Everyone loves a one pot chicken and rice and it doesn’t get any better than this. Use the Israeli spice zaatar loaded with lemony savory flavor for the chicken and if you love it as much as me you can add more to the rice before serving.
You can also make this recipe with boneless, skinless chicken thighs and/or drumsticks.
Optional vegetable addition, save time and a pot by adding cauliflower or broccoli to the pan when you remove the cover, drizzle with more evoo and it will roast up perfectly.
One Pan Zaatar Chicken and Rice
Servings
4 Servings
Ingredients
- 1 onion diced
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil divided
- 3- pound chicken cut into eight pieces
- ¼ cup Jamie Geller Za’atar
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 1 ½ teaspoon kosher salt divided
- 1 ½ cups uncooked basmati rice
- 3 cups chicken broth hot
- Garnish: toasted almonds and parsley
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°F.
- Place onion, garlic and 2 tablespoons evoo in the bottom of a large casserole. Cook in oven for 15 minutes while preparing the rest of the ingredients.
- Meanwhile prepare chicken. Remove skin from the thighs. In a ziplock bag or bowl toss chicken with 2 tablespoons evoo, zaatar, ½ teaspoon salt and lemon juice. Mix until well coated.
- Remove casserole from oven. Add rice and remaining 1 teaspoon salt and mix.
- Arrange chicken over rice then pour boiling hot broth around the chicken. Cover with foil and place in preheated oven for 50 minutes to an hour until chicken is mostly cooked through and broth is absorbed by rice. Remove foil, (this is when you can add vegetables) drizzle more evoo if desired and roast for another 20 minutes until chicken is browned and rice is tender.
- Serve as is or remove chicken to a plate and fluff up rice with a fork while mixing in toasted almonds and more zaatar to taste. Serve chicken with rice.
I’m not sure those two things would work great because the brown rice takes longer to cook and the chicken cutlets take less time to cook and can dry out so you’d have to be careful. Maybe cook the rice for 25 minute then add the chicken.
Can I use brown rice and boneless, skinless cutlets?
If you used boiling water I can’t see why that would happen. I have made this many times and the rice is always perfectly cooked. Was the water absorbed by the rice but it was still crunchy? If so then you might have needed more water. If not then maybe the oven wasn’t hot enough. Did you cover the dish tightly? I can’t say why it happened but if it does happen again I would remove the chicken and add more hot water if needed and place back in the oven covered until it cooks through.
I made this recipe but the rice didn’t seem to cook at all. Any ideas of what I might have done wrong or how to make it better?
Thanks so much, it really feels so good to get a comment like this.
This is one of the best recipes that I have ever made from Jamie’s recipes. It is ultra fab and I don’t say this as a rule. I am very particular about what I like/eat. I am considered a gourmet cook by my friends and they are all going to try this recipe thanks to my lauding it. Yasher Koach Jamie!!!
Yes. For sure.
Could I prepare this the night before (up to the point of adding the broth) and then cook it the next day?
The crunchy bits are my favorite too!!!
Quite delicious! Reheats well for shabbat lunch. If you bake it in a ceramic casserole you get plenty of crunchy bits at the bottom.. yum!
I would use 6-8 boneless chicken thighs, less if they are small.
This looks great but how
much chicken should be subbed if going to boneless skinless thighs?