Greek chicken and rice tray bake

Another easy recipe and quick dish for the family. Dinner can be ready even faster if you do all the prep from the night before. For the Greek chicken and rice tray bake, I marinate the chicken with some of the typical flavours including oregano, lemon and garlic.

To make the tray bake a complete meal I added rice to cook under the chicken. It is a version of a “spanakorizo” – spinach rice I make but without adding any onions. This is purely for the sake of keeping this a tray bake dish and not having any more cooking appliances to clean by frying off the onion.

To ensure the rice does not dry out while cooking, spread open the chicken so that there are no exposed areas, as shown above. The juices released will be fully absorbed by the rice and so will the spices. Delicious!

I prefer to soak the rice before i cook it, in any dish, so that it assists with digestion and removes excess starch. You should continue rinsing the rice until the water is clear. In saying so this may require a fair bit of water, depending on the quality of the rice. In order to not be wasteful it is great practice for you to collect the cloudy/starchy water and water your plants with it. They say that rice water can be more beneficial to plants than fertilisers!

For more tray bake recipes check out the following page. For another chicken tray bake, I have also posted a Mexican chicken and rice recipe. It is prepared in a similar way as the one below but with different flavours.

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Greek chicken and spinach rice tray bake

Prep Time

20 mins

Cook Time

30 mins

Resting time

5 mins

Total Time

50 mins

 

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Mediterranean

Servings: 5

Author: Eleni Georges

Ingredients

Tray bake

• 1 kg skinless and boneless chicken thighs, see notes
• 2 tbs olive oil, see notes
• 2 tbs lemon
• 1 ½ cup of basmati rice, rinsed (300g – see notes)
• 350 mL passata or 1 can diced tomatoes, see notes
• 400 mL hot water, see notes
• ½ tsp salt
• ⅛ tsp black pepper
• 1/3 cup lemon juice, 85mL
• 100 g baby spinach leaves

Seasoning mix

• 2 tbs dried oregano
• ½ tbs sweet paprika
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• Pinch of black pepper

Instructions

1. From the night before or at least 20-30min before you cook, marinate the chicken. Pour the olive oil and lemon juice on the chicken and mix well with your hands. Combine the seasoning mix in a small bowl so that they will distribute evenly and then sprinkle the mixture on top of all the chicken pieces in a bowl. Use your hands and mix until all the chicken pieces are well coated. Cover and place in the fridge. 

2. Preheat the oven to 220°C. Use a roasting dish (mine measured 28cm x 21cm) that is big enough to fit the chicken snug. Pour in the passata, hot water and salt/pepper stir through the rice. Place the dish in the oven for 10min. 

3. After that time take out the dish pour the lemon juice over it and scatter the spinach on the top. Then add the marinated chicken in a single layer on top of it all. The key is to have most of the top layer covered so that the juices from the chicken help cook the rice evenly. Through the cooking process the chicken also shrinks so it’s ok if you think they might be a bit squashed. 

4. Place the dish back in the oven for 20-25min. After that time the chicken should be cooked but if you want to check it take out the biggest piece of thigh and cut through the thick part of it to check for readiness. 

5. Let it rest covered with foil for 5min, to allow the juices to be absorbed while keeping the chicken moist.

Recipe Notes

There were 8 pieces of chicken thighs in the 1kg I used but sometimes the chicken thighs are smaller so you might end up with 10. If they are bigger however, you might want to slice the thicker part so that it is still attached to the rest of it but is now thinner. If you choose to use thighs with bone in, they generally take 10min extra so you would leave the chicken in for at least 35min. In that case, you won’t need to cook the rice with the tomato first. 

I used as little olive oil as possible because this part of the chicken is quite high in fat content but I wanted to add a bit to help it brown while roasting.

I rinse the rice and let it soak in a bowl with enough tap water to cover it for at least 20min. Soaking the rice helps with digestion and the removal of the excess starch. This step can also be done overnight and you can leave the bowl on the kitchen bench. Otherwise if you do not have time then rinsing the rice well is sufficient.

I usually heat my kettle and add boiling water, however hot water from the tap should be fine. I use hot water so that the cooking process starts faster since it will be cooking for a small amount of time overall.

I’ve used cherry tomato passatta as it adds a sweetness to it otherwise you can use a regular passatta or even a vegetable pasta sauce for the extra flavour. If you add a can of diced tomatoes, you might want to use a fork to smash the tomatoes and release more juice.