One-pan Italian chicken

I threw this together in a hurry last night and hoped for the best – and got it! Absolutely simple and wonderful on a busy weeknight or any day of the week. I used frozen chicken thighs because thighs are more juicy and don’t tend to dry out as much as breast meat but this is cooked in lots of sauce so either would be fine. I only had bacon rashers on hand but pancetta would work really well too. Get outdoor-bred pork as pigs like to snuffle about and feel the wind in their faces. This is lovely with mash but would be equally lovely just as a light meal with some vegetables or proper Italian style with polenta (as my clients pointed out to me “Sal’ad (that’s me) just had to drop an Italian chicken dish on top of mash!” Ha ha!)

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 90 mins

Servings: 4

Ingredients

Extra virgin olive oil
8 free range organic chicken thighs – I just used frozen without defrosting
4 rashers of outdoor-bred bacon, chopped. Or use pancetta.
One large red onion, sliced
2 red peppers, de-seeded and chunked
6-8 mushrooms, sliced
Bottle of tomato passata – 700g or thereabouts. I actually used 1L because I already had half a bottle leftover in fridge, as long as there’s enough and not too little it doesn’t matter.
2 heaped tablespoons of tomato purée
500ml hot water
1-2 teaspoons of garlic paste or 2-3 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
Sea salt
Heaped tablespoon of dried mixed herbs
Cracked black pepper
3 dessert spoons of creme fraiche – optional
Oh shoot! I just remembered, I also added a jar of Sacla tomato and olive Intenso pasta sauce!

Instructions

Add the chicken to an oven dish then cover with the bacon or pancetta, and the vegetables.

Pour over the passata and jar of pasta sauce then shake the tomato purée and garlic purée into the hot water and add sea salt, about a teaspoon or two but do it to your taste, then pour that on too.

Sprinkle with a bit more salt, the pepper and dried herbs and drizzle with olive oil.

Cover with foil and bake at 180 (160 fan) degrees for about 90 mins. You can cook it a bit longer and slower if you like. Now roughly stir in the creme fraich and put it back in the oven for five mins.

Eat it up and feel lovely!

Nutrition Info

Chicken

Chicken is one of the best sources of vitamin B3, otherwise known as niacin. Niacin is vitally important for energy production, changing protein, fat and carbohydrate into usable energy. In particular niacin helps convert starches, stored in the liver and muscles, into energy. It also plays an antioxidant role, helping to stop damaging free radicals from doing their nasty cell-destroying deeds.

Find your new natural

Make every day this delicious with a weekly nutrition plan from Nuush.

In Italy they add work and life onto good food and wine.

Robin Leach

Portion Guidelines

Instead of living with the bore of weighing food, counting points or calories and tapping everything you eat into a phone you can use nature’s custom-designed tool – your hands!

Find out more