This recipe for Mediterranean chicken is chicken thighs, olives, roasted peppers and orzo, all cooked in a single pan. An easy and healthy dinner option with minimal clean up at the end of the night!
I love one pot meals, some of my favorites include chili mac, pizza pasta and this fresh and delicious Mediterranean chicken.
I love Mediterranean food – the flavors are bold and fresh and it’s also healthy. I often cook with ingredients that are found in the Mediterranean diet – whole grains, fruit and vegetables, beans, olive oil and herbs. I took all of my favorite Mediterranean flavors and turned them into a one pot meal, because by now you all know that I’m all about cooking in one pot whenever possible. This one pot Mediterranean chicken is a real winner and the kids enjoyed it too!
How do you make Mediterranean chicken?
This recipe starts with chicken thighs, which are browned and then combined with chickpeas, orzo, olives, roasted peppers and chicken broth. Everything goes into the oven to simmer until tender. Add a sprinkling of fresh parsley and dinner is served!
Tips for Mediterranean chicken
- I like to use bone-in skin-on chicken thighs for this dish, but you can also use drumsticks or bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts.
- Orzo is a small rice shaped pasta that can be found with the rest of the pasta shapes at most grocery stores. You can use regular orzo or whole wheat orzo in this dish.
- This recipe calls for roasted red bell peppers – you can roast your own, or buy a jar of prepared roasted peppers to save on time.
- This dish is perfect as-is, but I sometimes like to serve it with a steamed vegetable on the side such as broccoli, green beans or asparagus. You can also do a mixed green salad tossed in Greek salad dressing.
Mediterranean Chicken Variations
There are so many different ways to vary the flavors in this dish to make your own creation!
- Beans: Instead of chickpeas, try cannellini or Great Northern beans.
- Vegetables: Swap out the bell peppers for marinated artichoke hearts or sauteed mushrooms.
- Grains: Try bulgur wheat or brown rice instead of orzo pasta.
More than ever I have been relying on easy dinner options. I’d much rather be out in the yard with the kids instead of standing over a hot stove. This Mediterranean chicken is perfect for our hectic schedule because I can just combine everything in one pot, put it in the oven and walk away until the timer tells me it’s dinner time. Plus clean up is a breeze. Have you hopped on the one pot meal bandwagon yet? If not, this recipe is the perfect place to start.
More easy chicken recipes
- Chicken and Green Beans
- Slow Cooker Chicken Drumsticks
- Hawaiian Chicken
- Chicken Casserole
- Braised Chicken with Carrots and Potatoes
One Pot Mediterranean Chicken
Ingredients
- 4 bone in, skin on chicken thighs
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
- 1 small onion finely diced
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1/2 cup roasted peppers roughly chopped (can use red, yellow or orange peppers)
- 8 ounces orzo pasta uncooked
- 3/4 cup kalamata olives halved
- 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
- 15 ounce can chickpeas drained and rinsed
- 3 cups chicken broth
- kosher salt and black pepper to taste
- 2 tablespoons fresh parsley chopped
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a large skillet or pot, heat the olive oil over medium high heat. Season the chicken generously on both sides with salt and pepper. Place the chicken in the pan and cook for 4 to 6 minutes on each side or until golden brown. Remove the chicken from the pan.
- Drain off excess fat leaving about 1 teaspoon in the pan. Add the onion, cook for 5 minutes. Add the garlic, cook for one minute more.
- Add the orzo, oregano, roasted peppers, olives and chickpeas to the pan. Season with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Place the chicken on top of the orzo mixture; add chicken broth.
- Bring everything to a boil, cover the pot with a lid and place into the oven. Bake for 35 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. Sprinkle with parsley, then serve.
Notes
Nutrition
This post was originally published July 16, 2015 and was updated on June 25, 2019 with new content.
This will be a new favorite in our house! Looks so delicious!
I can’t wait to make this! All the bright colors and flavorful chicken – who wouldn’t love this!
How long would I cook the boneless thighs?
Can you use boneless skinnless chicken thighs?
Yes that will work!
Can I use chicken breasts instead?
Yes, that will work!
Love this recipe – I’ve already made it twice for my family.
Quick question: do you cook the chicken all the way through in the pan before adding the other ingredients? Or do you simply cook the outside and let the chicken continue to cook in the oven? I’ve been cooking the chicken all the way through before putting it in the oven and I’m afraid it’s getting a little dry (but of course I don’t want to end up with under-cooked chicken!)
I do not cook the chicken all the way through, I simply brown it and then put it in the oven. The time in the oven should be more than enough to cook it all the way through. If you’re using larger than average pieces of chicken you could always cut into one at the end of the bake time to make sure it’s cooked through, and if it’s not, add 5-10 minutes to the bake time. Hope that helps!
Just made this tonight and it was so easy and delicious!! Thank you so much!! This is a keeper!!
I don’t have a Dutch oven with a lid. Could I use a lasagne dish covered wit foil? Also – how wold this be with boneless chicken breasts?
Yes, you can use a dish tightly covered with foil. For boneless chicken breasts, you’ll want to reduce the oven time to 25 minutes. Hope that helps!
Three cups of chicken broth — how is it divided, or should there be two amounts?? There are two places in the instructions to add broth.
It’s in the oven, and it smells yummy. All my broth went in at once with the orzo.
Thanks!
It’s only supposed to go in once, thanks for catching that typo!
Recipe looks good but I need to use breast meat. Might you have some suggestions as how to keep the chicken moist? I am thinking I could leave the chicken in for only 10 to 15 minutes? Then put it back as soon as it comes out of the oven? Your thoughts?
Hi Pam,
20 minutes should work, you’ll want to leave it in for that long so that the orzo has time to absorb the broth. I did something similar here with chicken breasts and orzo where I baked it at 375 for 25 minutes. https://www.dinneratthezoo.com/one-pot-chicken-with-creamy-spinach-artichoke-pasta/ Hope that helps!
Do you need to cook the orzo before adding it to the recipe? Or does it cook in the broth?
The orzo goes in raw, it does get cooked in the broth!
Thank you for posting this. I made this last night for my family and they loved it!
I’m so glad to hear you liked it!
This looks lovely. I do not have orzo on me but I do have couscous, do you think that would work! Thank you so much
Hi Angela, the larger pearl/Israeli couscous would work, the small couscous would probably get too mushy. Hope that helps!
Thank you, it does 🙂 I figured the smaller ones would have that problem. I am a fairly new cook so I hope it turns out as nice as yours 🙂
I’ve never commented on anyone’s blog before, but we just made this dish and it was AWESOME. Chickpeas are creamy… chicken flavorful… and I was able to cook everything in an hour including roasting the peppers.
I am so happy that you liked it! And thanks for commenting 🙂
This looks fantastic…definitely a dinner my family would like! I’ll be adding it to the menu plan!
WOW- I’m pretty obsessed with everything in this dish. The black olives (of all things) caught my eye at first but now I’m drooling over everything in here! (GREAT pics BTW!!)
Anything that requires one pot to cook is right up my alley! Looks yummy!
Amazing! This looks absolutely delicious!
Can you make this with thighs that have the skin on?
Yes, skin on thighs will work perfectly, you can just follow the recipe exactly as written!
Great! I was trying to find this comment because the recipe says skinless but the pictures have skin on 🙂
The photos have skinless chicken thighs too, they’re just browned!
I’ve never met a mediterranean dish that I didn’t absolutely fall in love with. I love that this is made in one pot … and I’m adoring all of those flavors! Pinned!