I am sharing two similar recipes this week – both one pot recipes with rice and chicken. You know how much I love a one pot dinner and these two recipes show how you can make two fairly different dinners using similar techniques, adding an ingredient or two and changing the spices and herbs. In both cases the process is about browning the chicken first, then adding the rice and stock to cook everything together. It is a great template for you to create your own one pot dinner using your favourite flavours.
First up is this cheesy chili chicken and broccoli based on this recipe from Christy of the Girl Who Ate Everything. The original is a family friendly recipe aka not too spicy for children. But because I am just cooking for myself I can spice it up as much as I like. I add some dried chili flakes to give it a bit of extra zing.
This is such an easy dish to make and I love that I include my protein, carbs and veggies all in one pot. I often find that one pot dishes are light on the vegetables, which is probably more ok with me than it should be. I am working on adding more veggies in to my diet and this is a perfect dish to do it with. Plus cheese makes all vegetables taste better!
The thing I particularly like about cooking my meals this way is that all the flavours get into the meat and the rice. I usually love lots of sauce with my rice and while these dishes aren’t oozing sauce, the rice is beautifully flavoured.
To make this for one I used the following ingredients:
- 2 tsps of olive oil
- 1/4 of brown onion, diced
- 1/4 tsp of dried chili flakes
- 130g of boneless, skinless chicken diced into bite sized pieces
- 1/2 tsp of minced garlic (equal to half a clove)
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1/4 of cup of uncooked basmati rice (I prefer basmati as it has a lower glycaemic index than most other rice)
- 1/2 a cup of broccoli, cut into bite sized pieces
- 1 cup of chicken stock
- 1/4 cup of sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
I followed the original recipe instructions but added in the chili flakes with the onions. I cooked the onions and chili flakes for about 7 minutes, I popped the garlic in at the same time as the chicken rather than after the chicken had browned. The cooking times pretty much work for the reduced amounts with it taking about 4 minutes to brown the chicken but when you add in the broccoli I only cooked it for 5 minutes.
Preparation time is 10 minutes and cook time is about 32 minutes. The recipe has 455 calories
