Baked Chicken And Rice With Lemon One Dish Oven Recipe

Sep 22, 2022, Updated Oct 11, 2022

Why This Recipe Works

This baked chicken and rice recipe is so good because flavours are built in layers.

The chicken thighs are crisped up to a beautiful golden brown first. This adds amazing depth to the final dish. The onions and garlic are cooked down with the mushrooms to concentrate their flavours.As the rice is simmering away in the oven, it absorbs all the delicious juices of the chicken and mushrooms.

Why You’re going to Love This Lemony One-Pot Mushroom Chicken and Rice:

This easy baked chicken and rice recipe is so cozy and hearty, it’s like a hug in dutch oven. Packed with mushrooms and bright lemon flavour, you’re going to want to make it on repeat. Not to mention only one pot to clean up. HELLO! Such a simple, hands-off, oven-baked, one-pan meal.

The Ingredients:

Chicken thighs: I love skin-on bone-in chicken thighs for this because of all the beautiful, rich flavour it gives the recipe. Skip chicken breasts, as they will dry out by the time the rice is cooked. You can choose to eat or discard the skin. It doesn’t stay perfectly crispy after baking (because it must be baked covered and the trapped steam softens it) but it still adds tons of browned-chicken flavour. Mushroom: use button or shitake or substitute any of your favourite varietiesLemon: for extra lemon flavour, add the lemon zest tooOnions and garlic: important flavour buildersFlavourful liquids: broth, wine and lemon juice – yum!Rice: I love to use basmati rice but you could use any long-grain rice for this recipe, or use converted brown rice (which is parboiled and cooks faster)

How to Make it:

Although the majority of the cooking time is totally hands-off, there are a few important steps to do first to build up all the yummy lemony, rich flavours.

First, crisp up the chicken thighs in the dutch oven to give them golden brown colour and render the fat. Then, saute the aromatics to release their flavour. Cook the mushrooms to concentrate that umami and release some moisture.Deglaze all those delicious brown bits with a bit of flavour-boosting white wine, then add the rice and bake it all. The key is to keep it covered, then treat it to a quick last-minute broil to re-crisp up the skin a bit before serving.