that your boyfriend also enjoyed it. As far as cardamom goes, I believe what you bought is cardamom seeds, which are the insides of the cardamom pods. In general, there is about a dozen cardamom seeds per pod. Note when using the seeds themselves, you have a bit of a stronger flavor as opposed to the pods (I usually open my pods up a little to allow the flavors to release). You may have to play with that a bit.
Any kind of yogurt works here. You can certainly use a little extra virgin olive oil and a splash of citrus to thin the yogurt a little.
So excited to make this, but was wondering how many this meal serves?
Hi Jessica. This should give you 6 servings or so.