RECIPE VIDEO ABOVE. A super tasty and quick meal all made in one pot! Chicken infused with Italian flavours and a rich tomato basil orzo / risoni pasta. Refer to the notes for how to skip the marinating time and also how to cook the chicken WITH the risoni. Feel free to add or substitute the capsicum / bell peppers in this!
Prep Time10 minutesmins
Cook Time25 minutesmins
Total Time35 minutesmins
Course: Dinner, One Pot
Cuisine: Italian, Western
Keyword: One Pot Italian Chicken ORZO
Servings: 4
Calories: 530cal
Author: Nagi | RecipeTin Eats
Ingredients
Marinade
2tbspwhite wine vinegar
1tbspolive oil
1tspDijon mustard
1tspItalian herb mix(or make your own with basil, parsley, oregano)
Pinchof red pepper flakes(chilli flakes) (optional)
Salt and pepper
1/4 cup (3 tbsp) grated parmesan cheese (optional)
1cupbasil leaves
Instructions
Mix Marinade ingredients together in a large bowl. Add chicken and mix to coat. Marinate for 1 hour - 24 hours (See Note 3 to skip marinating).
Heat oil in skillet over medium heat. Add chicken and cook for 4 minutes on each side, or until cooked. Transfer to a plate and cover with foil to keep warm while resting.
Turn heat up to medium high. Add oil if required.
Add onion and garlic, cook for 2 minutes. Add capsicum and cook for 1 minute or until onion is translucent.
Add risoni, tomato, chicken stock, Italian herbs, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. Mix and bring to simmer, then lower heat to medium low or so it simmers gently.
Cook for 9 - 10 minutes, stirring frequently (otherwise it will stick).
Take it off the stove when the risoni is just cooked (touch under is ok, finishes cooking in residual heat very quickly). It should still be saucy (see video).
Stir through parmesan and basil - excess liquid will evaporate in this step.
Spoon risoni into serving bowls, top with chicken. Serve with extra parmesan and basil.
Notes
1. As you can see in the recipe video, the breast fillets I used were very small - perfect for a single serving. If you can only get larger ones, cut them in half horizontally to make 2 steaks (per breast) and cook for 2 - 3 minutes on each side. Go by weight - aim for around 120 - 150g/4-5oz of chicken per serving.2. Risoni / orzo pasta is the rice shaped pasta. You can find it in the pasta section of supermarkets.3. To skip the marinating, just cut the chicken breast in half horizontally to form two thin steaks, or slice into strips. If the steaks are much thicker than 1cm/2/5" thick, pound to even thickness. Then coat with Marinade and proceed with recipe without marinating (though even 5 minutes of marinating time helps!), but cut down the chicken cook time to 2 - 3 minutes per side. Also see Note 4 below.4. Cooking chicken with risoni: In this recipe, I cooked whole chicken breast to place on top of the risoni. The other option is to cut the chicken into bite size pieces, marinate briefly. Then heat skillet on high, cook onion and garlic, then add chicken with the capsicum. Cook until outside is browned (inside still raw), turn heat down to medium low, follow recipe to cook risoni. This method is actually faster too - the whole recipe will be done in around 25 minutes.5. Nutrition per serving (4 servings). The serving sizes are very generous!