I’m all about easy meals during the week, and one-pan recipes are such a terrific way to make cooking and clean-up easy. I couldn’t pass up this Greek-inspired one-pan recipe with chicken, lemon, rice. And hey, it’s a weeknight. Guess I’m having One Pot Greek Chicken and Lemon Rice tonight ?
This post was originally published on September 11, 2017. The text and photos were updated on August 3, 2021. The review and rating have not been changed.
I want to say the star of this dish is the chicken. But that would be lying to you. Because this, my friends, is all about the RICE! This is a fantastic Greek Chicken recipe for busy weeknights because it’s so fast to prepare and it’s all made in one pot. Seriously!
The Ingredients
This is another recipe with simple ingredients. The first time I made it, I had most of them on hand, so I just had to buy lemons, chicken, and parsley. Speaking of lemons, I used 3 1/2 for the marinade. Two for the zest, and all for the juice. I also used another lemon for the lemon slices I cooked on top of each piece of chicken and the zest to garnish the dish.
When I decided to update the photos, I changed to boneless, skinless chicken thighs. I’m willing to trade the extra flavor for an easy-to-cut piece of chicken. Fortunately, the recipe notes have instructions just for that change, so it came out perfectly.
The Process
The marinade took only 9 minutes to make, and I marinated the chicken overnight. The directions say 20 minutes to overnight. I seriously thought about making it after 20 minutes, but I’m so glad I didn’t. The marinade is packed with lemon juice and zest, and the extra time really made the chicken tasty.
Prepping and cooking the dish the next day took an hour, and there wasn’t a whole lot of active time in that. Prep work (measuring and chopping) was a quick 4 minutes. Browning the chicken took about 7 minutes for each side, and the onion became translucent after 2 minutes. The rest of my time was inactive/cooking. The total time on this was 1 hour 9 minutes, just over the 1 hour time listed.
I used a 12-inch stainless skillet the first time I made this recipe, and it worked just fine. It didn’t come with a lid, so I used one from another pan that did. The updated version was done in a 10-inch cast-iron skillet per the recipe notes. I covered it with aluminum foil, and it worked out just as well. Actually, better because the recipe filled the entire skillet so nicely.
