Heart Healthy Southern BBQ Chicken Stir-Fry

(5.0)
By Judy Capodanno
Updated 4/2/2025
Dietitian Reviewed: Jane Schwartz, RDN, CLT
Approved for These Diets:
Heart Healthy | Gluten Free

This heart healthy Southern BBQ Chicken Stir-Fry combines tangy barbecue flavor with a medley of colorful vegetables, lean chicken breast and rice for a heart-friendly diet. Quick, easy, and full of flavor, this BBQ chicken stir-fry recipe will elevate your weeknight dinners.

Try more healthy chicken recipes like this in our heart healthy chicken dishes collection!

Total Time
30 minutes
Servings
2
Calories
399
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Why You’ll Love This BBQ Chicken Stir Fry

  • Unexpected flavors: When you eat a stir fry dish, you usually expect Asian-inspired flavors to accompany it, so the Southern barbecue tang is an unexpected, but welcome surprise. It’s like enjoying two tantalizing tastes at once!
  • Customizable: The beauty of healthy chicken stir fry recipes is that there’s no end to the combinations of veggies you can include to switch up your dish. This recipe calls for snow peas, carrots, broccoli and onions, but feel free to substitute any vegetables you prefer.
  • Heart-healthy stats: One drawback to some stir fry recipes is that they contain a lot of sodium, but by using barbecue sauce instead of soy or teriyaki sauces, this low sodium BBQ chicken stir fry is good for your heart. It’s low-fat, too! 
  • Easy to make: Since this recipe uses already-cooked chicken, egg whites and rice, it takes only minutes to pull it together and cook it to perfection. It’s a great dish when you have leftover chicken or rice in the fridge.

This high protein chicken stir fry makes chicken breasts the main ingredient, so it has 33g of protein per serving. Thanks to the lean chicken and the use of just a small amount of cooking oil, it’s also a low fat chicken stir fry recipe (only 1g saturated fat). And of course, the fresh vegetables add plenty of healthy vitamins, minerals and fiber. But don’t let these healthy stats fool you – it’s still loaded with flavor, due to the tasty sauce that accents the array of vibrant vegetables, chicken, egg and rice.

Most barbecue chicken recipes are smothered in sauce, which can turn them into rather unhealthy dietary choices. Traditional BBQ sauce is often high in sugar, and if you add it generously to your meal, it can add a lot of calories. But this barbecue chicken recipe only uses a small amount of BBQ sauce and combines it with cooking wine to give you a punch of Southern flavor without weighing you down from the sugar or calories. By using a low-sodium BBQ sauce, you’ll also keep sodium levels manageable, making it a low sodium chicken dish you can enjoy on a heart healthy diet.

Photo Credit: ChatGPT
Health eCooks Cookbook on Amazon

Ingredients

Recipe yields 2 servings

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How to Make Southern BBQ Chicken Stir-Fry

  1. In a wok or large skillet, heat grapeseed oil over high heat until hot. Add, in batches, carrots, onions, and broccoli and sauté about 1 minute, stirring continuously. Add snow peas and sauté until soft. Add egg whites and chicken and continue cooking until chicken is warm, about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Mix in rice and stir-fry for 1 minute. Add cooking wine to deglaze pan, scraping up the browned bits. Add barbecue sauce and cook 3 minutes, or until sauce is warm and vegetables are tender-crisp.

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Nutrition Facts

Serving Size:
2 cups

399
Calories
9
g
Fat
66
mg
Cholesterol
225
mg
Sodium
44
g
Carbs
1
g
Sat. Fat
3
g
Fiber
33
g
Protein
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