Caramelized Shallot & Sweet Date Chicken
with Mashed Potatoes, Brussels Sprouts & Green Beans
- Milk
Make the holidays feel extra special this year with this festive meal—no added shopping trip required. Dates—a sweet, jammy fruit often used in Middle Eastern and North African cuisine—joins forces with caramelized shallot to make the ultimate sweet and savory pan sauce that you’ll drizzle over thyme-seasoned chicken cutlets. Mashed potatoes are a perfect creamy base, while Brussels sprouts and green beans round out each plate with a generous dose of veggies.
Ingredients
3 tablespoon
Sour Cream
(Contains: Milk)
1.5 ounce
Dates
8 ounce
Green Beans
8 ounce
Brussels Sprouts
1 unit
Chicken Stock Concentrate
5 teaspoon
White Wine Vinegar
½ teaspoon
Dried Thyme
1 ounce
Roasted Onion & Garlic Spread
12 ounce
Chicken Cutlets
2 unit
Scallions
2 teaspoon
Dijon Mustard
5 unit
Potatoes
1 unit
Shallot
Not included in your delivery
teaspoon (tsp)
Salt
4 teaspoon (tsp)
Cooking Oil
2 tablespoon (tbsp)
Butter
(Contains: Milk)
teaspoon (tsp)
Black Pepper
Nutrition Values
Utensils
Cooking Steps
-
Adjust rack to top position (top and middle positions for 4 servings) and preheat oven to 425 degrees. Wash and dry produce.
-
Dice potatoes into ½-inch pieces. Trim and halve Brussels sprouts. Trim green beans if necessary. Halve, peel, and thinly slice shallot lengthwise. Trim and thinly slice scallions, separating whites from greens. Remove any pits from dates if necessary; halve lengthwise, then cut crosswise into ¼-inch-thick pieces.
-
Place potatoes in a medium pot with enough salted water to cover by 2 inches. Bring to a boil and cook until tender, 10-12 minutes.
-
Reserve ½ cup potato cooking liquid, then drain; return potatoes to pot.
-
Add half the sour cream and 1 TBSP butter (2 TBSP for 4 servings) to pot with potatoes. Mash until smooth and creamy, adding splashes of reserved potato cooking liquid as needed. Taste and season with salt and pepper if desired.
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Keep covered off heat until ready to serve.
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While potatoes cook, toss Brussels sprouts on one side of a baking sheet with a drizzle of oil, salt, and pepper. (For 4 servings, spread out across entire sheet.) Roast on top rack for 5 minutes (you’ll add more to the sheet then).
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Once Brussels sprouts have roasted 5 minutes, carefully toss green beans on empty side of sheet with a drizzle of oil, salt, and pepper. Return to top rack and roast until browned and tender, 12-15 minutes. (For 4, leave Brussels sprouts roasting; toss green beans on a second baking sheet. Roast green beans on middle rack, swapping rack positions halfway through.)
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Meanwhile, pat chicken* dry with paper towels; season all over with half the thyme (all for 4 servings), salt, and pepper.
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Heat a drizzle of oil in a large pan over medium-high heat. Add chicken and cook until browned and cooked through, 3-5 minutes per side.
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Turn off heat; transfer chicken to a cutting board to rest. Wipe out any burned bits from pan if necessary (leave the browned bits for flavor!).
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Heat a drizzle of oil in pan used for chicken over medium heat. Add shallot and scallion whites; cook, stirring frequently, until shallot is browned and softened, 1-3 minutes.
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Add vinegar and dates; cook, stirring and scraping up any browned bits, until vinegar has completely evaporated, 30-60 seconds.
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Add ½ cup water (¾ cup for 4 servings), roasted onion and garlic spread, mustard, and stock concentrate. Cook, stirring frequently, until fully combined and sauce has thickened slightly, 1-2 minutes.
-
Turn off heat. Stir in scallion greens, remaining sour cream, and 1 TBSP butter (2 TBSP for 4) until fully combined.
-
Slice chicken crosswise.
-
Divide mashed potatoes, Brussels sprouts, green beans, and chicken between plates. Top chicken with shallot sauce and serve.
Customer reviews
Review summary
Updated on Sep 2026- Flavor: The shallot and date pan sauce was the undisputed star — rich, sweet-savory, and deeply flavorful. A few found it slightly too sweet or too heavy on vinegar; reducing the dates slightly or cutting the vinegar by half keeps it balanced 🍂.
- Ease of prep: This recipe has more steps and active cooking than most, and many found it took closer to an hour than the stated 35 minutes — plan accordingly.
- Suggestions: Roast the Brussels sprouts and green beans a few minutes longer than instructed for better tenderness. Use a date jam or purée instead of whole dates for a smoother sauce texture. Peel the potatoes before mashing for a silkier result, and reserve extra potato cooking liquid since the small quantity of potatoes can make mashing tricky.
- Leftovers: The generous sides made for a satisfying second meal the next day, with the sauce tasting just as good reheated over other proteins.
Reviews from our home cooks
The addition of green beans on top of the brussel sprouts feels a bit excessive, the recipe calls for 3 items with active cooking (mashed potatoes, chicken, and pan sauce) on top of a passive cooked vegetable that requires a fair amount of prep ahead of time (cutting the brussel sprouts). I would condense the vegetable component down to either brussel sprouts or green beans, but not both. The shallot/date pan sauce was amazing, the star of the meal.
Loved the multiple vegetables but don't sacrifice volume of vegetables and potatoes to make room for more. Diane: flavor was great, sauce was amazing, loved the vegetable variety, need more potatoes. Mom: pain in the ass to make - lots of prep, sauce was fire. Alex: loved the concept of having multiple veggies instead of protein starch veg, would love to see more of this, this recipe resembles greenchef especially with the dates, this was A LOT of prep though, the sauce was absolutely incredible, need more brussel sprouts
I am definitely making the caramelized shallots, chive and date sauce again for when we have a dinner for company. This was such a flavor bomb that The Beloved ate his entire portion of pork chop, which is not something he has done in over a year! This HelloFresh meal was supposed to feature chicken, but we used that portion for Murfee's rations this week due to poor planning on our parts, so we had to replace the meat portion. I decided that pork chops would be a nice change, especially since we had the Buttered Chicken and Homemade Naan last night and had salmon earlier this week. I am still not a fan of brussel sprouts, but I would totally make this entree for company with some grilled cabbage and apples, with roasted carrots. The flavor bomb of a sauce consists of shallots, scallions, and meat drippings grilled in olive oil until sauteed a nice brown color (but not burned!). Add pitted and chopped dates, with a dash of vinegar wine, stirring until evaporated, add roasted onion and garlic, some Dijon mustard, thyme, chicken stock concentrate, and water. Stir until dissolved and cook down until desired consistency. Stir in 1 Tblsp sour cream (or heavy cream) and butter. This makes a perfect sauce to accompany pork or chicken. DELISH!!! Definitely double the recipe because you are going to want to smother everything with it.
The proportion of non-starchy veggies & protein was amazing. LOVED the idea of the bordelaise sauce (why didn't you call it that? That's what an onion-based sauce with vinegar & brown stock is!). The unusual ingredient of the dates was lovely. The ONLY problem: the mashed potatoes were strangely bland -- actually the blandest I've eaten in a decade, barring KFC. I had to mix in a 1/4 cup of parm-reggiano.
The sauce is AMAZING. This one had more prep and steps than normal and the veggies took much longer than the recipe said, however overall it was yummy. I did love that the meal had so many sides! The chicken and potatoes were excellent and the sauce was amazing.
Flavors were delicious! One suggestion would be to use date jam or puree instead of whole dates just to give the gravy a smoother texture.
This took some time to cook but it's worth was worth it. I don't really like onions but the sauce with the onions was good. The chicken cutlets are delicious! High quality
This was so delicious! It has a lot of parts and a lot of things going on at one time. My husband jumped in and helped with the potatoes. Also would have preferred thighs, but that's just me.
One of the best meals I've had from HF (2+ years). The sauce was delicious and we LOVED 2 veggies in addition to the potatoes.
Continued excellent on Hello Fresh meals. Wonderful flavor, easy to follow/prepare! Portions are right on for myself and husband! A must try, I love mashed potatoes!!!
