Preparation: 15 mins | Cooking time: 40 mins

This is one of my favorite delicious chicken thigh recipes. It’s so easy to put together, and once the tray is in the oven you simply wait for the gorgeous flavors to develop and mix together. It’s like magic!

It’s fairly similar to my crispy baked chicken with sweet tomatoes recipe, except that one uses chicken legs and the ingredients are put together a little differently.

Ingredients

• 12 boned chicken thighs (leave the skins on)
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• A few big handfuls of cherry tomatoes (try to get a variety of colors if you can)
• red wine vinegar
• 800g new potatoes
• Fresh oregano (though dried will be fine, I find fresh oregano hard to find in the shops)

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 200°C or Gas Mark 6.

Boil the potatoes in water until cooked. They may only need 5-10 minutes so keep an eye on them.

Slice the chicken thighs into 3 pieces each, drizzle with olive oil and season well with salt and pepper.

Heat some olive oil in a large frying pan, then fry the chicken for 10 minutes. Keep tossing it around to make sure it’s evenly cooked.

Drain the potatoes and then crush them down a little. You don’t want them to be mashed, just a bit bashed around!

Throw the oregano into the frying pan (bash it up with a pestle and mortar if you’re using fresh), then add a tablespoon of olive oil, a splash of the red wine vinegar and a bit more seasoning.

Now add the potatoes into the mix too along with the tomatoes. Mix it all together so everything’s coated in lovely flavor.

Spread all this out into a roasting tray – it doesn’t have to be a big one, better if everything is in one layer rather than heaped into a pile.

Put the tray in the oven and leave to bake for around 40 minutes. The chicken thighs will turn beautifully crispy and become infused with the sweet tomatoes. Absolutely delicious – my mouth’s watering at the thought!

Chicken thigh recipes don’t come any more tasty than this. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Preparation: 15 mins | Cooking time: 35 mins

A friend invited us round for a meal a few years ago and made us this quick chicken hash. I admit, we were a little dubious at first when they described what was in it!

Our fears were unfounded, I’m happy to say. Not only is this meal delicious (if a little unusual) it’s just so quick and easy to prepare. As quick chicken recipes go, it’s unbeatable.

This serves around 4 people.

Ingredients

• 450g / 1lb diced chicken (easiest to buy it diced from your butchers)
• 1 x 225g frozen peas (add to some boiling water for a minute to thaw)
• 50g blanched almonds
• 6 black olives (stoned and finely chopped)
• 1 can of condensed cream of mushroom soup
• 1 small red pepper, diced
• Salt and pepper for seasoning

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C or Gas Mark 4.

Mix together the chicken, peas, almonds and olives.

Heat the soup in a small pan (don’t dilute it, heat it as it is), then stir in the chicken mixture together with the red pepper.

Add salt and fresh ground black pepper to season, then pour the lot into a casserole pot. Cover the pot and cook in the oven for around 35 minutes.

We tend to simply serve this with some rice. Nice and easy as quick chicken recipes go, and absolutely delicious!

Preparation: 5 mins | Cooking time: 90 mins

Don’t be put off by the cooking time with this recipe – it takes no time at all to prepare and then it’s just left in the oven to slowly cook. 5 minutes putting it all together and then relax! This is surely what quick chicken recipes are all about.

Our daughter simply hates tomatoes, and yet she adores this dish. Quite an endorsement!

This serves around 4 people.

Ingredients

• 4 jointed chicken legs
• Olive oil
• 1 fresh red chilli (finely chopped)
• 4 or 5 cloves of garlic (don’t take the skins off, leave them whole)
• Handful of fresh basil (dried will also do)
• 2 or 3 handfuls of cherry tomatoes, or a mixture of ripe red tomatoes and cherrys
• 1 tin of white beans (butter, cannellini, etc)
• Handful of potatoes (new potatoes tend to work best)

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C or Gas Mark 4.

Generously season the chicken legs, rubbing the salt and pepper into the skins with your fingers. They’ll taste fabulous!

Put the chicken legs in a small roasting pan or casserole dish. Then throw in the basil, the tomatoes, the garlic cloves and the chopped red chili. Don’t worry, the chili just adds a little heat, it won’t taste spicy.

Pour over a little olive oil and toss the ingredients together to coat with the oil and to mix it all up a bit. This should have taken you less than 5 minutes at this point – bonus!

Now pop the lot in the oven and simply leave for around 90 minutes. Resist the temptation to keep opening the door and poking it – you want everything to slowly bake together so the flavors develop and melt together. Yum.

After half an hour we throw in the beans and potatoes. This just bulks the dish out so we don’t have to bother making any separate accompaniments.

Then simply serve. You can squash the garlic out of the skins before you serve if you like, or leave them as they are if there are any vampires in your midst!

Absolutely lip-smackingly delicious, and one of the quickest quick chicken recipes I know.

Chicken is one of the most versatile foods that you will ever find and it is also one of the easiest to prepare. From the basic baked chicken recipes to marinated chicken breast recipes, you will never have to invest more than about 30 minutes of your time to have a great meal. When I was a single man, this was the one food that my bachelor freezer was ever without!

In order to make these chicken recipes even easier, I highly suggest you invest in a FoodSaver. For right around $100, you can get one that is top of the line and will make your cooking much easier in the long run. They enable you to batch prepare your chicken as soon as it comes in and preserve it for cooking later. All you will need to do is thaw it out, drop it on a sizzle plate or baking sheet and throw it in the oven.

Baked chicken is about as easy as it gets. While you will want to add some flavor, you don’t have to do too much to a trimmed chicken breast to make it a tasty dinner. You can actually buy “fit and trim” chicken breasts that are pretty much ready to go right out of the package. When you are in a pinch, coat it with some McCormick’s Monterey Chicken Seasoning and throw it in the oven for about 18 minutes at 350 degrees and you have dinner. Prepare your favorite veggies and starch while the chicken is cooking and you have a healthy meal on the table.

A hearty chicken salad is always a great meal on the go. If you have the FoodSaver, pour some balsamic vinaigrette into the bag before you seal it and freeze the chicken like that. When you seal the bag, the dressing will saturate the chicken and when you pull it out to defrost it, the chicken will already be flavored. Bake the chicken off for 18 minutes at 350 degrees and then let it rest for about 10 minutes before cutting it. While you are waiting to cut the chicken, prepare your greens, tomatoes, cucumbers and some flavored croutons. Toss the salad in your favorite dressing and the julienne the baked chicken breast and lay it across the top. This is a salad worthy of any restaurant.

While these are only two quick ideas for baked chicken recipes, there are literally hundreds more that you can prepare in a snap. Chicken is far and away one of the most flexible foods you will ever find and is a lot of fun to experiment with. If you are a single guy, it will not only provide you with a good meal, but it is a great way to show off in the kitchen with your lady friend as well. When it comes to an easy meal, baked chicken recipes are definitely the way to go. Now I have a family and kids, they all love them too!

Preparation: 15 mins | Cooking time: 40 mins

We used to eat a really similar dish to this when I was a kid. While apples are often associated with pork, in this dish they add a delicious tangy sweetness to the chicken.

I added some cider on a hunch that it might enhance the flavor further and, my goodness, does it just! Absolutely delicious, and one of our family’s favorite baked chicken recipes. Nice and quick and easy. Enjoy!

Ingredients

• 25g/1oz butter
• 350g/12oz boneless chicken breasts (skinned and cut into strips)
• 100g/4oz French beans (sliced roughly)
• 1 stick celery (thinly sliced)
• 25g/10z walnuts (roughly chopped)
• 2 tomatoes (sliced – skinned and seeded too if you can be bothered!)
• 1/2 green pepper (thinly sliced)
• 1/2 red pepper (thinly sliced)
• 2 dessert apples (peeled, cored and sliced)
• 600ml/1 pint medium dry cider (too sweet will ruin things I think)
• Salt and black pepper
• 1 tablespoon corn flour, dissolved in a splash of the cider
• 2 teaspoons chopped fresh mint

Instructions

Pre-heat your oven to 180°C, Gas Mark 4.

First off, melt the butter in a flameproof casserole. When it starts foaming (but before it burns) add the chicken strips and fry. Stir them for about 3 minutes but be careful not to color them too much.

Then add the beans, celery, walnuts, tomatoes, peppers and apples. Mix it all together really well, without breaking up the vegetables, and then pour in cider. Add a bit of salt and pepper for seasoning.

Bring it all to the boil then cover and bake in a pre-heated oven for around 35 minutes.

Remove the lid, stir in the corn flour. Lift the casserole pot out of the oven and bring the bake carefully to boil on top of stove, stirring all the time. This will thicken the sauce up nicely!

Remove from the heat. Garnish the top with the chopped mint and serve with roasted potatoes and buttered zucchini (or courgette) and/or carrots.

As baked chicken recipes go, I think this one’s a winner. Let me know what you think.