Chicken Gizzard Recipe

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This delicious Chicken Gizzard made in a typical Nigerian style, features gizzards, fried and dunked in a spicy and addictive homemade sauce. This Peppered Gizzard is exploding with bold flavors of bell peppers, tomatoes, scotch bonnet and thyme!

This super easy recipe of Chicken Gizzards involves frying gizzards and cooking them in homemade gizzard sauce- A mouth-watering West African Gizzard recipe filled with savory and exotic flavors. This recipe includes bell peppers, tomatoes and onions.

Serve as a side dish or with white rice.

What I Love About This Recipe?

Are you in search of a show-stopping gizzard recipe? Well, you’ve come to the right place! This recipe is filled with flavor and is totally budget-friendly!

This gluten-free recipe of chicken gizzards is my family favorite. It’s high in proteins and though I have fried the gizzards, you may air fry or bake them as well for e healthier alternative. The chicken can be substituted with Turkey without any change in the basic recipe.

Gizzards are a big favorite in Nigeria and they are traditionally served in a sauce as a side during special occasions. While I didn’t grow up in Nigeria, this home-cooked Nigerian Gizzard brings wonderful memories of childhood. Food is indeed a way to home and to connect with people!

This is the Best Gizzard recipe ever!

What part of the chicken is the gizzard?

So, what is gizzard? A gizzard is a small muscular part of a bird’s stomach where food is broken down and digested as birds do not have teeth. They are cleaned out before they are sold.

Chicken Gizzard Benefits

According to SFGate, gizzards have a lot of important vitamins and other nutrients that will give your whole system a boost. This small part of a bird’s stomach is a good source of B-vitamins, zinc, niacin, and protein. It contains a good amount of healthy fats as well, which can maintain good metabolism.

Ingredients

For Chicken Gizzard

Chopped Tomatoes – I have used a can of chopped tomatoes in this recipe but feel free to use fresh tomatoes instead. Tomatoes add amazing thickness and tanginess to the gizzard sauce.
Gizzard- This is the star ingredient of this recipe. This recipe uses chicken gizzard, though turkey gizzard would also work great without any changes to the recipe. Make sure to thoroughly clean the gizzard. This step is really important and can’t be skipped.
Scotch Bonnets – add mild heat to the sauce. You may adjust it to your liking.
Red onions – works best for this gizzard recipe. You may also use white or spring onions.
Red, yellow and green bell peppers – Bell peppers add sweet and sour notes to this sauce. I love the addition of crunchy and colorful peppers.
Chicken seasoning – I use Knorr chicken seasoning in this sauce to add a chicken flavor.
Salt to taste – Add salt to taste to enhance each ingredient in this sauce.
Thyme – Adds a delicious herby flavor to this sauce. You may also use parsley or cilantro. Fresh greens work best, though if you are busy, you may add dried ones as well.
Water – Add water to adjust the consistency of the sauce- thick or thin as you may like it.
Vegetable oil- Any oil like sunflower, avocado or coconut oil works great for this recipe.

Equipment

Saucepan

Variations

Turkey Gizzard- Feel free to make a turkey gizzard. The steps would remain the same.
Gizdodo– This is a combination of gizzard and plantain (aka dodo) hence the name! If you would like to try this delicious alternative then chop plantain into cubes, fry and add them 10 minutes before the dish is ready. For a healthier option add raw plantain to the dish when you add the gizzards instead of frying.
Make it spicier– Add more scotch bonnet to make the sauce spicier! You may add powdered pepper instead too.
Add sweet spicy flavor– To make a sweet and spicy gizzard sauce, add powdered ginger, grated fresh ginger or chopped ginger to the sauce.

Storage Instructions

You may store the leftovers of Gizzard in the refrigerator in a dry container with a lid for about 3-4 days.

If making it ahead of time, you may keep the fried gizzard and sauce separately and heat them together just before serving.

What to Serve with This Fried Gizzard

This dish can be served as a side with jollof rice or fried rice. It can also be eaten with white rice.

How To Cook and Fry Chicken Gizzards

You will need 1 kg of gizzards for this recipe. Start off by washing and cleaning gizzards thoroughly.

Then, to make soft and tender gizzards you will need to part-boil them. Add gizzards to a large pot, pour in water to cover the gizzards, season with the chicken stock cube (optional), salt, thyme and stir. Cook for 25-30 minutes or until soft.

Now you may fry the gizzards. Add oil to a pan and fry gizzards on each side for 5-7 minutes or until brown.
Keep the fried gizzards aside and start with the sauce.

How to Make Chicken Gizzard Sauce

Blend It

Take a large blender and add chopped tomatoes, scotch bonnet and onions to it and blend until smooth. Set aside.

Sauce It

Add a splash of vegetable oil to cover the base of a pan. Pour in the tomato sauce and season it with salt to taste, chicken seasoning, and a pinch of thyme, stir and bring to a boil. Then leave to cook on low/medium heat for 10-15 minutes.
Finally, add the fried gizzards to the sauce. Then, add fresh onions, bell peppers and stir. Leave to cook on low heat for 3-5 minutes.
That is all there is to it! You can make the sauce before the gizzards are ready or you can make it after frying the gizzards.

Serve It

The crispy and delicious Gizzard with pepper-tomato sauce is ready! Serve it with rice.

Top Tips

Bake: For a healthier alternative you can cook gizzards in the oven instead of frying. Bake gizzards at 170C for about 10-15 minutes or until brown.
Sauce: Add water to the sauce if it gets too thick.
Water: Don’t cook gizzards with a lot of water while boiling. Just cover it with water and cook until soft. Covering the pot with a lid may reduce cooking time.

FAQs

Q1. How long should gizzards be cooked?

Gizzards take about 30 minutes to cook. You may boil them in water with salt and spices. I prefer to fry them after boiling them for more flavor.

Q2. What do you do with a chicken gizzard?

Well, chicken gizzard may be fried, boiled, or sauteed to make different varieties of the dish.

Q3. Is eating chicken gizzard healthy?

Gizzard is the healthy portion of a chicken stomach. It is rich in vitamins and protein and gives a healthy heart and a great for the gut!

More Healthy Chicken Meal Recipes

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