A simple and delicious One Pot Chicken and Rice made with a few herbs and spices and a pop of lemon! This dish is prepped and cooked all in one pan in about 30 minutes making it a great midweek, last minute dinner. | Gluten Free + Dairy Free + Low FODMAP option
How to Make this One Pot Chicken and Rice
Altogether this dish is super easy to make. All you need is one large skillet and about 30 minutes of your time and some fairly common ingredients and you’ll be on your way.
Prep the Chicken
Start out by prepping the chicken. Simply place the breasts between two pieces of plastic cling wrap or aluminium foil and pound them down to an even thickness. If you own a meat mallet then go ahead and pull that out. I personally just use my rolling pin to bash the meat down and I find it works just as well. Pounding the chicken will allow it to cook more evenly and make for more tender chicken in the end.
Once flattened, rub two tablespoons of the spice blend over the chicken breast. Moving on, heat your oil in a large skillet and begin cooking your chicken pieces. Cook the chicken on each side for a few minutes to brown. No need to worry about cooking the chicken all the way through because you will add them back to the pan later to finish cooking with the rice. Until then – remove from the pan and set aside on a plate while you make the sauce.
The Rice
After you remove the chicken, lower the heat and add some more oil to the skillet along with the rice and remaining spice blend. Fry the rice for a minute before adding the lemon juice and stock. Give it all a good stir and then add the chicken back to the pan. Cover and let it all simmer and cook about 20 minutes until the liquid has been absorbed. Fluff up the rice and top with freshly chopped herbs and you’re done!
Questions & Tips to Keep in Mind
type of rice
- You can make this dish using brown rice in place of white rice but you will need to increase the cook time from 15 minutes to 35-40 minutes.
- white rice, jasmine, and basmati will all work here
low sodium chicken stock
- This isn’t 100% necessary but I do recommend using a low sodium stock so you can have a little more control over how salty your final dish is. If you don’t have any low sodium stock then just make sure to reduce the amount of added salt at the end.
make it low fodmap
- Use a low fodmap friendly stock (like this Roasted low FODMAP Vegetable Stock) and leave out the garlic powder.
a hot pan
- Make sure to heat up your skillet before adding the chicken so that the chicken will form a nice brown crust.
And that’s it! A 30 minute, one pan dish with minimal clean up and tons of flavour!
More One Pan Chicken Recipes:
- One Pot Low FODMAP Khichdi Chicken and Rice
- Herby One Pan Chicken with Oranges
- Coconut Lime Chicken
- Maple Mustard Chicken with Rosemary
- One Pan Lemon Chicken with Asparagus
One Pot Chicken and Rice
A simple and delicious One Pot Chicken and Rice made with a few herbs and spices and a pop of lemon! This dish is prepped and cooked all in one pan in about 30 minutes making it a great midweek, last minute dinner. | Gluten Free + Dairy Free + Low FODMAP option
Ingredients
Seasoning Blend
- 2 teaspoons paprika
- 1 teaspoon dried parsley
- 2 teaspoon dried thyme
- 3/4 teaspoon garlic powder* leave out if you need to keep this low FODMAP
- 2 tablespoons | 28 grams brown sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
Other Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons | 30 ml olive oil
- 2 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut in half length wise
- 1 cup | 200 grams white rice, uncooked
- 2 cups | 480 ml low sodium chicken stock (use a FODMAP friendly stock if necessary)
- 2 tablespoons | 30 ml lemon juice
- cilantro or parsley for topping
Instructions
- Add all of the spices to a small bowl and whisk to combine. Set aside two tablespoons of the spice blend for rubbing on the chicken and the remaining spice blend for cooking with the rice.
- Place the chicken breasts between two pieces of plastic cling wrap and pound them down to make them even in thickness. This will help the chicken cook evenly and make for more tender chicken. Once flattened, rub two tablespoons of the spice blend over all sides of the chicken
- Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a large skillet over a medium high heat on the stove. Add the chicken breasts and cook each side for 5-7 minutes or until browned on each side. Remove the chicken from a skillet and set aside on a plate. The chicken doesn't need to be fully cooked yet because you'll be returning it to the heat shortly.
- Turn the heat down to medium-low. Add another tablespoon of oil to the pan. Stir in the uncooked rice along with the chicken stock, 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and the rest of the spice blend. Cook a minute. Carefully add the chicken back into the skillet, cover with a fitted lid and simmer for 20 minutes until the liquid is almost absorbed.
- Garnish with freshly chopped herbs and serve.
Notes
- You can make this dish using brown rice in place of white rice but you will need to increase the cook time from 15 minutes to 35-40 minutes.
Deni says
Made this today for a quick dinner. I browned half a finely chopped onion and then added the 30min marinated chicken, which had been cut in two and bashed with a rolling pin. Took the chicken out, as directed, but left in the onions and added the oil, rice and stock, etc.
It was delicious and I loved it, but my husband and 7 year old, found the thyme slightly over powering. Easily fixed, I will use just a 1.5 teaspoon of thyme next time. I might add a chopped red pepper and some frozen garden peas and change the herbs to fresh. Possibly depending on time, crush fresh garlic and grate some lemon rind. I can’t stop tinkering with recipes.
It’s a lovely recipe and worked perfectly and looked just like the picture. Served with a fresh garden salad or pico de Gallo. I’m just looking forward to having the leftovers for lunch!
Sarah Nevins says
So glad to hear you guys enjoyed it 🙂 I totally hear you about tinkering with recipes – I’m very much the same! I think things are always better when you put your own spin on it!
Thank you so much for coming back to leave a review!
Stephanie says
My rice came out really mushy. Not sure what I did wrong since I usually make really good rice?
Sarah Nevins says
Hi Stephanie – it sounds like there was more liquid than you might have needed. When adding things like chicken and veggies to rice it can sometimes throw things off balance. If you were to ever make this again I’d just recommend removing the lid earlier on so that some of the extra moisture has a better chance to escape. Hope that helps!
Monica says
Should I increase the amount of chicken broth if I use brown rice?
Sarah Nevins says
Monica! Sorry – I should have included this in the notes! To answer your question, yes. I recommend adding an extra 1/4 cup stock (2 1/4 cups total) if using brown rice.
Bree G says
I loved this recipe so much I had to leave a review. What an awesome meal—comes together so quick and we always go for seconds.
I made it my own by adding shallots to the pan before the rice and a few sprigs of fresh thyme and a splash of white wine into the liquid. I’ve also tried this recipe with shrimp and had great success too!
Sarah Nevins says
I’m so happy to hear that! Love the sound of adding shallots/wine to this – sounds so good!
Jacques says
An absolutely awesome and straightforward meal. Both of my fussy eater kids had seconds!!!!
Sarah Nevins says
Thanks Jacques! So glad to hear everyone enjoyed it 🙂
Noelle Brown says
I just made this tonight for my boyfriend, but he’s got IBS so in order to make it low FODMAP I changed one thing: I used garlic oil instead of regular olive oil. It came out so well! This recipe is a keeper; it’ll be going into our rotation of regular meals. Thanks so much for posting this!
Sarah Nevins says
Yay! So glad you guys were able to enjoy it together! Thanks so much for coming back to let me know what you thought 🙂
Johhanna says
Hi! I just recently discovered your blog and I’m in love! Your recepies seem simple and have easily obtainabale ingredients, but most importantly – they’re gluten free. I tried this recepie and it turned out great. So easy!
When reading American recepies (I’m from Estonia), I often encounter one ingredient – chicken broth/stock. Where I live, its either kinda expensive, or it has an uninviting ingredient list. Its also something I can only find in certain big grocery stores, since its just not that common among homecooks. So my question is – how should I replace it? I can easily buy stock cubes (that’s what I used when I tried this recepie), but they always have so many unnecessary ingredients and extra flavourings. Any ideas?
Sarah Nevins says
Hi Johhanna! When it comes to chicken stock/broth in most recipes you can pretty much always use stock cubes. I often use them myself to make chicken stock/broth for my recipes. The only reason I don’t list cubes in the recipe is because the amount of stock cubes needed to make 1 cup of broth can vary from brand to brand.
Depending on what the recipe is (this one would work), you can also sometimes just use water instead of stock and increase the amount of salt/seasoning you use.
Hope that helps!
Tish says
Will anything change if I add in some chopped veggies?
Sarah Nevins says
That shouldn’t be a problem! Hope you enjoy it!
Katie (again) says
Hi! Just made this and it’s so so so good! I added a little turmeric because my roommate has been into turmeric lately, and served with broccoli and cauliflower 🙂 Thanks for the recipe, will definitely be a repeat for me!
I did get a little confused on Step 4 though – I assumed that the chicken stock is added after the oil/rice/spices/lemon juice cook for a minute, since it’s not mentioned anywhere in the recipe haha. And then I let it get to a boil and then covered and let it simmer 20 min. Is that how you did it?
Sarah Nevins says
Whoops! You’re right! Thanks for pointing that out to me – I’ve gone back and added it to the recipe now. Thanks for coming back to let me know what you thought – so glad you guys enjoyed it!
Robin Morrison says
This looks yummy! I have bone in thighs on hand, how much cooking time would you add if prepared with thighs?
Sarah Nevins says
Hi Robin! With bone in thighs your cook time shouldn’t be too different – maybe increase the time by about 5-10 minutes at most