Ulimate One Pot Chicken and Rice Bake

This is my favourite go too meal for when I'm either tired, broke, lazy and don't feel like making food for the next few days, or some mix of the three.

This is such a versatile meal and it has evolved quite a few times over the years I've been making it. I'll give you measurements and suggestions based on what I make but I haven't measured spices in years and I don't even know where my measuring spoons are so it'll be up to your better judgement for the most part. The good news is that if you aren't very confident, this is a very forgiving recipe.

That said, feel free to experiment and share any amazing combos or additions you find in the comments. I'd love to try them myself.

If you don't have time for my food blog levels of gas-bagging I've put in bold all the important steps, so hopefully you will be able to skim through and get the most important steps.

As far as utensils go this is a very simple meal with very little in the way of prep. You'll need a large pot that can go in your oven (the bigger the better,) a lid to fit that pot, a pair of tongs, a knife and a chopping board, and a large bowl. Some nice to haves are a garlic press but thats barely a requirement for this dish.

Fresh Ingredients:

• Chicken Thigh 1kg/2lbs
• Onion 4 medium
• Garlic 4 cloves
• Water 6 cups
• Cauliflour
• Pecans

From the Cupboard:

• Smoked Paprika
• Oregano
• Thyme
• Onion Powder
• Garlic Powder
• Chicken stock or bouillon
• Rice 4cups
• Cayenne Pepper or chilli flake

I was torn on whether or not I should include measurements in this list or not, like I said I don't really use them. Ultimately I decided to include them for the ingredients that never really fluctuate, things like the amount of chicken and rice I use are based purely on how much I can fit in my pot so that doesn't change often, same can be said for the water and chicken stock. I use 1 and a half cups of water per cup of rice so feel free to adjust to your needs. Personally, the rice itself is the best part so the more the better (and the longer the leftovers last.)

The last thing to consider is condiments and toppings. This meal is such a fantastic vehicle for flavours that it would be remiss not to mention them. In my household sour cream is mandatory, in my opinion the tangy creaminess really balances the earthy slightly spicy rice which makes a lot of sense until I douse the entire dish in Franks Red Hot, another thing that I personally can't have this meal without but your mileage may vary, not many in my household appreciate that last one.

To begin with you want to grab your chicken thighs and dump them all out into your bowl.

I'm normally one for going over every piece of chicken I buy and making a fuss over what fat I should cut off and what gross bits should be thrown but we don't have time for all that right now.

On top of that chicken dump all our dry spices:

Paprika

Oregano

Thyme

Garlic Powder

Onion Powder

Salt and Pepper

Now as I mentioned I don't exclusively measure any of my spices, I haven't for a long time. Suffice to say you can't exactly overdo the spice in this recipe as long as you use some common sense. A good rule of thumb is keep the paprika and oregano roughly equal, then add about half as much thyme, then add half that again of both garlic powder and onion powder, then add your regular amount of salt and pepper to season. If you're using chilli flakes or cayenne pepper use your better judgement. If you don't like spicy food though you can skip them without sacrificing the flavour of the dish.

The rice will do a good job of soaking up most of our spices so remember that more is more in this case.

Once your spices are in the bowl grab your favourite chicken mixing utensils and mix. My personal favourite is a gloved hand. The only important part about this is getting the chicken as evenly coated as possible. If it doesn't look like you've got enough spices to do the job add more Paprika and Oregano and keep going until it's all red and coated then put the bowl aside.

Now would be a good time to pre heat your oven to 180°C or 350°F and your pot to medium high. You'll want a nice large pot for this so you can hold everything. It'll also need to be oven safe and have a lid to bear that in mind.

While the pot is heating I get started on my veggies. By far the longest job is cutting the onions, it's also the first that we'll need to get cooking so I start with them. I'll try to explain how I do it here and I'll add a video as well just in case you're a little inexperienced with a knife but if not feel free to skip the next paragraph or so and just do a lazy dice. The onion will soften to melt in your mouth while it's in the oven anyway so feel free to use your best judgement when it comes to the size of your dice.

Onion chopping tutorial.

Chop off the top and peel the skin and the first layer of edible onion as well, it's never that juicy anyway. I then cut from the top down through the root long ways. It's important to keep the root on if you're doing it this way. It'll hold your onion together while we ready the rest of it. With your non-dominant hand you want to pretend to grip a tennis ball, then while holding that imaginary tennis ball take your fingertips and press them against the base of the onion. This way the first knuckle of each of your fingers is in front of your fingertips. This will stop that pesky blade jumping over the top of them and slicing any off.

Next we're going to lay the onion halves flat, find the root and then move up the onion 1cm or so (I think that's roughly a third of an inch but feel free to correct me on that,) that little bit is the deadzone, we don't want to cut this part. Now that we know how far down the onion we're cutting long ways. You want to cut parallel lines from the tip of the onion to the dead zone above the root, as many as you feel comfortable cutting, the closer together you get these lines the finer your dice will be.

Once that's done, turn the onion 90° and repeat the last step but this time cutting perpendicular to our last cuts starting at the top and working your way towards the root. Check your tennis ball grip as you're doing so. Once you get to your deadzone feel free to stop and throw that root away. You've just diced half an onion, congrats!

I hope that helped anyone who needed it. It's as clear as I can get it at the time of writing while still waiting for my coffee to kick in. Feel free to look this step up as there are a few hundred people far more qualified than me with far more experience and much more extensive tutorials on youtube.

Once you're about halfway through your onions check your stove. Hover your hand over it a few inches, if you can feel the heat add the oil and let it heat up too. You'll want enough to cover the bottom of the pan. Let that oil heat up for about 5 mins or so and add your chicken. If it doesn't sizzle, pull it out and wait longer, you want to hear it. Add each piece flat side down one at a time. Feel free to squish them all in there we're not that worried about getting a hard sear on the thighs at the moment, we just want to seal the outsides.

Give those 5-7 minutes to cook while you finish chopping your onions. Now that you have a bowl free you can put your onions in there. Don't worry about washing it, there's probably still spices in there that you don't want to flush down the sink and we're about to cook the onions anyway so just pop them in there to free up your chopping board.

Take a second to check your chicken and give it a flip, we'll want to leave that to go for another 5 minutes. While you're waiting those last few minutes grab your cauliflower and start pulling it apart. It can help to chop it in half if you want too but if you want to avoid chopping at all go ahead and do so. I just pull it apart into small florets.

Once your chicken is sealed on both sides and those spices look nicely browned pull them out and onto a plate. It's important to note that I said sealed, not cooked. Your chicken likely won't be finished entirely and that's okay, it will finish in the oven shortly.

Also I did notice my little friend pictured on the cauliflower afterwards and took him and his florret into the garden. It bears mentioning that you should check and wash all your fruit and veg before cooking them.

Now that you've removed your chicken from the pot it's time to fry our onions. Throw them into the same pot with all the oil and left over spices from the chicken and let them fry for a while. You're looking for the onion to go translucent and jammy looking which should only take a few minutes.

You don't need to babysit the onions but make sure they're not sticking to the bottom while you finish dividing up your cauliflower. When it comes to the size and how much cauli you use, it's entirely personal preference. I use the entire head because I like making my food go as far as possible and I like to vary the size of it a bunch. Lots of small bitsy bits with a nice handful of larger flourrets still left intact.

You can pop those right into that handy now empty bowl we were keeping the onions in.

Last thing to cut up is the garlic. If you have a garlic crusher then this job is easy, just chop off the bottom, peel, and squish right into the pop but if not the process is still simple. Just like the onion the garlic will almost melt into the rice when you bake it if you get it small. The easiest way to do that is to chop off the little hard bottom bit and with the garlic skin still on take your knife and lay it flat over the top of it. Press the base of your palm firmly on the knife to crush the garlic. Once it's been crushed you can easily remove the skin and simply cut it into rough chunks. If you crush it nice and flat it will basically fall apart as you do.

Once that's done check your onions. If they look pretty see through and a little sticky looking you’re ready to throw your garlic in. Give it a stir and let it fry for a few minutes until you start to smell that sweet, sweet, garlic and onion smell.

It's at this point I add a curious little addition that you can feel free to change or skip. I will very roughly chop up some pecans and add them in to fry for a minute. You could very easily add pine nuts or cashews instead. Any oily nut that will stand up to the heat should be fine. I just like the textural difference in the finished dish. It makes for a nice change from what is admittedly a pretty samey dish texturealy.

Whether you add the pecans or not this cue to add the cauliflower and get ready for the last step.

Now that your veggies are getting to know each other we should get our rice ready. I use a lot of rice, you don't need too but like I said in the intro the rice is the best bit. We aren't going to be doing anything fancy like rinsing, I know it's sacrilege but it works, trust me. The only rule is use something long grain, a basmati or jasmine will work wonders here.

It's super easy to get this ready too. Take a measuring cup and measure out your preferred amount. I use 4 cups but you could easily use 2, or 3, or 6, or whatever you want. Just make sure that when it cooks and puffs up it wont overflow your pot.

Pour your rice directly into your pot. It won't matter that it's dry, it can fry for a minute or two while we get the water ready. I like to measure it into that bowl we've been using first so I can make sure I clean it out completely of all the spices and onion and anything left in it.

Now for every cup of rice you've poured into your pot you will need a cup and a half of water. The math is pretty easy but for my 4 cups of rice I need 6 cups of water. Once that's in the bowl it's time to grab our chicken stock. I use bullion cubes for this but you can use your preferred form of stock. If you're using liquid just use it instead of the equivalent amount of water.

Follow the directions for your stock and add it to the water and dump it into our pot. Give everything a stir to make sure it's all mixed around and leave it to start boiling. It should only take a few minutes.

Once you see bubbles forming take your chicken thighs we left to the side and place them gently on top of the rice. All that liquid gold they've left on the plate can go in with them too. That's pure flavour.

All that's left to do is pop the lid on and slide the entire affair into your preheated oven. Give your nearest artificial voice modulated assistant a yell and ask him/her/them to set a timer for 40 minutes and go and relax. You have nothing left to do.

It's worth mentioning at this point that you should resist the urge to open the oven or check the pot. The heat in the oven will escape if you open it which isn't a huge deal but it can make it take longer to cook. What is a huge deal is the steam that will leave the pop if you open the lid. We need all that in there to help cook the rice the whole way. Just trust the process and forget about it until your timer goes off.

40 minutes have passed and your timer has sounded. It's time to open that oven and pull your pot out. Remember to use oven mitts or a tea towel or something for insulation.

Resist the urge to lift that lid once again for another 5 or so minutes just to let that steam to its thing but once it has lifted that lid (with the help of an oven mitt yet again.)

How you serve this is entirely up to you but over the years I've tested a lot and this is my favourite way. Originally I would just leave the chicken intact and cut it and eat it with the rice as a side like a normal looking meal. This worked fine but I keep prattling on about the rice being the best part, the chicken is really just a happy little addition.

When I got tired of heating up big chunks of chicken just to justify the mountain of rice I was having with it I decided to try shredding it. This worked a lot better. Having the chicken mixed in with the rice made things a lot easier and made the rice even better but the long strand of shredded chicken wasn't the greatest texture when mixed in with the rice and soft veggies.

That's when I decided to cube the chicken up just small enough to sit on a spoon easily. This is the perfect middle ground for me. I chop it up so it's small enough to get a decent bite of chicken on nearly every spoon or fork full and mix it through. I haven't gone back since.

I highly recommend giving the different options a go and deciding for yourself or even using them for different occasions. Whole chicken for business, chopped chicken for fun.

Now that it's done and your chicken is mixed in you're ready to serve. I like to toss it in a bowl with a generous helping of sour cream and hot sauce on top but my partner likes it with just the sour cream or sometimes some sweet chilli sauce. Also a small sprinkle of chopped up herbs like some parsley or cilantro if you're of that persuasion can be really refreshing. It's a pretty mild, earthy dish so anything nice and bright and punchy will pair with it really well.

Storring it is super easy and it keeps extremely well in the freezer and in the fridge for quite a few days. I'm sure technically you should eat it in about three days but I've been know to keep it for quite a bit longer. I don't do anything fancy to warm it up either, just lay a damp paper towel over your bowl and pop it in the microwave for about 3 minutes. Stopping and stirring halfway through.

I'm sure there is plenty to do with the leftovers that I haven't even tried yet so all you fried rice enthusiasts please let me know what you come up with.

I guarantee that if you put just a smidge of effort into this one you will come away satisfied, I can't stress enough what a midweek lifesaver this recipe has been for me for years now. I'm sure if you wanted to use chicken breast and brown rice and lower the oil you could make this into a fantastic work out meal prep (I can assure you I wouldn't know anything about that) or you can forget the chicken altogether and use a vegetarian friendly stock to make this a vegan friendly meal.

Please let me know what you think and what amazing additions you come up with.

Happy eating!