One-Pan Chicken with Roasted Vegetables
One pan, ten minutes of work, thirty minutes in the oven, and only one thing to wash.
- Preparation
- 10 min
- Cook/bake time
- 35 min
- Total
- 45 min
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Calories
One pan, ten minutes of work, thirty minutes in the oven, and only one thing to wash. The thighs release their fat onto the vegetables, which roast in it instead of steaming. That is the whole point of the method: two things that make each other better do not need two pans.
Why this works
On a baking sheet, two things compete for the same space: water that needs to evaporate from the vegetables, and heat that is supposed to brown them. If the pieces are close together, the steam saturates the air between them and the surface temperature never rises above 100 degrees. Then they steam instead of roasting, and that is exactly the reason for pale, soft oven vegetables. Therefore, every piece needs space and the baking sheet might need a second round. The chicken provides the second ingredient for this: thigh meat with skin releases fat during roasting, which runs down onto the vegetables. Fat conducts heat significantly better than air and thus brings the potatoes over the roasting threshold faster than oil alone.
Step-by-step instructions
- 1
Season the chicken
Preheat the oven to 200 °C convection. Pat the thighs dry and rub them with a tablespoon of oil, paprika, oregano, salt, and pepper. Dry is the keyword here: moist skin will become leathery instead of crispy in the oven.
- 2
Arrange the vegetables on the pan
Toss the potatoes, bell peppers, and onion with the remaining oil and salt, and spread them on a large baking sheet without the pieces overlapping. If it gets crowded, use a second baking sheet. Space is more important in this dish than any ingredient.
- 3
Put everything together in the oven
Place the thighs skin-side up on the vegetables, and scatter the unpeeled garlic cloves and lemon slices in between. Bake for thirty-five minutes. The garlic will become soft and sweet in its skin and can be squeezed out at the end.
- 4
Check and serve
The skin must be deep brown and crispy, and the meat at the bone should reach 80 to 82 °C. Thigh meat can and should go over 74 degrees because only then does its connective tissue turn into gelatin. Squeeze the soft garlic cloves over the vegetables and serve everything straight from the pan.
