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Hello all Kat fans! ME is back for another guest post!
I just re-read the last post I authored and funnily enough, the reason behind me trying this latest recipe is once again impatience. I was immediately drawn to Kat’s Idea Post 76 with recipes from Samin Nosrat. Although I haven’t watched her Netflix series (which I intend to do when I have some free time), I thought the idea recipes sounded interesting plus there was still kale in my garden and a butternut squash on my kitchen counter. All the stars aligned for me to try out the One-Pan Chicken with Kale and Butternut Squash recipe and write a second guest post.
Where to start? Let’s get one important thing out of the way: it was absolutely fantastic, a little long on the execution but oh so worth it. A fall flavor explosion, an early taste of the wonderful Thanksgiving meal to come in a few weeks. Sage, orange, cranberry, roasted shallots and garlic, all in perfect harmony. If your mouth isn’t watering yet, I’m doing something wrong!! Plus, the fact that we have made this twice in the past two weeks should speak for itself, it is THAT good.
My comment about the long prep time might be related to the fact that I never feel like I work super fast in the kitchen. I would be a poor performer on shows like Chopped!! Anyway, the prep time is consumed by veggie prep: peel and cut the squash, clean and cut the kale (I skipped the massaging part in the recipe, not sure what that brings really) then peel/cut shallots and garlic. The next step is the base oil prep, it gets used in a couple different ways. Oil, sage (fresh from the garden, yay!), honey and S&P are whisked together until blended. Both times we made this, I had a really hard time keeping the honey from “precipitating” out of my mixture. I therefore would recommend to whisk again right before using in the following steps. Next comes the sauce: plain yogurt, minced garlic, orange zest, a little water to thin, some of that wonderful sage oil and S&P. I had to use a lot of salt in mine, I guess I felt the need to overcome the boring taste of plain yogurt.
Next come the assembly of this one-pan dinner. I lined a baking sheet with foil to make clean-up easier, tossed all the veggies plus dried cranberries with some sage oil and placed them all on the baking sheet. Add a generous amount of paprika to the leftover oil and use to coat the chicken which you then place on top of the veggies before putting the whole thing in a very hot oven (475 F) for about 30 minutes. The recipe calls for bone-in split chicken breast and I don’t know about you guys, but I find cooking chicken breasts to be so hard. When cooked perfectly, it is great but if you miss that tight internal temp window where the chicken remains juicy, you are facing a dry mess. Which happens in my house more than I care to advertise. I opted for chicken legs the first time around (separating thigh and drumstick) and then just thighs the second time. Butchering is definitely not easy, so I would recommend leaving that task to your butcher and purchasing whatever cut of chicken you prefer to eat. Both times, I left a little skin on the chicken to keep the meat juicy plus baking at such a high temp yielded delicious crispy chicken skin.
As this is a one-pan dish, feel free to sit and drink a glass of wine while it is in the oven because that’s the beauty of those meals! I did prepare some rice to go along with it but it is also very satisfying just as is if you are looking to avoid carbs. Serve the chicken with a healthy portion of the delicious yogurt sauce and you are done. I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we do, it will now enter the official Naber rotation.
Original source: Nutritious Delicious
Ingredients
- ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 tablespoons minced fresh sage
- 2 teaspoons honey
- ¾ teaspoon salt plus more to taste
- ½ teaspoon pepper plus more to taste
- ¾ cup plain low-fat yogurt
- 1 tablespoon water
- 7 cloves garlic (6 whole, 1 minced)
- 1 teaspoon grated orange zest
- 8 ounces kale stemmed and cut into 2-inch pieces
- 2 pounds butternut squash peeled, de-seeded, and cut into 1-inch pieces (6 cups total)
- 8 medium shallots peeled and halved
- ½ cup dried cranberries
- 2 teaspoons paprika
- 4 (8-10 ounce) bone-in, skin-on split chicken breasts halved crosswise and trimmed of visible fat
Instructions
- Move the top oven rack to the upper-middle position and pre-heat the oven to 475ºF. As the oven pre-heats, whisk together the olive oil, sage, honey, ¾ teaspoon salt, and ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper in a large bowl. In a small serving bowl, whisk together the plain yogurt, water, 1 minced garlic clove, orange zest, and 1 tablespoon from the olive oil mixture. Season with salt and pepper to taste, then set aside.
- Wash, pat dry, stem, then chop the kale leaves into 2-inch pieces. Add these to a large bowl, then vigorously squeeze and massage the kale until the leaves become uniformly darkened and slightly wilted. This should take about 1 minutes.
- Peel, de-seed, and chop the butternut squash into bite-sized cubes. Add the cubed squash to the bowl together with the kale, then add the shallots, cranberries, 6 whole garlic cloves, and ¼ cup of the olive oil mixture. Toss everything together to combine.
- Whisk the paprika into the remaining olive oil mixture, then prepare the chicken breasts (if not already done) and add these to the paprika-olive oil, gently tossing to coat.
- Spread the prepared, oiled vegetables out into a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet. Place the chicken, skin-side up, on top of the vegetables. Bake in the pre-heated oven until the internal temperature of the chicken reaches 160ºF, about 25-35 minutes, rotating the baking sheet 180º after the first 15 minutes.
- Transfer the chicken to a serving platter, tent with aluminum foil, and let the chicken pieces rest for 5-10 minutes. Remove the skin from the chicken and discard (if desired). Toss the roasted vegetables with any accumulated chicken juices from the pan and the rested chicken pieces, then transfer the vegetables and chicken to a serving platter. Drizzle with ¼ cup of the yogurt sauce, then serve immediately, passing the remaining yogurt sauce for people to use as desired.
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