One Pot Chicken and Rice

This One Pot Chicken and Rice recipe is a whole meal with tender, pan seared chicken thighs, sautéed veggies, and creamy rice. A simple, but flavorful meal for busy weeknights with minimal prep and easy cleanup. 

One-Pot Oven Baked Chicken and Rice

Do you like chicken and rice? Of course you do! Who doesn’t? It’s one of the most basic meals and can be combined in so many different ways and flavors – Mexican, Middle Eastern, Asian – you get the picture.

It can be baked in a casserole, cooked on the stove top, made in a dutch oven, crock pot, or instant pot. The combinations and possibilities are endless. 

One of my favorite ways to do chicken and rice is with seasoned bone-in and skin-on chicken thighs. They’re cooked in one pot with loads of veggies and rice.

The rice comes out super flavorful and creamy and the chicken is tender and juicy. And the veggies, don’t get me started on the veggies. They’re rich and fork tender. 

Recipe Ingredients

This one pot meal is full of chicken, rice, veggies, and spices. It’s filling and full of flavor.

Here’s what you’ll need for this chicken and rice recipe:

• bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
• salt and fresh ground pepper
• Italian seasoning
• sweet paprika
• garlic powder
• olive oil
• butter
• yellow onion, red bell peppers, and carrots
• garlic
• long grain white rice
• low sodium chicken broth
• chopped fresh parsley

How to Make this Chicken and Rice Recipe

1. Prep: Preheat the oven to 375˚F.
2. Season the chicken thighs with salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, paprika, and garlic powder. 
3. Brown the chicken: Add olive oil to a large oven-safe skillet and heat over medium heat.
4. Add chicken thighs to the hot oil, skin side down, and cook for 3 minutes. Flip them over and cook them for 2 more minutes. 
5. Remove chicken from skillet and set aside.
6. Saute veggies: Melt more butter in the same skillet.
7. Add the diced onion, peppers, and carrots to the melted butter. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 4 to 5 minutes, or until softened. 
8. Stir in the garlic and cook for 20 seconds.
9. Add rice: Stir in the rice and cook for about a minute, or until lightly toasted.
10. Pour in the hot water and chicken broth. Stir and scrape up all the browned bits from the bottom of the skillet. 
11. Season and return chicken: Stir in the Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper, then add the chicken thighs back to the skillet, skin side up.
12. Bring the mixture to a boil.
13. Bake: Cover with a lid and transfer to the oven. Cook for 25 minutes.
14. Remove the lid and continue to cook for 10 to 12 more minutes, or until the liquid is absorbed.
15. Serve: Remove from the oven and let it stand for a few minutes before serving.
16. Garnish with parsley and serve. 

Tips for the Best Chicken and Rice

This one pot chicken and rice dinner is pretty hard to mess up. Even if you make a small miscalculation, the flavors are still going to be so good together. If you want to make sure it’s as perfect as possible, follow these simple tips:

• You can use boneless, skinless chicken thighs for this recipe but you’ll need to adjust the cooking time. Also, it may be lacking a bit of the richness that you get from the bone-in, skin on chicken thighs.
• To pack in even more flavor, I suggest adding in mushrooms, too! Mushrooms go great with chicken and rice. 
• Add the rice before the liquid and allow it to toast in the butter for about a minute. This adds a really nice hearty and nutty flavor to the rice. 
• If you’re not sure the chicken is cooked through, use an instant read meat thermometer to make sure the chicken’s internal temperature registers at 165˚F.
• You could use this same technique with a different flavor profile by swapping out the spices. I’m thinking Mexican or Indian!

Serving Suggestions

This is a whole meal in one pot, so no need to go overboard with sides. Adding a simple green veggie, like steamed broccoli, sauteed asparagus, or roasted Brussels sprouts would be a nice touch.

One thing I love to have on the side of any chicken and rice meal is flatbread. I like to put the rice, veggies and chicken in a folded piece of flatbread and eat it up like little pockets of yum. This easy flatbread recipe is always a hit!

I also love to have a light, fresh tossed salad on the side of this meal. Anything with an Italian vinaigrette would pair really nicely with the spices in this chicken and rice dinner.  

How to Store and Reheat Leftovers

• To store your leftover chicken and rice, allow them to come to room temp and then place the leftovers in an airtight container.
• Your leftovers will stay in your refrigerator for about 3-5 days. 
• You could also place the leftovers into a freezer safe zip top bag and keep them in your freezer for about 3 months. I love to use this as a make ahead freezer meal because it has so much flavor and it’s a complete meal in one.