One-Pan Roast Lemon Chicken

I just love these one-pan dinners, so quick to prepare, you can even serve it on it’s baking tray. Just add a crisp green salad and dinner is done.

There’s lots of flexibility with ingredients too. Use chicken breast fillets, wrapped in bacon or prosciutto, or add some asparagus spears to the last 10 minutes of cooking time. Leave out the potatoes if you are serving them as a separate dish.

Ingredients

• 1 chicken cut into serving pieces, or chicken Marylands, or chicken chops which are all on the bone
• 1 red onion, cut into wedges
• Kipfler potatoes or baby new potatoes, halved
• 4 garlic cloves, unpeeled
• 1/2 red capscium, cut into thick slices
• 2 tbs balsamic vinegar
• 4 tbs extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 cup chicken stock
• 1 bunch fresh thyme
• ½ cup black olives
• 1 lemon cut into wedges, skin zested
• Juice of 1 extra lemon
• 1 punnet cherry truss tomatoes
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Chopped parsley to garnish

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180C
2. Quickly pan-fry the chicken pieces, skin side only, over medium-high heat in a non-stick pan for 3-5 minutes.
3. You can eliminate this step, but it does slightly shorten the total cooking time.
4. Toss the onion, garlic, potatoes, capsicum and half the bunch of thyme with the balsamic vinegar and olive oil.
5. Place chicken in a large roasting pan. Arrange potato, onion, capsicum, lemon wedges and garlic around chicken.
6. Pour over stock and lemon juice. Season well with salt and pepper.
7. Roast for 25 minutes.
8. Reduce the oven temperature to 160C
9. Add the cherry tomatoes and olives and roast for another 20 minutes. Check to ensure the thighs are cooked well.
10. Remove from the oven, add the remaining thyme leaves. Cover loosely with foil and allow to rest for 10 minutes.
11. Transfer to a serving platter, sprinkle with parsley, a good slosh of olive oil, and reserved grated lemon rind before serving.

Notes

If you are using chicken breast fillets, reduce the total cooking time to 35 minutes and still rest for 10 minutes before serving.