Nduja Chicken and Naan Bread

You can make this quick and simple meal in literally minutes. Nduja Chicken and Naan Bread will fill you up and is a good way to use up leftovers.

This is a recipe for creating a spicy nduja coated chicken and a serving suggestion of plain naan bread. There are lots of variations available if you don't have everything to hand.

Firstly, if you are looking for a quick naan bread recipe then use this one to get you started. The naan is a staple part of this dish but I don't cover it in this post. The recipe is on the breads section of the site.

I like to have a choice for a quick lunch or dinner and this dish is so easy to put together. You can use different meats for this, but we had some leftover cold chicken from a roast dinner so I've used that in this recipe.

This is inspired by my chicken pesto pasta dish where I can make an alternative lunch option that isn't a boring sandwich. This dish uses up cold chicken and I've added a bread instead of the pasta. However this will work just as well as a pasta dish.

The simplicity of this is in the 3 ingredient tomato sauce recipe.

Ingredients for nduja chicken and naan

It's a simple list of ingredients here for nduja chicken and naan bread. This post will focus on the chicken and sauce as the naan recipe is available in another area of the site.

• Chicken - Any cold chicken or turkey will do. A good way to use leftovers. You can of course cook chicken from raw to put in this dish. If you are doing so, ensure it is fully cooked before moving on to adding the sauce.
• Tomato Puree - Any tomato puree in a tube will suffice. 2
• Nduja paste - This has become a staple ingredient in my fridge now. A good nduja paste can go in plenty of meals including pasta dishes and even on a pizza.
• Water - Tepid (luke warm from the kettle) works best to dissolve the tomato and nduja paste.

You could even try making this recipe with some duck. If you have any left over rotisserie from my duck recipe then that will work well in place of the chicken.

See recipe card for all the quantities of ingredient.

Instructions to make the nduja coating

The dish takes next to no time to put together. I'll assume that you have cooked the naan bread already and that is on one side ready to eat. If not, make that first as that can sit happily while you make up the rest.

Keep the naan bread warm by wrapping loosely in a tin foil pouch. You can spray with a garlic infused oil for a garlic naan flavour.

Combine the tomato puree, nduja paste and water into a small bowl. Mix together.

Fry the chicken in a little oil to heat it through. The chicken should be in small strips to heat through properly. Then add in the tomato mix and stir.

Make sure the chicken is warmed through thoroughly and mixed in.

Serve on a plate with the naan bread. Your Nduja Chicken and Naan Bread is complete.

Hint: Make sure the frying pan is warmed up properly and has a little spoonful of oil in there. Have a look at using a non stick frying pan (affiliate link) for easy cleaning.

Remember that most non stick pans should not go in the dishwasher. Also you should not use metal utensils with them either. Should you want an easy life you could try the Hexclad range of pans. I saw these at the BBC Good Food festival and was impressed with their performance.

Substitutions

The nduja chicken and naan bread recipe is really versatile and you can swap things about as you need to. As it is a leftovers dish, you can add in things like peppers, onions, mushrooms etc to bulk it out.

• Chicken - instead of chicken this dish works well with turkey, sausage, pork.
• Naan - Try serving in a pitta bread or even one of my Shaobing flatbreads.
• Vegetarian - You don't need to use chicken, this works well with Quorn mince. The the nduja paste can be swapped for a vegetarian version or even something like this chipotle paste to make this vegetarian.
• There are many variations on the types of bread you can use here too. Check out the yeast bread guide to see what other types you can make.

Variations for nduja chicken

The nduja paste is quite spicy so if you wanted a less spicy edition of the dish, try with just the 50/50 mix of tomato puree and water.

• More Spicy - add chilli pepper flakes while cooking to imbue heat into the dish, a teaspoon of cayenne pepper.
• None Spicy - Don't put in the nduja paste at all. Just use a 50 50 mix of water and tomato puree.
• Bulk it out - Add a chopped pepper and onion to the cooking process and cook for 5 minutes. This will make it more of a main meal to which you can serve it with pasta or rice.

Equipment for cooking chicken

While you only really need a frying pan to get this meal prepped, it helps to have a non stick pan. The naan bread can be cooked in the pan first with nothing else needed (apart from a hot pan). No oil or anything. If cooking the naan from a dough, just cook it long enough to start bubbling and get some colour. This should be at most 2 to 3 minutes per side on a hot pan.

For cooking naan breads, a good solid griddle pan also works well.

When cooking the chicken, you can use the same pan after cooking the naan. Use a tablespoon of oil and let that heat up first before adding the chicken in.

Storing chicken and nduja

As this is a leftovers meal, it is not recommended to store this for any length of time. While it will be possible to freeze this and then microwave once defrosted again, I recommend to approach this recipe as a one off and do not recommend storing it.

Check the chicken is steaming hot before serving. You should never serve chicken unless it has been reheated thoroughly to at least 74C. I want to make sure you enjoy your Nduja Chicken and Naan Bread safely!

FAQ

Related Chicken & Nduja recipes

Looking for other recipes like this? Try these recipes:

Pairing this dish

These are my favourite dishes to serve with Nduja Chicken: