Easy Chicken Traybake Dinners | Jamie Oliver

Hey guys, hope you're well. So, I'm going to show you a really nice, easy dish that's delicious. It's a tray baked chicken dish that we're going to have with tortillas and salad and a little bit of corn in there. It's going to be delicious. It's a family favorite dish, which all happens in one tray. So, what we're going to do is kind of have a welcoming party of flavor. How are we going to do it? We're going to have a little bit of olive oil in there and then about the same of red wine vinegar. And then we'll kiss it with a little bit of salt and pepper. And then we've got the flavor that I love. About a teaspoon of smoked paprika goes in. That is what's going to flavor this dish. Put the tray forward. We're going to go in with two peeled onions that I'm just going to quarter. And see these little petals like that. Just pull them off and they'll just be beautiful by the time the chicken's cooked. And then we've got the chicken. Now chicken thighs are just a brilliant cut of meat. They're so juicy and tender. So I'm going to put the chicken in here like that. And then I'm going to use my hands. Just give it a nice little massage up. Place the chicken on top of the onions. And when they cook together, it's going to be the most beautiful harmonies. And then last but not least in this tray, cherry tomatoes. Okay, I'm going to put a pack of these cherry tomatoes in. That's basically 250 g. And imagine all of this cooking, right? It goes in the oven. I'm just going to wash my hands. Okay, I'm going to put this straight in the oven. And we'll cook it for 45 minutes at 200° C.

Now, let's just talk about tortillas. A really good swap that is more delicious and definitely much more nutritious is to go from the white tortilla to the whole meal tortilla. Two or three times more fiber but also more flavor. So I'll show you how to prep the tortillas a little bit later. But first up, what I want to do is show you a technique of cooking the beautiful sweet corn. So you can do these on a barbecue lovely and you'll get that smokiness. But another way to kind of get a similar char is to go into a pan dry and just char it and turn it around. So we're going to cook this for like 10, 12 minutes on a medium high heat. You can see that charring that you get. Really nice. Just keep rotating that corn. And once it's all charred up like that, it's going to be amazing. So the chicken's had its time. The corn is getting nice and charred up. Let's talk about the crunchy bits. Salad. So you can have fun with any salad you've got, but I've got the humble gem lettuce here. You can just have kind of big chunks if you want or you can finely slice it just so it's nice and delicate and really fine. So, we've got our salad bit here. We could take this corn and the cob and just have it whole as we always do. Or you can take it whole and just half it. Be careful though, cut it in half. But what my ones love is when you take it off of the core and you just put it on the fat bit like that. Take a knife, don't put pressure on it, and just run it gently down the corn like that. And you can see how hot and steamy that is. So, look, that'll go over there. Now, next up with the tortilla, we just want to warm them through literally on one side. Actually, get yourself a nice little clean tea towel and just place it here like that. I don't want to get them crispy. I just want to reheat them. So, two at a time. Every time you put the tortillas in, just wrap them up like this. Okay. So that will keep it nice and warm and steamy, but most importantly flexible. So you can wrap it up and it will be gorgeous. So look, the last two done in your little tea towel here. And then here the tray bake.

And the thing that I love about tray bakes is that everything cooking together. The smokiness, the sweetness. I can smell it all. It's really beautiful. So what we want to do is get two forks and then basically just pull apart that chicken. Can you see how tender that is? The sweetness from the tomatoes and the onions with that spice of the smoked paprika which is such a great seasoning to have in your home. Get all the sticky bits from around the edge of the tray and you can serve this in the middle of the table. So, it's like beautiful organized chaos. Now, the only thing I love to do is just have a little bit of yogurt, a nice little pinch maybe of the smoked paprika just to kind of give it a little bit of a vibe. An optional extra as well, lemon or lime. And that's it. Easy to put together, easy to cook, and then easy to serve. And it's a real crowd-pleaser for kids or adults. It's happy days. I love just to kind of line up those sweet onions first. The gorgeous crushed tomato and chicken. Look at that. A sprinkle of the beautiful sweet corn and a little bit of that crunchy lettuce. And just that kind of nice refreshment of a little bit of yogurt, if you wish. And if you want a squeeze of lime, roll it up. What I love about that is it's fun, but the juiciness and the depth of flavor from the tray bake is phenomenal. So guys, come on, have a little cook up. You won't regret it. Enjoy.

This is my sticky miso chicken that I put together for Tesco. We're talking tender, crispy skin chicken. Beautiful fluffy rice, seasonal greens. Everyone in my family absolutely loves it. It's a really nice way to get more veggies into the kids. You can double it, you can half it, so it's really, really easy to make flexible for your family. So, let's get cooking. This has to be one of the easiest recipes to put together. We like that. We're going to cook it in one tray. So, minimal washing up. We like that also. We're going to go in with the chicken. Kilo of chicken legs. Probably the most economical cut of chicken. What do you get? You get beautiful sweet, tender meat. We're going to get crispy skin, but don't forget the mega flavor that's going to come out of the bone here, right? That's going to make the rice so so good. Very simply, into here with a little pepper. 2 tablespoons of soy sauce. And then an ingredient that you might not know. This is white miso. You can get it in Tesco, right? One tablespoon, nice and heaped, goes in. Classically, miso is used in Japanese cooking. It's fermented. You get extraordinary flavor. So, you get depth. You know, if you rub that on a roast lamb, if you do that on chicken, if you do it with beautiful veggies, it's incredible. Use it almost like a seasoning. It's brilliant. So, we're going to add to that just a little bit of vinegar, just a couple of tablespoons, and then some olive oil, a couple of tablespoons. Just mix everything together and massage that flavor. You can't fake flavor. You have to earn it. So, massage all those ingredients into a beautiful marinade. Now, ideally, you would do this the day before, right? And if you left it in the fridge overnight, all of that flavor goes deep into the chicken, but you can also do this straight away and cook straight away if you're busy. So, don't stress it. What happens with that miso is it creates this lovely thick marinade that sticks to the chicken. The smell is amazing. This might be one of the best chicken legs you've ever had. It's so good. So, lay that out flat. Now, we whack that straight into the oven for half an hour at 200° C and then I'll show you what to do next.

Half an hour. It smells incredible. Come and have a look. So, we have already tender chicken, right? First of all, look in the tray. Those little cork black bits, right? That is flavor. So, let me show you how you're going to make some of the most delicious rice ever. So, just get the chicken, take it out, and this is a one tray wonder. And the benefit of doing that is we can amplify flavor. So, what I'm going to do now is a really solid recipe for rice. We're going to use a regular builder's mug, right? And yes, believe me, this will be enough rice for four people. So, we'll go in with some fantastic basmati rice. You could be fairly generous to the top like that if you want. That goes in to the tray. And then two of these of boiling water. The ratio that's always perfect. Now, this boiling water will start to dissolve the dark sticky bits to give you all that flavor. The flavor from the bones, the flavor from the soy, the miso. It's going to be really tasty. Put it on the hob and just bring it up to that boil, just get the flavors going and you'll see this almost turn into a stock. Beautiful. So, in the one minute that that takes, let's just talk about the broccoli. Take these little florets off like that. Use the knife. I love broccoli. My kids love it. Super healthy. But then often what happens for a lot of people is that goes in the bin, right? I don't want that to happen. I'll trim off the end where it's woody, but then this lovely bit of stalk here, if you just half it and slice it, it's delicious. Don't waste that. It's really, really good. The stalk can go into the rice. Beautiful. Nestle back in the chicken. And that will sit on the rice. The rice will cook in and around it. Almost hug it. So, the great thing about this recipe is you can marinate the chicken in the tray. You can cook the chicken in the tray and serve it in the tray. Any juices that come out will take all of that. Just nestle in the broccoli. And we're going to pop this back in the oven for about 10 to 15 minutes, just until the rice is cooked. Soon as it's cooked, we're done. That chicken will be tender, the skin will be crispy. It's just a really cool, easy, easy dish. And even my fussiest kid loves it. Just a little drizzle of honey over the chicken to give it a lovely little glaze. And then a little sprinkling of sesame seeds over the top. Part healthy fats, tastes delicious, and that, my friends, is going to be gorgeous. So, back in the oven at the bottom of the oven for about 10 to 15 minutes, you'll have perfect chicken, perfect rice, and the broccoli won't be overcooked. It's going to be delicious.

So, I want to get a bit more veg into the story. So, everything in the oven is very comforting. It's crispy skin. It's tender. You know, I want to get some crunch happening. Okay. Okay. So, what I'm going to do is peel this cucumber. And then I'm going to split it lengthwise into quarters. You can remove the kind of seedy part like that. And that's really, really simple. You literally just get the knife and run it simply by that to remove that. That's basically just water. Let's just line it all up. And you can go as fine or chunky as you wish. I think quite fine works really nice. So, season it with salt. We'll have a little bit of pepper as well. And then we'll take some vinegar, any vinegar you like. This is red wine vinegar. And then just dress it like that. And this sprinkled over the finished dish, you know, with that lovely rice and the chicken will be just delicious. Cold and crunchy. We love that. So, into a bowl we go. So, the simplest cucumber pickle done. Chicken done. Let's serve up. So, look at that. The chicken is crispy. The sesame seeds have gone golden. I love the way the broccoli is just caught around the edges. And actually, if you leave this tray just for a couple of minutes as everyone comes around the table, just letting it sit allows those sticky bits around the edge just to almost kind of dissolve and go back into the rice dish. Absolutely beautiful dish. So simple and it smells amazing. Let's just serve up a portion. So, this will easily serve four people, if not more. Let's get in there. Look at that lovely chicken leg. Shiny and gorgeous. And look how lovely and fluffy and perfect that rice is. But the flavor of this rice is going to be off the chart. And that, my friends, is a great little dish. That's not even the full portion. And it feels really substantial. It smells amazing. Let's have a little try. Let's get in there. First of all, let's go rice. That flavor, chicken stock flavor, the miso, the soy. So good. So, so good. Let's have a little bit of this chicken. Fingers. Sorry. Don't care. Oh, so good. Look. Tender. Just falls off the bone. And then the broccoli is big flavor. Absolutely delicious. And then of course that little pickle is always a joy and a contrast. So guys, what are you waiting for? Go on, have a go at that sticky miso chicken. One tray, one thing to wash up, bar a few plates. Happy days.

This chicken and mushroom tray bake is all about easy assembly. After a satisfying short 10 minutes of prep, the oven does all the hard work for you. Weeknight or weekend. That's a simple dinner sorted. So, classic mushroom, beautiful. I got 400 grams. Make sure they're nice and clean. Then the chicken. I want to use a nice big fat thigh right on the bone, skin on, maximum flavor, sweet, delicious meat that falls off the bone. I'm just going to put the hob on here on like a medium heat. I just want a little bit of heat to brown up that chicken skin. Little olive oil in the pan. Take the chicken and I'll season it up with salt and pepper. I'm actually going to cover it in the oven. And that's going to give you very tender chicken in the most beautiful way, but it won't give you much browning. So, what I'll do is I'll start that browning process now by just using the tray not just for baking and roasting, but also a little frying. We can do that. So, put them skin side down in the tray. And I'm just going to lightly brown them. Chicken thighs are amazing. They're great value. Having the bone and skin on gives you more flavor. So, just fry these off for like 3 or 4 minutes until lightly golden. Have a little look at this. That's all I want. It's just a gesture of getting that skin crispy. I'll turn the gas off now, but that's sizzling away. So, let's begin putting these flavor combos together. So, I'm going to use some pretty everyday tinned items from the cupboard. Butter beans. They're big, fat, and creamy, but you could use any bean you like. And then I've got some mushroom soup. This is condensed mushroom soup. The idea is this little hack helps amp up the flavor of the things that we're putting in there. And it stops you having to make a sauce with another pan, more washing up, and for quick kind of like midweek cooking. This tray bake, I want to work hard for you. Right? I don't want you to cook harder. I want you to think smarter. That's what it's all about. Right? Another little hack. I love fresh spinach. I buy it. I grow it. But believe it or not, I also have it frozen. And frozen spinach is brilliant. It's really convenient to have. But also, it's been blanched and rung out. And that means it's perfect for cooking. So, I'll take four of these for four people for our four thighs. And for me, spinach with creamy mushroom is just an absolute joy. Right, let's put this together because it's unbelievably quick. We're going to go in with the mushrooms. Right, they're all washed. If you've got some big ones, you can just cut them in half. No trouble at all. I'm then going to go in with the beans. Drain most of that liquid. Beans go in. Now, this tin isn't just for the beans. Think of this tin as your measure. One tin of water, one tin of rice, and then your tin here of mushroom soup. That will be enough liquid to cook you four portions of the most beautiful rice every single time. It's a great little hack. I want you to have delicious meals that you can rattle out. I want these combinations and these quantities to work for you every single time. The fact that you can put this together so quickly, whack it in the oven, do what you got to do, 40, 50 minutes later. Dinner. Wow. That's what it's all about, right? So, look, last things in. We'll go in with the spinach, a little olive oil, basic seasoning of salt and pepper. Then, get yourself a lovely lemon. And I'm going to use the juice later. That's another story. But I want the zest. This zest is unbelievable flavor. Just mix everything up. I want the chicken skin on the top because we want that to get crisp later. And then you're ready to go. Grab a little bit of tin foil and just kind of crimp it up the sides. This now goes in the oven for 45 minutes at 200° C, which is 400 fah. And then I'll whip off that tin foil and give it a few minutes to get golden on top. It's going to be delicious. Right. Ah. Yes. Right. Do this carefully. But look at that. Hot and steamy. So, I'm now just going to put it back in for just a couple of minutes just to get a little bit of crispiness on the top. Okay. I've got one little thing that I think takes this to the next level and it's using mustard, right? Four big teaspoons of English mustard. Then we're going to hit it up with lemon juice. Slap it with freshness and that electric kind of citrus. Enough to make it nice and loose. Because when I get my plate of like rice, chicken, spinach, I want to sprawl that all over the place. Just amazing. So, this is the simplest little hack, right? Let's check that chicken. The skin's now dancing. I actually do this quite a lot, which is very sad watching things crackle. So, I think we're good. Let's go for it. Come on. Look at that. What a beautiful dinner. The oven's done all the hard work. Let's portion some up. Some bits around the edge have just caught, which I love. Put the chicken on top and a bit of oyster mushroom. It looks really good. And then your lemony English mustard. That is a brilliant tray bake meal right there. Let's have a little try. Oh, I love it. The chicken is delicious. It's tender. It's a humble thigh, right? But it's given so much flavor to the rice. Like that spinachy freshness with the unxious rice, the heat of the lemony mustard and the chicken. This tastes like I've been cooking for hours. But you saw it, right? What we're talking about is big flavor, but simple preparation. Get it in that tray, mix it up, cover it, cook it, eat it. So good.

This is the most beautiful tray bake. It's so quick. When I came up with this, I was time poor. My family wanted something a little bit exciting, spicy, and all of it can happen in this tray. Get it in the oven. Let the oven do the work. And then, as a little kicker, I'm going to show you a beautiful homemade quick bread. The quickest, delicious bread ever. So, so good. So, we're going to get this tray. We're going to turn this into a frying pan. The first thing we do is give it a little kiss of olive oil. Get that on a medium high heat. Now the chicken is free range. So let's get going. I've got four lovely thighs right here. My favorite cut. So season the chicken up with salt and pepper. Give that a nice little rub around. And then get that in the hot oil. Skin side down. We want to start rendering that fat because we want to get it crispy, but also that chicken fat is full of flavor. But this is for four people. If you wanted to do it for eight or 12, this is a great recipe for scaling up. Easy peasy. Great for parties and stuff like that. So, as the skin gets crispy, let's start prepping the garlic. I want eight cloves. And this is not going to be strong because the way I'm going to cook this, it's going to be creamy and mild and very fragrant. So, the reason I love this recipe is because from start to finish, the flow is just brilliant. It's got that really nice kind of simple path to getting it in the oven and creating incredible texture and flavor. Then we go on to the chilies. Two lovely green chilies. Cut it in half and use the tip of the knife just to remove those seeds. So we've removed most of the aggressive heat. Get the old skin blistering. So once it's got nice and sizzling, let's turn the chicken over. Come on. We've already got good color here. Then we're going to go in with the gel paste. Now, you can get the jail phrasi paste everywhere. For me, I think this is a really exciting paste because it's all done for you. In here, you've got a whole bunch of beautiful spices, coriander, we've got paprika, cardamom, tamarind, and I love tamarind, that lovely sweet and sour flavor. So, just move this around in the chicken fat and it will cling to the chicken. Now, it's smelling incredible, and it's going to get better. Next up, bay leaves. Of course, if you can't get bay leaves, don't stress. You could use rosemary if you wanted to. No worries at all. We're going in with eight big leaves. Go for it. And then peppers, right? Just get it, put your thumb in the little stalky part here, push it through, and then you can get rid of the seeds. And I can tear the pepper into like little quarters. And look, peppers is something that I buy every single week, like most people. And often, I don't know why, they're left to the end of the week, which is kind of nice because they're getting nice and ripe. But in a dish like this, you're just amplifying the sweetness of the peppers. And with the bay and the spice and the chicken, it's so so good. So now, let's just take a little curveball, a secret ingredient. Got some onion marmalade here. You can get it in all the supermarkets. So instead of using a fresh onion and chopping it up, we're going to go in with the onion marmalade because it's got seasoning in there, vinegar, sugar. About 2 tablespoons we put in. And often you'd have that with a cheese platter or something like that. And you know what? You don't have to just use it for those sort of things. You can use it in cooking. And then last but not least, two tablespoons of red wine vinegar. I can smell it. It's unbelievable. So, what we're creating here, guys, is not a curry with gravy. This is what you would describe as a dry curry. Not dry meat. It's going to be the opposite. Succulent meat, but dry as in sort of sticky peppers around it and garlic and all of that sort of lovely stuff. Mix it all up. So, look, that's it. Look at the colors. Come on. I guarantee you, and I promise you, epic flavor here. So, now we just whack this in the oven for about 40 minutes at 180° C, which is 350 fah. I'm putting that in my wood oven, a regular oven. Absolutely perfect. Beautiful. Now, just let the oven do the work.

So, the tray bake is looking very good. That's nearly there. And I'm thinking what to serve with it. Rice or bread? And my guys love a bread. I've got the best little trick, this little tweak to make like a naan style bread, you know, crispy, fluffy texture. And I'm going to make it and cook it in a little 26 cm pan. So, look, I'm going to take a regular mug of self-raising flour, fill it up to the top. So, two of these go in. And then I'm going to add two teaspoon of English mustard. It's got that color and it's got that very subtle heat. And then two pinches of sea salt. And then we'll take some water and a fork and we'll just make the simplest little flatbread ever. What I want to get from this bread is flavor. I want fluffiness to kind of mop up those juices in the bottom of the tray. And I want crispiness. In literally 2 minutes, you can add just enough water to make a basic dough. Look at the color from the mustard. It's the easiest flatbread recipe ever. And just bring that to a dough. And you know, it's got to be not sticky, but pliable and elastic. So, just give it a little knead. And actually, what you can do is use the bread to clean out that pan. This we're going to cook it in. And then just kind of finish moving that around until you're happy. And that's it. Lovely dough ready and raring to go. So, the beauty of this bread is you don't really have to rest it, right? All I need to do now is put a little flour on a board and I want to roll it out to be nice and thin. Grab a rolling pin or something like that and just roll it out. And your job is to make basically something the size of like a tea. And it doesn't matter if it's a bit wonky. If you make a hole, then patch it. Basically, what we want is a sheet. All right. Like that. Super simple. And look, there'll be thin bits and fatter bits. I really don't care. What we're going to do is create texture. So, I want layers. So, I need to make those layers. And the way to do that is by using fat. Now, it could be butter, could be coconut oil, right? But what we want to do is rub that oil quite generously over this lovely mustard bread. And once you've done that, then we can start rolling. So, almost like a croissant, we're creating a barrier between fat and dough. And when that cooks, it expands. So you're going to get lift and crispiness. And once you've rolled it up like that, then we'll get a little bit more oil. And then we'll roll it the other way like a snail, right? So we're doing double lamination. And when I cook this bread, even though we got the self-raising flour, which will expand anyway, as it cooks, the oil is going to go out like that and then out like that. Right? So you're going to get double layering. So just push it out with your hand and then get your rolling pin and just gently gently roll it out. So for the simplest, most humble bread actually it's got complexity in texture and I know for a fact that my MS and the kids absolutely love it. In actual fact, they always request it. So once it's about the same size as the pan, let's get this nice and hot. Let's take this bread and place it straight in there. A nice dry non-stick frying pan. And I reckon on a medium medium high heat about 3 to four minutes on each side should be about perfect. We're going to turn it out now. The top's cold. And look at that sizzling. Gnarly cooked. You can see the little waves of texture. Then into the pan. Another 3 minutes, 4 minutes. And that'll be good to go. So bread is done. Absolutely beautiful.

So give it a nice little oil and just kind of rub that in. And this is one of the few breads where you're actually told to break it, to beat it up before you even eat it. So get your two hands together. This is hot, so you know, go quick. And then look. I can smell I can smell the mustard. Wow. And then look inside there. Can you see all the little folds and all those little layers that you built up? You can now basically dismantle that and they become little edible spoons. And if I show you in the tray, come on. Look at the colors. Big flavors. Minimal effort. And then all I would do now is just kiss a few little dots of yogurt in and around here. Can you see what happens when you shake it? And it just starts to ripple. Right. Bread. Bit of lemon juice on the salad. And for me, that is just a beautiful, beautiful thing. Very little effort and massive flavor in return. Right. Time to plate up. Very excited about all of this. Let's go for a nice chunky bit of chicken there. Look at that. Let's get those lovely peppers. Look at the color. And the juices are just ridiculous. Stickiness from that amazing onion marmalade. Big flavor in very little time. Wowers. Let's have a chili. Now I've got a chili. Let's have a bit of garlic. I've got two bits of garlic. Sorry, I'm getting too excited. And then the bread. So, if I just pull off like a big wedge of this, can you see all the little twists? And that means I can kind of get in there with like this edible spoon and get all those juices. Yes, it's the most brilliant quick bread ever. And that is good to go. That is me very, very happy. Right, time for a little taste. First test is, is the chicken tender? Oh yeah. Look, that meat's succulent. Crispy skin. Little bit of pepper. Yeah, man. M. Sweet and sour spice complexity. The bay leaves and the vinegar just do like this magic thing with all the kind of rendered chicken fat. It is just scrumptious. And then when it comes to this bread, I like how you just kind of like you just unwind it and then clean the plate. M the chicken, it's a one tray dish. The oven does most of the work, but you're left with these big, bold, delicious flavors. I just love it.