Low-Cal Chicken Thighs with Cole Slaw Recipe

How to Prepare An Extremely Low-Calorie Chicken Thighs and Cole Slaw Dinner?

Healthy eating doesn’t have to be boring. This low-cal chicken with cole slaw is flavorful and perfect for any meal. Watching your waistline? Planning a quick dinner? Craving something light? This recipe covers it all.

Thanks to simple seasoning and careful cooking, the chicken stays juicy and tender. The cole slaw adds crunch and tang, creating a fresh, satisfying contrast. The trick? A lighter, zesty dressing that skips the heavy mayo but keeps all the flavor.

Best of all, you can make this dish fast with ingredients you already have. Serve it as a main dish or part of a larger meal. It’s versatile, delicious, and proof that healthy eating can feel indulgent.

Ready to shake up your dinner routine? Let’s get started on this easy, tasty recipe!

5:2 Diet

This week, I started a new diet called the 5:2 Diet. In this diet, you usually eat for five days a week and eat extremely low-calorie meals on the other two days. My goal is to eat 600 calories on the fasting days: a 200 - 300-calorie breakfast, a 12-hour fast, and then a 300-calorie dinner.

This recipe is adapted from Diana Clayton's 5:2 Diet Recipes All Under 300 Calories and served as my first low-calorie dinner. How did it taste? After not eating for 12 hours, most anything would be delicious, but this meal was pretty good for something so low cal.

If you're looking for a more tasty cole slaw but with a lot more calories, be sure to check out my recipe for my Dad's cole slaw, but this is about cutting calories. The marinade looks extremely simple but gives the chicken thighs a nice flavor.

We made this for dinner, but I had leftovers for lunch the next day, and both the chicken and the cole slaw were even better.

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Low Cal Chicken Thighs with Cole Slaw Recipe

Not my dad's cole slaw

Prep Time10 minutes mins

Cook Time30 minutes mins

Total Time40 minutes mins

Course: Side Dish

Cuisine: American

Servings: 4 Servings

Calories: 292kcal

Ingredients

• 4 chicken thighs boneless - skinless
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 2 tablespoons ketchup low fat - whatever that is
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 orange juice and zest from it
• 1 small white cabbage thinly sliced into strips (we used a small bag of pre-sliced cabbage)
• 2 medium carrots cut into thin matchsticks (we used pre-cut matchstick carrots)
• 1 small onion peeled, cut in half and thinly sliced into half rings
• 1 tablespoon mayonnaise low fat, it was dry so we used 2 tablespoons
• 2 teaspoons fennel seeds
• salt & pepper to taste

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
• Combine the honey, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, orange juice and orange zest in a small bowl and whisk together.
• Cut some slash marks into the chicken thighs and add them to the bowl with marinade to coat completely.
• Place the chicken thighs into a shallow baking dish or tray and cook for 30 minutes or until tender. After the first 15 minutes of cooking, coat the chicken thighs with the leftover marinade using a spoon.
• While the chicken thighs are baking, prep the vegetables. Combine the cabbage, carrots and onion.
• Add the mayonnaise and fennel seeds, stir to combine and taste. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper.
• When the chicken is done, serve some cole slaw onto a plate, top with one of the chicken thighs and serve.

Techniques Used In This Recipe