One-Pot Braised Chicken: The ultimate comfort food recipe!

This crowd pleasing dish is one to savour for easy weeknights, cooking for leftovers, dinner parties, freezer for emergencies & everything in between!

Hey Team, I hope everyone is keeping well!

I’m excited to share this one-pot braised chicken recipe with you! There’s so many things I love and it’s a dish I include as an ‘essential’ - recipes to have up your sleeve that keep on giving for all occasions whether you’re cooking for one or 10. It makes meal time easy being cooked in one-pot and braised in the oven or covered on the stove. It’s great for a dinner party, perfect for leftovers and meal prep & can be easily increased to feed a larger crowd! Plus, there are so many ways you can take the dish - see my notes below. Most of all whether you’re cooking game is infrequent or you’re a massive home-cook hero, this dish is very achievable and being slow cooked, your not having to worry about precise times or too many steps. Read on and enjoy!

What to serve with this dish? I love anything from crusty bread or focaccia and a salad through to steamed potatoes, mash or rice

What else can I do with this dish? A few options I highly recommend are -

1/ Pull the chicken off the bones and stir back into the sauce with the white beans. Cook your favourite pasta and enjoy with lashings of Parmesan and perhaps scattered with some basil

2/ Do as above, then spoon that ragu into a baking dish, cover with puff pastry, brush with a little egg wash (1 egg whisked), bake at 210C for 25-30 minutes and you have one epic pot pie! this could also be mash potato on top (still brush with egg wash) for a different take on the pie.

3/ Do as number 1 and then serve that spooned into a shallow bowl served with sides of hummus, natural yoghurt or toum (garlic dip), flatbread, tabouli - such an epic spread!!

Chicken Maryland - you can use other cuts of chicken here. Just thighs or just drumsticks, even breasts, skin on or off. I also love to braise a whole butterflied chicken like this.

Other meats or seafood - lamb shanks or shoulder is pretty epic cooked in t his sauce, cooking times will just increase to approx. 4 hours. alternatively a pressure cooked with cut down that cooking time. Seafood is also an amazing option in this sauce. Some firm white fish cut into 3-4cm pieces or as a whole large skinless fillet would be amazing or a mix of seafood like fish, prawns, and mussels would be amazing. Cooking time for seafood comes down to about 8 minutes poaching in the sauce and I would keep the sauce on.

More Veg- you can make this a vegetarian delight (leave out the anchovies)using veggies like zucchini, green beans and silverbeet simmered in the sauce or pre-roast some eggplant halves or big chunks of cauliflower, adding them into the sauce to simmer.

Cannellini beans - any pulse will work amazingly in this recipe, I just like the creaminess and colour contrast of white cannellini or butter beans.

Olives - olives make it an amazing dish but for any olive haters out there, you can leave them out or even swap them for capers.

Anchovies - I understand they aren’t everyones cup of tea but they really do add incredible flavour that isn’t harsh, it cooks out and becomes this umami kick. Feel free to leave them out.

One-pot Braised Chicken, Tomato, Olives & White beans

Serves 4

Ingredients

4 large free-range chicken marylands

1 tsp smokey paprika

1 tsp dried oregano