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One pot dinner of oven baked chicken and rice that is absolutely bursting with flavor. A juicy, tender, super easy weeknight dinner that everybody will love!
Chicken and Rice
This all-in-one oven-baked chicken and rice dish is easy, low-effort, and perfect for busy nights. Crispy, seasoned chicken legs on fluffy rice—simple, delicious, and minimal cleanup.
Chicken and Rice Recipe
Oven-baked chicken is a family favorite—easy, tasty, and always a hit. This one-pan chicken and rice meal keeps the chicken juicy and makes dinner simple and satisfying.
What You’ll Need
To make this awesome oven baked chicken and rice recipe, you’ll need a few key ingredients.
Recipe Tips
- Removing the skin from chicken helps prevent the rice from becoming greasy. This is because, if you leave the chicken skin on, the fat from the skin will drip onto the rice. Not ideal!
- We love to season chicken generously. It’s a great way to boost the flavor profile of your dinner, and gives you a really flavorful overall experience. You can use any seasoning you like, but we recommend a mixture of paprika, onion powder, Italian seasoning, garlic, salt, and pepper.
- You can use just about any long grain rice you prefer for this recipe, too. It’s versatile like that.
- When using stock and water, it simply must be hot in order for it to work. Whether it’s chicken stock or vegetable stock, it’s key that it’s hot enough.
How To Make Chicken and Rice
- First, you’re going to rub your seasoning generously all over your chicken legs. Whisk the oil and seasonings together in a mixing bowl before you rub them into the chicken, as this helps to evenly disperse the seasoning across the chicken prior to cooking. You can marinate them for fifteen to thirty minutes. Longer marination means more tender chicken and a better, deeper flavor.
- Next, prepare a baking dish. Add onion, garlic, olive oil, stock, hot water, rice, salt, and pepper to the baking dish. Mix these together until they’re well blended. Ensure that the stock, whether it’s chicken stock or vegetable stock, is hot. Make sure your water is hot, too! Cold stock or cold water won’t properly cook your rice in the oven.
- Now add your marinated chicken to the baking dish. Place it over the rice so the chicken juices can seep into the rice during the cooking process. Add butter.
- Cover this dish with foil, and bake in the oven for 30 minutes.
- Uncover, spray the chicken with oil to help it get nice and crispy, and return to the oven for another thirty minutes. At this point it should develop a nice crispy golden brown color, with a decent bit of crispy crust too.
- Allow the chicken and rice to rest for 10 minutes, garnish with fresh herbs, and you’re ready to serve!
What Type of Rice to Use
Any long grain white rice is perfect for this recipe. We really love using basmati or jasmine rice here. Brown rice is an acceptable substitute, but you ought to be aware that this will take longer to cook, and require more liquid, so you’ll need to adjust the recipe accordingly.
Things like risotto, arborio rice, paella rice, or quick rice will go all mushy. That’s not what you want!
What To Serve With Chicken and Rice
We highly encourage you to try a few different sides with this dish. Our favorites include:
- Plain natural or Greek yogurt is a nice, cool contrast to the heavily flavored chicken and rice we’re enjoying here.
- A simple salad like Cucumber and Tomato Salad or Creamy Cucumber Salad will be a perfect accompaniment to this delicious dish.
- Roasted veggies like Roasted Brussels Sprouts or Roasted Asparagus! Try roasting up some broccoli, asparagus, mushrooms, or green beans with some salt, pepper, and olive oil.
Storage
You can store any leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to four days. Don’t keep chicken or rice for any longer than this.
More Easy Chicken Dinner Casseroles
If you make this recipe be sure to leave a comment or give this recipe a rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐! We will be happy to hear from you!
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Oven Baked Chicken and Rice
Ingredients
For Chicken
- 2 tablespoons olive or avocado oil
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 5-6 skinless chicken legs
For Rice
- 1 large onion, finely chopped
- 4 garlic cloves, minced
- 4 tablespoons oil
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon cracked black pepper
- 1 /2 cups hot chicken stock/ broth
- 1 1/2 cups hot water
- 1 1/2 cups basmati rice or any long grain white rice
- 2 tablespoons butter
For Mushrooms ( Optional)
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 3 thyme sprigs
- 1 pound 500 grams cremini or brown mushrooms, quartered
- 1/2 cup green onions, sliced
- Salt and pepper, to taste
For Garnish
- 2 tablespoons green onions, sliced
- Thyme sprigs, as needed
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350 F ( 180 C).
- In a large bowl, mix together the olive oil, paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, Italian seasoning, salt and pepper. Add the chicken and toss to coat. Allow to marinate for 30 minutes or overnight.
- Spray a 10 x 15-inch | 25 x 35 cm baking dish with nonstick cooking oil spray. Add the onion, garlic, oil, salt, pepper and VERY HOT broth, hot water and butter into the baking dish. Mix to combine. Stir in the rice.
- Place the chicken over the rice, cover with aluminium foil and bake for 30 minutes. Then uncover, spray chicken with oil ( for a nicer finish) and bake uncovered for 20-30 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through and liquid is absorbed. Broil further for 3-4 minutes to brown the chicken.
- Remove the chicken, mix the rice and then return the chicken back. Cover with foil and allow to rest for 10 minutes.
- Meanwhile, cook the mushrooms. Heat butter in a pan over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and thyme sprigs, and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.
- Add the mushrooms and cook until softened.
- Add the green onions and cook for 1 minute. Season with salt and pepper.
- Transfer the chicken onto a plate, fluff rice with a fork, then mix with the mushrooms. Top with chicken again, garnish with green onions and thyme.
- Serve and enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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Made it tonight! Absolutely delicious and easy to make! Definitely a keeper !
Hey, Margo! I am glad you enjoyed it! And thanks for sharing your experience!
This was a delicious dish and will be part of our dinner rotation. I didn’t have chicken legs but used 2 packages of boneless skinless chicken thighs, the kind you get at Costco. I followed the directions and cooking times. Perfect. One of those kinds of dishes that you can EASILY get seconds ooor thirds.
Hi Tara! That’s fantastic to hear! It’s great that you could adapt the recipe with boneless skinless chicken thighs and still achieve delicious results. And thanks for sharing your experience!
This is delicious! I had boneless thighs and shallots and it turned out great. Thanks so much!