Today’s meal, a simple and flavorful sheet pan chicken meal, is one of my favorite fall/winter recipes. The ingredients and method used to make the meal couldn’t be any simpler.
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This past weekend, I spent a portion of my time binge-watching the new-to-Netflix documentary, Salt Fat Acid Heat. The documentary is based on Samin Nosrat’s book. Several months ago, the book was featured as one of my favorite things.
The book, Salt Fat Acid Heat, is about learning how to take simple ingredients and create great meals. Nosrat believes that anyone can learn to cook really good food when those elements–salt, fat, acid, and heat– are understood and used in the kitchen. Nosrat actually taught Michael Pollan (my real food hero) how to cook real food, or at least gave him some cooking lessons.
I bring this up because in the fourth and final episode of the documentary, Nosrat is featured walking through the produce department at a local grocery store. It’s at this moment that she encourages us, “You don’t have to use expensive ingredients to make good food. All you need to find are simple quality staples and treat them with respect.” Amen!
I love this documentary because it beautifully depicts just how simple real ingredients are, and also the joy in taking these simple ingredients and turning them into a meal that nourishes us and the people we love. I think it’s so easy for us to lose sight of this truth in our current health-obsessed culture.
We’ve gone from one extreme, overly-processed food, to another extreme, overcomplicating real food. We’ve become obsessed with goji berries, the latest collagen powder, protein powders, and anything that seems exotic or can be marketed as a “superfood.” Side note: I would argue that all real ingredients are super in their own.
I think in doing this we’ve lost the simplistic message of real food. The idea that we can pick up the simplest of ingredients: rice, a chicken, and some fresh herbs, and turn these simple ingredients into a meal that tastes amazing and provides nourishment to our body. Sure, I love me some goji berries and I’m down with collagen power (although I don’t use collagen powder on a regular basis due to cost and I’m not convinced I need it in my life right now), but let’s not forget about the humble nature of real food. The fact that we don’t need anything exotic or “super,” to make delicious, nourishing food at home. With some good staple ingredients, we can create healthy, flavorful, nourishing meals.
Today’s meal is exactly that: simple, flavorful, nourishing, and made with the most basic of staple ingredients (or, in other words, humble): chicken thighs (a very affordable and easy to cook cut of meat), leeks (one of my favorite veggies), potatoes, garlic (because garlic makes every meal AMAZING), olive oil, lemon juice, and simple seasonings.
Not only is this meal simple, it’s also incredibly easy to make. Just place everything on a sheet pan and put that sheet pan in the oven. 50 minutes later, dinner is ready!
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Sheet Pan Meal: Lemon Chicken with Leeks and Potatoes
Ingredients
- 1.5 lbs yukon gold potatoes roughly chopped (about 8-11 potatoes, depending on size)
- 2 leeks white and light green parts only, sliced (they shouldn’t be super thin and there’s no need to cut the leeks in half before slicing)
- 1 head garlic peels removed from cloves (about 8-11 individual cloves)
- 6-8 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs *
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 lemon
- 1 1/2 tsp salt to taste, can finish seasoning after the meal cooks
- 1/2 tsp black pepper to taste, can finish seasoning after the meal cooks
- 2 tsp dried thyme
Special Equipment:
- medium bowl for soaking and washing the leeks
- large sheet pan or two small sheet pans
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425F.
- Place the sliced leeks in a medium bowl filled with water. Let the leeks soak for about 5 minutes. Drain the water from the leeks using a colander. Rinse the leeks under water to remove any remaining dirt particles. Dry the leeks.
- Arrange the leeks, potatoes, and garlic cloves on the sheet pan. Pour half the olive oil over the veggies (you don’t need to be precise with your halving, just as close as possible), and squeeze half of the lemon over the veggies. Sprinkle with 1 tsp of salt and 1/4 tsp of the black pepper. Toss to combine. Push the veggies to the edges of the sheet pan, forming a space in the center of the sheet pan for the chicken.
- Arrange the chicken in the center of the sheet pan. Drizzle the remaining olive oil over the skin of the chicken thighs, and squeeze the juice from half the lemon over the chicken. Sprinkle the skin with the remaining salt, pepper, and all the thyme. Rub your hands over the skin to evenly distribute the spices, if needed.
- Place the sheet pan in the center rack of the oven, and bake for 35-45 minutes, or until the veggies are cooked through and slightly crisp on some edges and the chicken is cooked through (the juices run clear) and the skin is brown and crispy. The veggies should be more steamed than crispy. Check on your chicken around the 35 minute mark to determine how much longer you’ll need to cook your chicken–the skin should begin to brown and look crisp right about now. 45 minutes works best for my oven and crispy skin preference so that’s my recommendation, but cooking times can slightly vary with each oven. The good thing about thighs (with the skin and bones) is the meat will stay moist even with a few extra minutes of cook time.
- For the veggies, you can pierce the potatoes with a fork to check for doneness. If your potatoes were cut into larger chunks, you may need to remove the chicken from the sheet pan and then return the potatoes and leeks to the oven to finish cooking. I’ve never had to do this (I also go with a full 45 minutes), but it’s worth noting depending on the size of your potato chunks and how quickly your chicken cooks (say 30-35 minutes instead of the full 45 minutes).
- Remove the sheet pan from the oven and serve warm. Taste the potatoes and add more salt or pepper, until seasoned as desired. When storing any leftovers, be sure to add the juice from the sheet pan to the chicken and veggies. This juice is full of flavor and will also keep the chicken and veggies tender and moist when reheated. I also love to spoon the juice over the veggies when serving the meal. It makes a delicious jus-like sauce (or gravy).
My Pans are Black so I lower the temp to 400 and keep an eye on it. Perfect every time. It has cooked in as little as 35 minutes and as long as 45. This is how it works in my oven.
Awesome, Cindy! Thank you for sharing.
This dish is delicious, easy and the house smelled wonderful. I Iove leeks and these were perfect. I followed your directions. It was helpful to look at the photo. The only extra thing I did was give the veggies a stir at 20 minutes. At 35 minutes, stirred them again and checked the temp of the thighs. Then 10 more minutes and it was done. Thank you.
Thats great, Margie! Thanks for sharing.
LS Team
Hello,
I followed the recipe and temperature but regretfully, it got burnt and the potatoes did not cook.
I have never experienced issues with my oven before.
Probably a slower cook At lower temperature would make more sense?
The recipe looked very tasty indeed. maybe next time I’m try again
Hey NL, I’m sorry to hear that. You may need to space out the potatoes more, so using a bigger sheet pan or two sheet pans (one for the veg and one for the chicken) will help. A single layer of veggies is ideal for even cooking, without being too cramped. Cutting the potatoes smaller should also help, so all the veg is about the same time.
Hello again,
Thanks for your reply.
Actually the potatoes where properly spaced out and cut in small cubes in a large pan which take the whole over space.
I truly feel it was a temperature issues.
I will try the recipe once more but reduce it to 180 celcius this time instead of 218 Celsius.
I’m sure it will come out great
Let me know how that goes, NL. I like crispy skin and potatoes, so find the higher temp works best. 400F might work better for you.
Thanks Kristin for all Your replies, I really appreciate it!
I love crispy potatoes as well.
Alright I’ll be trying it once more and I’ll let
You know the result!
I have never been able to get this recipe to work and I’ve tried a zil things. Would love to know what you tried and if it worked!
This may be a good one to make on Instagram Live. I’m not sure why it’s not turning out. Have you tried cooking the chicken and the potatoes on separate sheet pans? Or lowering the temp to 400F?
Absolutely delicious! I was surprised at how good it is, and how easy. The only change I made was to sprinkle a little poultry seasoning on the chicken skin along with the time. I’ve made it twice now, definitely a keeper ❤️
So happy you loved it, Cynthia!
LS Team
This was completely delicious. I added green olives and a little chilli which made it even yummiest. Will def make again. Thanks.
So happy you loved it, Kitty!
LS Team.
I was racking my brain about this yesterday and I think I know why it burned! I used a meyer lemon! Salt, fat, ACID (not sugar), heat. The sugar in the sweet lemon carmelized the whole dish! This makes total sense to me now and is really the only explanation, I hope this hypothesis is right. I’m going to try again late next week with a not-sweet lemon.
Let me know how it goes!
This is my go to temperature when roasting skin on/bones on chicken thighs with vegetables. It works with potatoes and other longer lasting vegetables like carrots or parsnips. I would also look at how close to the bottom of the oven you put it. I often put my sheet trays right in the middle. That helps with less burning on top. Great go to method for cooking chicken which makes it super flavorful and easy!
For that, I would Sal Suds and hot water to mop the floor. The Sal Suds will lift the dirt and grease.
Thank you for sharing, Terry.
I was so excited for this! Unfortunately baking at 425 for 45 mins rendered it completely burned. Like black burned with leather chicken. I had to toss it and may have to toss the sheet pan as well. Me thinks a lower cooking temp with less time might be the key.
Oh no, Tamara, I’m so sorry to hear that! I’ve made this dozens of times at that temp and that time, and had a team member test it out it too before publishing, so I’m not sure why that happened. That’s definitely not the experience we want you to have!
A few questions to troubleshoot…
Did the chicken have skin on and bones? The skin and bones should have kept the chicken from getting overly done, and also rendered fat to the sheet pan, along with the oil. You can usually cook chicken thighs for extra minutes without issues because of how juicy they are, unlike boneless meat or white meat. Did the veggies burn as well? Were the veggies cooking with the chicken, or on a separate sheet pan?
Do you know if your oven runs hotter typically? I know that sounds crazy, but ovens can vary in temperature even when set at the same temp. Lowering to 400 is a good plan if your oven typically bakes/cooks quickly or runs hotter.
Again, I’m so sorry for your experience with this recipe. I want you to be able to confidently make recipes that come from the blog, and that’s why we test them so many times–this definitely shouldn’t be your experience. I can’t replace your ingredients or time, but the least I can do is replace your sheet pan. Please send me an email [email protected], letting me know what kind of sheet pan and the best place to ship a new one, and I’ll get a new sheet pan headed your way!
Oh my, thank you for the reply! No need to replace the sheet pan, really. 🙂 That’s very nice of you to offer. Your recipes are always perfection, I’ll try to figure out what I did.
I followed the recipe exactly. Bones, skin, all the oil, all with the veggies on the same sheet pan. I usually have to roast an extra 5-8 mins in my oven. The potatoes were completely black on the side touching the pan, and the leeks were so burned they just about turned into black sludge. I’m stumped really. Maybe I sliced the leeks to thin? Or perhaps the pan was too big, so things were more spread out. Seems like a hard recipe to mess up just from those things though. I’m going to try again, I’ll let you know how it goes!
Hey Tamara, Yea, I’m so puzzled as to what may have happened. 425F with 45ish minutes shouldn’t have burned the potatoes or leeks, since that’s pretty typical for roasting heartier veg. If you go with 425F again, I would check on the chicken and veg at the 30 minute mark, and just keep an eye on everything through the oven door to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen. If everything looks good at that time, you could pull it all out. Yes, good thought on the leeks. They shouldn’t be super thin. Another option, like you mentioned is to reduce the oven to 400F. I would still check on everything around 30 minutes, just to get an idea of how things are cooking. Another idea is to grease the sheet pan first to ensure the veggies won’t burn on the base of the pan. I hope the next time works better for you.
Did you dry the leeks in the salad spinner? Excess water will potentially cause the bien effect.
Hi Maura, you can dry them off or use a salad spinner.
LS Team