I am a sucker for comfort food; anything that doesn’t take too long to whip up in the kitchen makes me happy. After a day of hectic work, all I look forward to is a warm, nourishing meal, which I can enjoy with my family. However, in this crazy fast-paced life, sometimes preparing a nutritious meal may seem too much of a task to take on. More often than not, we guiltily resort to the unhealthy, store-bought, ready-to-eat, heat-and-serve options or fat-laden home deliveries from fast food restaurants. Needless to say, all these quick fixes soon start to show up on our waistline; and then follows an exhausting series of failed fad diets and rarely utilized expensive gym memberships. It’s a vicious cycle which we all have fallen prey to at one point or another.
In my perpetual quest to find easy-to-make wholesome recipes that can be prepared in a jiffy, I recently stumbled upon a hearty, extremely yummy one-pot dish. A couple of months back while browsing the Internet, I came across this comforting chicken recipe, which is cooked on a bed of seasonal veggies (whoa, a perfect combo of proteins and vitamins in just one dish folks). Since then a family favorite, this delicious preparation has all the necessary nutrients that a balanced diet demands and is also quite easy on your waistline (weight-watchers, do take note).

Barring the washing and chopping of vegetables (which is the only effort you have to put in, if at all you consider that an effort in the first place though…. wink…wink), the pre-cooking preparation time for this guilt-free scrumptious dish is not more than 20 minutes.

Ingredients:

• 4 pieces of skinless chicken breasts/thighs
• 2 cups of veggies (a mix of red and yellow bell peppers, peas, corn kernels, cauliflower/broccoli florets, and some blanched carrots and potatoes cut into bite-size pieces)
• 1 onion roughly chopped
• 1 small pod of minced garlic
• Half a cup of extra virgin olive oil (c’mon it’s healthy, so be generous)
• Freshly extracted juice of a lime
• Some herbs (thyme, rosemary, oregano, parsley…. take your pick, this dish is so versatile that you can use any of them or all if you wish)
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper (as per taste)
• A packet of readymade chicken/ mixed vegetable/sweet corn soup powder (this is entirely optional, use it only if you want to)

Method:
Spread the veggies in an oven-safe dish and assemble the chicken on top. Whisk the next five ingredients along with the soup packet (if using) together till well mixed. Drizzle the mixture on top of the assembled chicken and veggies and pop the baking dish into a pre-heated oven (250 degrees). After baking for 15-20 minutes at high temperature, reduce the oven temperature to 150 degrees and further bake for 10-15 minutes more till a crisp and lightly charred layer is formed on the outer skins of chicken and veggies.

Serve the roasted chicken and vegetables on a plate and spoon the remaining lime juice, herbs and olive oil mixture from the baking dish on top (this adds an extra zing to the dish). You can also add a bread of your choice and a simple green salad for an additional crunch to go with it. Bon appetit!

N:B – I prefer using a traditional OTG instead of a microwave for this recipe. If you are making it in a microwave, kindly adjust the temperature and cooking time accordingly.

Piyali is a freelance writer who draws inspiration from personal experiences and everyday life. Her multi-faceted professional repertoire encompasses content creation and editing for various industries, namely fashion, textile, and technology. At home, she juggles through many roles- a doting mom, a lenient disciplinarian, and a strict food and hygiene inspector. An extremely proud self-learned patissier, she, in leisure, indulges her loved ones with her baking skills. And when she is not busy doing any of the aforementioned stuff, you will find her voraciously binging on food, books, music and cinema from all over the world. She writes and maintains a blog at solitarysoulwithachaoticmind.wordpress.com

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