One Pan Garlic Herb Chicken and Winter Vegetables

Thank you Foster Farms® for sponsoring this post. Click to learn more about Foster Farms® Simply Raised Chicken with No Antibiotics Ever. As always, all opinions are my own.

One Pan Garlic Herb Chicken and Winter Vegetables. This simple but impressive family dinner is easy to prepare, quick to clean up, and a great way to start off your year with a healthier take on cold weather comfort foods.

A new year means a fresh start and there is no better place to make that start than in the kitchen. Eating healthier in the new year doesn’t have to mean all smoothies and salads. Yes, those are great ways to increase your intake of fruits and vegetables, but cold weather makes me crave the warm comforts of a hot meal, like this one pan garlic herb chicken and winter vegetables.

The chicken is coated with a thick rub of spicy garlic, herbal parsley and thyme, and zesty lemon. The winter vegetables – I used turnip, sweet potato, beet, and parsnip – are tossed with olive oil and honey, to create a sweet and spicy balance.

It all gets loaded into a single pan and roasted in a hot oven to give you the comfort of roasted chicken and winter vegetables in a simple, but impressive, one pan meal. Warm, comforting, and a delicious way to give your new year a fresh start.

One pan garlic herb chicken and winter vegetables is, obviously, cooked in a single pan. I prefer to use my 13.25″ cast iron skillet. It’s large enough to hold the entire meal for 4 people, and it makes a pretty presentation when going from oven to table.

If you don’t have a cast iron skillet large enough to hold it all, my next go to would be a 9×13 pan. It still has plenty of room to hold it all, without letting the vegetables spread out too far in the pan.

Lastly, I would use a rimmed baking sheet. It will give you lots of space, but maybe too much. You can always use some folded foil to create a false edge and keep everything together if the ingredients don’t fill out the pan.

For this recipe, and many others, I used Foster Farms® Simply Raised Chicken with No Antibiotics Ever. Foster Farms® raises their chickens here in the pacific northwest and California, making it my favorite choice for local poultry. Their chicken is vegetarian fed and never given antibiotics.

I can find it in the prepackaged poultry section at my local Safeway, which makes it super convenient to pick up anytime. For this recipe I used the boneless, skinless, breast fillets.

My Safeway also carries Foster Farms® thin-sliced boneless, skinless breast fillets (among other selections). While they are great for a quick, weeknight meal, they don’t work as well in this recipe. The thin ones will cook far too quickly for this one pan meal, leaving you with undercooked vegetables, burned chicken, or both.

The rub for this recipe will seem like a lot, but I encourage you to use it all. I chop everything by hand, but you could also put the rub ingredients into a food processor or mini chopper and blend it up that way as well. It kind of resembles a chimichurri sauce, but with a lot more garlic.

Dry chicken is usually a result of overcooking, but you also don’t want to risk eating undercooked chicken either. The secret to getting a juicy result is to use a meat thermometer. Chicken breast fillets should be cooked until the thickest part reaches an internal 165 degrees. At this temperature the chicken doesn’t yet have time to dry out, leaving you with a tender, juicy result.

To make this dish seasonally appropriate, I chose a bunch of winter root vegetables. Specifically, golden beets, sweet potatoes, turnips, and parsnips. While the vegetables themselves come in many sizes, I used one of each, which was about 2 1/2 pounds total.

Since all of these vegetables are round, instead of chopping them into cubes I opted for rounds, half rounds, and quarter rounds, depending on the size of the vegetable. While they all cook as slightly different rates, I still suggest cutting them all about the same thickness. The result will give you a more interesting plate ranging from tender to soft vegetables.

You will notice that the vegetables in this dish are stacked on top of each other instead of spread into a single layer. Part of the inspiration for this dish comes from a fall vegetable casserole, with a goal of having tender vegetables and slightly crispy bits around the edges. While spreading them out is great for achieving crispy outsides and soft insides, that wasn’t the goal here. Cooking them while layered on top of each other makes them tender, while finishing the dish under the broiler crisps up the edges of some of the veggies, giving us the result we want.

See the full recipe below and don’t forget to look for Foster Farms® while you are out shopping for your next meal. I like to serve this dish with a slice of my Grandma’s Cornbread. They both cook at the same temperature, for the same time, which makes it easy to get it all done at once.

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One Pan Garlic Herb Chicken and Winter Vegetables Recipe

A simple but impressive family dinner offering a healthier take on cold weather comfort foods. Loaded with seasonal vegetables and garlic herb crusted chicken. A palate pleaser!

If you like this recipe please give it a five star rating!

One Pan Garlic Herb Chicken and Winter Vegetables

Yield: 4 servings

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 35 minutes

Total Time: 55 minutes

One Pan Garlic Herb Chicken and Winter Vegetables. This simple but impressive family dinner is easy to prepare, quick to clean up, and a great way to start off your year with a healthier take on cold weather comfort foods.

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Ingredients

Garlic Herb Chicken

• 1.5 pounds Foster Farms® boneless, skinless breast fillets
• 5 cloves garlic
• 1 TBSP fresh parsley, leaves only from 3 - 4 sprigs
• 1 TBSP fresh thyme, leaves only from 6 - 8 sprigs
• 1 medium lemon, zest only
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper

Winter Vegetables

• 1 sweet potato
• 1 parsnip
• 1 golden beet
• 1 turnip
• 2 TBSP olive oil
• 2 TBSP honey
• 1 tsp salt

Instructions

1. Heat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Coat pan or baking dish with a thin layer of olive oil.
3. Mince garlic, zest lemon, and pluck leaves from the parsley and thyme and chop. Combine garlic, lemon zest, parsley, thyme leaves, salt, and pepper in a small bowl to make a paste.
4. Rub the garlic paste liberally over the chicken breast fillets and place in the baking dish.
5. Slice vegetables into 1/4" thick rounds, half moon, or quarter moon shapes. Toss with olive oil, *honey, and salt. 
6. Layer the vegetables into the same pan surrounding the chicken. **If any sauce remains in the bottom of the bowl, pour it evenly over the vegetables. 
7. Place the pan into the center of the hot oven and roast for 25 - 30 minutes, or until the internal temperature of the chicken reaches 165 degrees. Then turn the broiler on high and broil for an additional 2 - 3 minutes to caramelize the garlic and crisp up the edges of the vegetables. 

Notes

*I heat my honey in the microwave for 10 seconds to thin it out and make it easier to coat.

**If you season your vegetables and immediately use them, there should be little to no liquid at the bottom of the bowl. The liquid will form as the vegetables sit and will add extra yummy flavor to the dish, so don't discard it.

Nutrition Information:

Yield: 4
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 368

Thanks again to Foster Farms® for sponsoring this post.