One-pan lemony chicken rice
An easy and tasty meal for the whole family
5 mins
25 mins
323 kcals
serves 4
ONE-PAN LEMONY CHICKEN RICE
I love anything that can be cooked using just one dish- it makes life so much easier, so I’m often experimenting with one pan wonders. This one was inspired by the fact that my girls seem to love anything which is lemony (such as this lemon and thyme chicken penne and this Lemony chicken and cannellini bean stew). It was such a hit with the girls, and when my husband smelt it he said he hoped we were having it too!
I use a sauté pan to make this meal. It’s my most used pan, it’s wide, shallow, and non-stick which makes it ideal for the initial frying, and it’s deep enough to add in the rice, place the lid on and cook the whole meal without swapping pans. My sauté pan is very old now, and was from TK Maxx, but it’s a very similar style to this one from Procook.
I have suggested 3-4 chicken breasts as they can vary greatly in size, and if you have small children, they are unlikely to eat a whole breast each. If you prefer, you can dice the chicken before frying, but I keep the breasts whole here to keep the preparation time down on this dish.
I have used fine green beans here, but any vegetable that will steam in 5 minutes or so can be used, broccoli, asparagus, peas, baby sweetcorn- just use everyone’s favourite, or a medley!
You could substitute the butter in this if you really wanted to keep it syn free on Slimming World, but I think the butter gives the chicken a perfect fried coating, and it’s only a little so I really think it’s worth the 3 syns in this!
One-pan lemony chicken rice
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 4 1x
Description
An easy and tasty meal for the whole family
Syns: 1 per portion
Ingredients
- 250 g long-grain rice
- 3–4 chicken breasts (enough to feed 4)
- 1 tsp garlic granules
- 2 tsp dried parsley
- 1/2 tbsp butter
- 600 ml chicken stock
- zest and juice of 1 lemon
- parmesan to serve (if you fancy it!)
- salt and pepper
- 200 g fine green beans (or green veg of your choice- see note) (topped and tailed)
Instructions
- Coat the chicken breasts with the garlic granules (1 tsp), 1 tsp dried parsley and season with salt and pepper
- Melt the butter in a large bottomed pan (one that has a lid), spread the butter over the bottom of the pan and place the chicken breasts in to fry. Fry on a high heat for 2 minutes each side until browned, and then set aside (it doesn’t matter that they aren’t cooked through)
- Stir the rice over the bottom of the pan, and then add in the stock, 1 tsp dried parsley, the lemon zest and the lemon juice. Stir well
- Bring to a simmer and then turn the heat down to low. Place the chicken breasts on top of the rice and cover the pan with the lid. Leave cooking gently for 15 minutes. When there is just 5 minutes of cooking time left, add the green beans onto the top of the rice/chicken, and then keep cooking with the lid on.
- Check that the chicken is cooked through, and serve
Notes
Any green veg which can be steamed can replace the green beans in this. Broccoli, asparagus, sugarsnap peas or even frozen peas.
Try some freshly grated parmesan sprinkled over the top!
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
This is one of our family favourites. I use skinless boneless chicken thighs instead of breasts though and I add a pinch of saffron to the stock So fresh and tasty. We love green beans, runner beans, broccoli or asparagus with it because they all steam in about the same amount of time