Some nights you want supper to happen in one pan and stay that way straight through the washing up. This is that supper. Chicken thighs go in skin-side down and sear until the skin crackles, and then the rice cooks right in the fat they left behind.
That last part is the whole trick. Plain rice cooked beside a good piece of chicken always tastes like plain rice cooked beside a good piece of chicken. Rice that has been toasted in the browned drippings tastes like it belongs to the same pan, because it does.
Anything With Wings does double duty here. A tablespoon and a half seasons the chicken before it ever touches the oil, and another two teaspoons go into the rice while it toasts, so there is no seam between the two halves of the dish.
The onions and garlic came out of the fall harvest, the scallions are still going outside, and the peas are honestly frozen — which in October is the better pea anyway. Forty minutes of cooking, one skillet on the table, and nobody has to plate a thing.
Skillet Chicken and Rice with Anything With Wings
One-skillet chicken and rice: bone-in thighs seared until the skin crackles, then long-grain rice cooked right in the drippings with organic Anything With Wings.
Ingredients
For the chicken
- 6 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (about 2 1/2 lbs)
- 1 1/2 Tbsp Anything With Wings organic seasoning
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
For the rice
- 1 small yellow onion, finely diced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 1/2 cups long-grain white rice, rinsed until the water runs clear
- 2 tsp Anything With Wings organic seasoning
- 2 3/4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
To finish
- 1 cup frozen peas
- 2 scallions, thinly sliced
- Juice of half a lemon
- A handful of flat-leaf parsley, chopped (optional)
- Flaky sea salt, to taste at the table
Instructions
- Pat the thighs completely dry with paper towels. Wet skin steams and stays flabby; dry skin browns. Sprinkle the 1 1/2 tablespoons of Anything With Wings over both sides and press it in, then leave them on the counter for 10 minutes while you get everything else ready.
- Rinse the rice in a sieve under cold water for 30 to 60 seconds, until the water running off it is clear rather than milky, and let it drain. That cloudy water is loose surface starch, and it is the whole reason skillet rice turns gluey.
- Heat the olive oil in a 12-inch skillet over medium-high. Lay the thighs in skin-side down and leave them completely alone for 6 to 7 minutes, until the skin is deep golden and lifts off the pan without being forced. If it sticks, it is not ready. Flip, cook 2 minutes more, and move them to a plate. They will not be cooked through, and that is fine.
- Pour off all but about 2 tablespoons of the fat. Add the onion and cook 3 to 4 minutes until soft and translucent, scraping the browned bits off the bottom of the pan as it goes. Add the garlic and stir for 30 seconds.
- Add the drained rice and the 2 teaspoons of Anything With Wings. Stir for about a minute, until every grain is coated in the seasoned fat and the pan smells toasty rather than raw.
- Pour in the broth, scrape the bottom once more, and stir just enough to level the rice. Bring it up to a simmer.
- Nestle the thighs back in skin-side up, sitting on top of the rice rather than pushed down into the liquid. Keeping the skin above the waterline is the difference between crisp and soggy: the chicken steams from below and roasts from above at the same time.
- Turn the heat to low, cover, and cook for 20 minutes without lifting the lid. Every peek lets the steam out and the rice cooks unevenly.
- Uncover, scatter the frozen peas over the top, put the lid back on and take the pan off the heat for 5 minutes. The peas warm through and the rice finishes absorbing. The thighs should read 175°F at the thickest part.
- Squeeze the lemon over everything, scatter the scallions and the parsley, and bring the skillet to the table. Salt at the table rather than in the pan, because the seasoning already starts with sea salt.
Two mechanics do all the work here
Rinse the rice, and keep the skin out of the water. Those are the only two things in this recipe you cannot skip. Unrinsed rice releases its surface starch into the broth and you get a pan of gluey risotto instead of separate grains. And if you push the thighs down into the liquid to be tidy, you have just boiled the skin you spent seven minutes browning. Set them on top, skin proud of the surface, and leave them.
The seasoning works twice, and that is the point
Most one-pan chicken and rice recipes season the chicken and then cook plain rice underneath it, and you can taste the seam. Here the blend goes on the chicken first, then another two teaspoons go into the rice while it toasts in the chicken fat, so the pan tastes like one dish rather than two. Two tablespoons and half a teaspoon in total, divided. Put it all on the chicken and the rice underneath is bland; put it all in the rice and the skin has nothing on it.
What is actually in season right now
Yellow onions and garlic came out of the fall harvest across the Carolinas and will keep in a dark cupboard all winter, so they are at their cheapest and best right now. Scallions and flat-leaf parsley are still going outside. The peas are frozen and we are not going to pretend otherwise — garden peas are a spring crop here, and frozen ones added at the very end are genuinely better than tired fresh ones in October. If you would rather have something that is in the ground this week, stir two big handfuls of chopped collards into the rice when the broth goes in: they sweeten after the first cool nights and they will be tender by the time the twenty minutes are up. Fall broccoli, cut small, works the same way. A cup of diced North Carolina sweet potato scattered over the rice before the lid goes on is the other good October answer, with the harvest at its peak this month. The rice, the broth and the lemon are pantry items and we will not dress them up as local either — though if you can find Carolina Gold, grown down in the Lowcountry, it is a long-grain rice and it behaves exactly the same way in this pan.
Which chicken to buy, and why not breasts
Bone-in, skin-on thighs. The bone slows the cooking so the meat is still juicy after twenty minutes under a lid, the skin is what you are browning, and thigh meat is forgiving in a way breast meat simply is not. Boneless, skinless breasts in this pan will be dry and stringy before the rice is done, and there is no skin to crisp, which removes half the reason to make it. If breasts are what you have, sear them, pull them out, cook the rice the full twenty minutes on its own, then lay the breasts on top for the five-minute rest only.
Feeding a crowd
This doubles, but not in one pan — two skillets, or one big roasting pan covered tightly with foil in a 350°F oven for about 35 minutes. Do not try to fit twelve thighs in a twelve-inch skillet; crowded chicken steams instead of browning and the rice underneath cooks unevenly. Sear in batches no matter which way you go. It is a good supper to hand round, because it comes to the table in the pan it was cooked in and nobody has to plate anything.
Ahead of time, and the day after
Leftovers keep three days and reheat better than you would expect: put them in a skillet with a few tablespoons of water or broth, cover, and warm over low heat so the rice steams back to life rather than frying. The skin will not be crisp the second day, so if that matters, pull the thighs out and give them five minutes under the broiler while the rice warms. Cold, chopped and folded into eggs the next morning is also very good.
Make it yours
A pinch of crushed red pepper with the garlic, if your table likes heat — the blend has a little cayenne in it but it is gentle. Saffron or a quarter teaspoon of turmeric bloomed in the fat turns the rice golden if you want the colour. Browned chicken sausage sliced in with the onion makes it heartier. And a squeeze more lemon at the table does more for a plate of rice than any amount of extra seasoning does.
One seasoning doing all of it
Anything With Wings is our USDA Certified Organic poultry blend — ten ingredients, starting with sea salt, then organic garlic, coriander, onion, black pepper, cumin, basil, cayenne, oregano and ginger. Garlic and onion lead, with basil, coriander and oregano behind them and just enough cayenne to warm the finish. No MSG, no fillers, no anti-caking agents, small batch, made by our family. The seasoning itself is gluten free and kosher; rice is naturally gluten free, but check your own chicken broth if that matters at your table. We make it in the 5 oz resealable pouch, which stores flat in the cupboard and is easy to pinch from one-handed while the pan is going.
More to put beside it
If this pan is your sort of thing, Skillet Chicken Pot Pie and Chicken and Dumplings are the same blend doing comfort food in one pot, and Harvest Sheet Pan Chicken with Sweet Potatoes and Apples is the sheet-pan version of a weeknight. For the skin specifically, Cast Iron Chicken Thighs and Crispy Baked Chicken Wings are both worth a look, and when the holidays come round the same blend goes on the Thanksgiving turkey.