One-Pan Chicken with Lemony Green Beans and Potatoes
EASY, EASY, EASY--you will love this one-pan chicken dish for so many reasons, but primarily because it's (yes, I'm going to say it again) EASY! As in, you can put it together in about 15 minutes at any point in the day (like before work), cover and refrigerate it, toss it into the oven about an hour before you're ready to eat and about sixty minutes later, you'll be sitting down to a complete meal. You don't even have to make a side. Did I mention that it's EASY?!!
My schedule fluctuates, but I generally work from home. After breakfast and getting my daughter to school, I come home and do about an hour of blog or food prep work (and a little laundry or house cleaning if we're lucky) before I start working with my writing partner, attacking one of the musicals we're forever writing and re-writing!! We generally break by about lunch, at which point I hightail it upstairs to the treadmill to get my hour of workout in. Then it's a quickie shower and dressing and I'm off to get my daughter from school. That's when the second part of my day begins--picking up my nieces, quickly throwing dinner together so that we can eat by 4:30 or so and traveling to hockey on the hockey days. Thrilling, no?!! But my point in relating all of my mundane daily activities is not to bore you but to show you that even when you work from home it's hard to get a nice dinner on the table most nights and I don't know how moms (and dads) and really anyone who works full time does it without falling apart. So we all need one-pan easy-to-make-ahead dishes like this that will help keep your family around the table!
You start by coating a baking dish with olive oil and arranging lemon slices on top of it.
Next you toss green beans in a simple mixture of oil, lemon juice, garlic, salt and pepper. To make things even easier, you can buy pre-trimmed green beans--saves at least 5 minutes of trimming the beans, which can make all the difference when you're trying to catch a train or get someone to school for early morning hockey practice!
Then you arrange the green beans on top of the lemon slices in the pan--
Eventually arranging some cut up marinated potatoes along the edges--
And finally placing the chicken into the marinade, coating it with the lemony/garlic mixture and arrange the pieces on top of the beans and potatoes.
If you wanted to, you could cook this right then and there OR (and here's the real beauty part) you can cover it, slide it into the refrigerator and let it marinate all day until you're home again and ready for dinner.
And forgive me for only talking about the ease of all of this--it's actually truly delicious and fairly healthy for you too. The chicken stays nice and moist, the beans get tender but still have a little snap to them and the potatoes get crispy on the outside but soft and fluffy on the inside. So, (dare I utter it again?) it's EASY to eat too! Gotta go--busy, busy day!
One-Pan Chicken with Lemony Green Beans and Potatoes
Makes 4 servings
Prep Time: 15 minutes; Cook Time: 1 hour
Ingredients
6 tablespoons olive oil
2 lemons, 1 thinly sliced, 1 juiced
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
3/4 pound green beans, trimmed
8 small potatoes, cut in half (or quarters if large)
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 3-3 1/2 pounds)
The Recipe
1. If you're making this ahead, don't turn the oven on now. Otherwise turn the oven on now to 450ºF. Coat a large baking dish with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil and arrange the lemon slices in a single layer on the bottom of the dish.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the rest of the oil, the lemon juice, garlic, salt and pepper. Add the beans and toss well to coat. Use a slotted spoon or tongs to drain the beans and arrange them on top of the lemon slices in the dish. Add the potatoes to the bowl with the lemon juice/ garlic mixture and toss to coat them well. Use a slotted spoon or tongs to drain the potatoes and place them in the baking dish around the edges on top of the beans. Place the chicken in the same bowl and coat with the mixture well. Then arrange it on top of the beans and pour any leftover mixture on the top of the chicken. You can now cook this or cover and refrigerate for up to 1 day before cooking.
3. Roast for 40-50 minutes, depending on how thick your chicken breasts are. When chicken is fully cooked, remove the pan from the oven and transfer the chicken to a plate. Tent with foil to keep warm. Return the pan with the beans and potatoes to the oven to cook for another 10 minutes, until potatoes look golden brown and crispy. Divide the chicken and veggies between the plates and serve immediately.
4. Leftovers can be kept for 2-3 days in an airtight container in the refrigerator and reheated in a low oven.
Enjoy!
Note: Recipe adapted from Real Simple. Also, if you’re looking for a way to make this a little healthier and use an air-fryer, check out this link: https://airfryers.com/recipes/air-fryer-parmesan-green-beans?msID=d39d012d-3e25-4021-b138-4b5aa0ac9940
