It’s like FRIED RICE and Chinese Chicken, all made in one pot!! You’ll love the savoury flavour of the rice, and how the Asian chicken marinade adds great flavour with just a quick 10 minute marinade.
Plus, there’s a load of veggies mixed through so this One Pot Chinese Chicken and Rice is a complete meal!
CHINESE CHICKEN AND RICE – A ONE POT WONDER!
Hands up everyone who would make fried rice more often but you never seem to have day old cooked rice when the craving hits?
If you’ve got your hand raised high – then this one is for YOU!! The rice in this recipe tastes like fried rice but it’s made from scratch using uncooked rice. With the added bonus of a tasty Asian marinated chicken AND veggies to make a complete dinner in one pot!
DOUBLE DUTY: ASIAN CHICKEN MARINADE AND SAUCE
This One Pot Chinese Chicken and Rice starts off with a simple Asian chicken marinade that doubles as the sauce to flavour the rice.
The Sauce-Marinade is made with just soy sauce, Chinese cooking wine (see recipe for subs), Oyster Sauce and pepper. In my world, this is the bare minimum I would put in a Chinese sauce or marinade – whether a stir fry sauce, noodles or a pouring sauce.
Anything less and the flavour will taste flat. Both Oyster Sauce and the Chinese cooking wine are what adds complexity to this sauce.
If you can’t get or can’t consume Oyster Sauce, the best substitute in this recipe is Hoisin Sauce. You will get a slight Five Spice flavour from the Hoisin and it’s fantastic!
The Sauce-Marinade is used as a quick 10 minute marinade for the chicken before being tipped into the pot to flavour the rice. You could absolutely marinade overnight if you want – but you’ll get enough flavour in the dish with just 10 minutes.
HOW I MAKE CHINESE CHICKEN AND RICE
This is a straightforward recipe but there’s a few things I specifically do to achieve the tastiest outcome with the least effort – this is, after all, a quick and easy meal but that’s no reason to skimp on quality!
A) SEPARATE STEMS FROM LEAFY PARTS of Asian greens.The purpose of this so we can add the stems to cook with the rice, then just wilt the leafy part using residual heat while the rice is resting.
Apply this rule to any vegetables you use in this recipe. Cook things like carrots, peas, capsicum/bell peppers, broccoli, cauliflower and corn with the rice, and wilt delicate things like baby spinach while the rice is resting.
B) SEAR marinated chicken to brown the outside, but keep it raw on the inside – it will finish cooking with the rice. Caramelisation not only adds flavour to the chicken but the browning left in the pot forms part of the flavour base for the rice.
C) Place the CHICKEN ON TOP of the rice to finish cooking while the rice cooks. This way, the juices drip into the rice and we can preserve the caramelised surface on the chicken which would sweat off if fully submerged in the liquid.
D) REST RICE and WILT Leafy Greens. Resting the rice for 10+ minutes is a key step with any rice dish. That is how to ensure your rice comes out fluffy rather than gluey.
In this particular recipe, I use the residual heat trapped in the pot while the rice is resting to wilt the leafy part of the Asian greens.
Then, once the rice is rested and ready for fluffing, the leafy greens are wilted and can be tossed through the rice.
HIGHLY VERSATILE RECIPE
Like many recipes on my site, this recipe lends itself to all sorts of variations. It can take more vegetables, it can be made with mince meat (ground meat) rather than chicken pieces – just cook it with the sauce then proceed with the recipe as written.
You could even make it with fish and/or prawns/shrimp – but I’d cook them separately first and only return them to the pot while the rice is resting just to warm them through.
I often get messages on recipes where readers hesitantly say “I hope it’s ok that I tinkered with your recipe….” and I always respond – “YES OF COURSE!!!” I love that you can make my recipes your own and adapt it to your taste.
So if you tinker with this recipe, tell me what you do! I want to know! – Nagi x
More One-Pot Chicken and Rice
Baked Chicken and Rice (a reader favourite!)
One Pot Greek Chicken and Lemon Rice (another firm reader favourite!)
WATCH HOW TO MAKE IT
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One Pot Chinese Chicken and Rice
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp oil
- 2 garlic cloves , minced
- 1 tsp ginger , grated
- 1 onion , finely chopped
- 500g (1 lb) chicken thighs , skinless boneless, halved (Note 1)
- 1 big bunch Chinese Broccoli with thick stems (Note 2)
Rice:
- 1 cup (180g) uncooked white rice (Note 3)
- 1 1/2 cups (375 ml) chicken broth , low salt
Sauce:
- 2 cloves garlic , small, chopped
- 2 tbsp Chinese cooking wine or Mirin (Note 4)
- 3 tbsp oyster sauce (or sub with Hoisin)
- 1 1/2 tbsp dark soy sauce (Note 5)
- 1/4 tsp white pepper (or black)
Garnish:
- green onion , sliced
- Sesame seeds
Instructions
- Mix Sauce in a large bowl. Add chicken and set aside to marinate for 10 minutes to overnight.
- Cut Chinese broccoli stems cut into 2.5 cm/1″ pieces, leafy part 5cm/2.5cm pieces.
- Heat oil in a large pot over medium high heat. Remove chicken from marinade, shaking off excess marinade – RESERVE marinade!
- Cook both sides until golden – about 90 seconds on each side, don’t let them burn! Remove chicken onto plate.
- Add a touch of oil if pot is dry. Add onion, garlic and ginger, cook for 2 minutes until tinged with gold.
- Add rice, stir to coat grains in oil. Add broth, reserved Marinade and Chinese broccoli stems. Stir.
- Place chicken across the top, pour in juices pooled on plate. Cover, bring to simmer then lower heat to medium.
- Cook for 12 -15 minutes or until liquid is absorbed (tilt pot to check).
- Remove from heat. Working quickly, scatter Chinese broccoli leaves across surface, clamp lid back on.
- Rest for 10 minutes. Remove lid, toss rice and serve, garnished with sesame seeds and green onions. A dollop of your favourite chilli paste wouldn’t go astray either!
Recipe Notes:
Other Asian Greens – like pak choy, bok choi etc Cut per recipe but scatter across top of chicken, do not stir into liquid (because they’re more delicate so will cook to mush if mixed in liquid).
Frozen or fresh diced veg – stir into liquid and cook per recipe.
Cauliflower – stir into liquid and cook per recipe. 3. Rice – Any ordinary white rice is suitable for this recipe. Long grain, medium grain, short grain, Japanese rice, sushi rice, jasmine, basmati. Long grain, jasmine and basmati will yield the fluffiest rice, the others are a bit stickier as they are supposed to be. Recipe is NOT suitable for: paella or risotto rice. Brown rice will require the following adjustments: Add extra 0.5 cup of water, do not add stems or chicken in. Cover and cook rice for 30 minutes on low. Stir through stems and top with chicken. Cover and cook 10 minutes, remove from heat, follow recipe to wilt leafy part and stand 10 minutes before serving, 4. Chinese Cooking wine – read here for more information. Sold at Asian grocery stores and the Asian section of some supermarkets (Coles, Woolies in Australia). Dry sherry and mirin are excellent substitutes. For a non alcoholic version, leave it out and add 1/2 tsp chicken stock powder into Sauce. 5. Dark soy sauce has a more intense flavour and colour than light soy sauce and ordinary all purpose soy sauce. This is what stains the rice in this recipe. It can be substituted for light or all purpose soy sauce. 6. Nutrition per serving. To reduce salt, use low sodium soy sauce.
Nutrition Information:
LIFE OF DOZER
“Coffee for me, and a dog treat for Dozer!” I chirped, when I spied a cute jar of doggie treats at a coffee shop.
Little did I know – they were VEGAN dog treats. What is this world coming to?
Not that Dozer cared. (But I did. It was expensive!!!)
As well as making this dish, I also use the marinade with thighs overnight and then just bake them in the oven. I love the flavour the marinade gives the chicken so use the chicken with other side dishes too.
Have made this several times and always YUMM! However, I noticed that your video says to add garlic to the marinade but not in the written recipe. I just do what is written but maybe adding garlic to the marinade would give it some more punch?
Perhaps you should correct that. I use BokChoy as the veggie and it is always great. Family loves it.
YUM – such a quick and easy recipe with so much flavour,
i added capsicum with the onion, and cauliflower in the. broth. I then added broccoli at the end to steam – perfect!
My family loves this dish. Whenever chicken thighs are on sale I make enough marinade for a few batches and freeze the chicken thighs with the marinade in freezer bags. Then I simply have to defrost one and dinner is practically made. So good and so convenient.
We followed the recipe carefully and ended up with rice that was al dente. When we make it again, we’ll let the rice cook alone in the broth for a while before adding gai lan stems and chicken.
Overall flavor profile so well balanced, and tender chicken. Thanks Nagi!! <3
I made this tonight and it was so delicious I doubled the recipe because I knew my family would love it and want seconds, I was right I shared the recipe with my friends after showing them a pic I will make this again THANKS!!
Hello,
I just got a Instant Pot for Christmas and love this recipie is there anything different that needs to be done to make it in the instant pot?
I have made this so many times and it is like magic it’s so easy and delicious. Nagi the only adjustment I make is I use about a tablespoon of grated ginger to the onion and garlic. And I add a dash of Magi seasoning to the marinade. I also use bock Choy.
Have made this a few time now. last time substituted chicken for fish. Used pakchoy. comes out really well each time. Thank you
So delicious but my rice was undercooked even after 30 minutes and adding additional 1 cup water.
Hey Nagi this is delicious! I’ve made it twice and the flavors are wonderful but both times my rice wasn’t cooked evenly, with some rice cooked and some not cooked through. I tried with 2 different pots. Is there a way to make this in the oven? I don’t seem to have any success with cooking rice on the stove but the oven works better for me…
Tried this today for lunch, but instead of broccoli I used red pepper in with onions and baby spinach at the end. Did we enjoy it, you bet your life we did. Anymore like that Nagi bring it on
I am obsessed with all your one pot rice dishes. This one is on a weekly rotation. Such a great mid week meal. YUM!!! Thanks Nagi!
This one is quick to cook, but seems to take me a little while to prepare everything – always longer than I anticipate. I’ve made it around once a fortnight for a few months. Recipe is spot-on and satisfies adults and kids. Once I left the lid on too long at the end and the Chinese broccoli wilted a bit more than what was ideal, but didn’t take away from the meal. Really grateful to have this one in my repertoire!
Loved this! A new favourite!
Nagi your recipes are always spot on! This was so tender, moist and so TASTY!!! I added carrots and half pkt of cauli/broccoli rice from Coles. Thanks again for a lovely, nutritious meal 😀
Easy meal and very tasty, enjoyed by everyone. I put cauliflower and broccolini Makes sure you put plenty of spring onion on top for serving to give the dish a bright note.
Loved this. It was so easy and so tasty. Such a great way to use up any kind of greens you have on hand. Thank you Nagi.