Greek Chicken with Rice

This Greek chicken and rice recipe will soon become your new favourite one-pot dish. With big, zesty flavours inspired by sunshine holidays, these Greek chicken thighs with fragrant rice cook in one pan, and are ready in about 30 minutes.

Easy Greek chicken and rice recipe

We are big on easy one pot meals here. When I’ve been cooking and photographing all day, and done some exercise (when you work with food you have to get moving at least once a day), I still want a proper dinner.

See also

• Greek Salmon, a deliciously easy sheet pan dish with punchy Greek flavours
• For a lighter chicken dish, try my simple but delicious Greek chicken
• This fragrant Greek dressing gives a wonderful lift to Mediterranean salads

We’ve been making lots of stove top one-pot rice dishes recently and this Greek chicken and rice recipe is based on our ever popular Spanish chicken.

I wanted a Greek style dish to remind me of happy holidays past. We’ve played with the flavours and made another one-pot chicken dish, this time inspired by the food of the Eastern end of the Mediterranean. 

These Greek chicken thighs with rice could not be easier or more fuss free. You just brown the chicken, then fry the onion, add rice, herbs and lemon and leave it to do it thing. Dinner is ready in just over half an hour! 

We love the lemony chickeny rice in this dish. When we retested it, I doubled the rice and froze the leftovers for another meal. Cook once, eat twice or three times is my motto!

Cooking rice by the absorption method means that you can measure by volume. Just follow the instructions and you will get perfect rice every time. You WILL need a heavy pan with a well-fitting lid and you must not peek at the rice as it cooks.

I use a shallow cast-iron casserole dish (Dutch oven), but a heavy frying pan or skillet with a close-fitting lid would also work. Do remember, though, that the lid is crucial.

The step-by-step instructions for my Greek style chicken and rice dish contain lots of hints and tips to help you make the recipe successfully the first time, as well as my secrets to help you become a better and more confident cook and reduce food waste. So read on and enjoy!

Why you will love it

• My Greek chicken with rice recipe is a complete dinner in one pot, which means minimal washing up! 

• It is very easy and entirely fuss free. 

• There’s very little preparation and you can just leave this dish to cook without any interference from you. Go and do something more interesting while it cooks.

• It is easy to adapt, so change it around to suit your taste and what you have to hand. 

• It is easy to make a double or even a triple batch if you need to feed a crowd or set some aside for next time.

• It’s light on calories. 

• Leftovers are great for packed lunches, or can be frozen. 

Choosing the right ingredients

• Chicken – It is less wasteful and far cheaper to buy a whole chicken and joint it. I know, however, that many people are unwilling to do that, so I’ve used chicken thighs here (complete with skin and bone). 

Chicken thighs are more flavoursome, tender and moist than breasts. They are also less expensive. There is plenty of flavour in the skin and the bone, so leave them intact to cook. The bone is very easy to remove with kitchen tongs just before serving if you prefer.
I think that one thigh is plenty a person, but if you eat more meat than we do, then double the quantity. 

Free range is worth every extra penny in terms of taste and welfare. 

• Olive Oil – Use the best quality extra virgin oil you can find. It tastes wonderful and is unrefined. 

• Herbs – For an authentic Greek flavour, try to use Greek oregano. If you cannot find this, however, a mix of oregano and thyme works well or make up a jar of homemade Greek seasoning.
• Rice – Any regular long grain white rice works. I usually use basmati for the fragrance. Don’t use quick cook or brown rice with this recipe because the timings and quantities won’t work. 
• Lemon – As you are going to use the zest, find an unwaxed lemon. Alternatively, give a waxed one a good scrub in hot water. 
• Chicken Broth/Stock – I try to use homemade chicken stock. If you don’t have any, however, or can’t be bothered to make it, don’t worry. You can use a good quality shop bought stock. I find that the jelly stock pots, liquid or tubs of powder tend to have a better flavour than most cubes. I find that it is worth paying a little more if you can. 

How to make one-pot Greek style chicken & rice

Step One – Grab your ingredients, just to check you have everything. Measure everything out and put the packets away while you still have clean hands.

Step Two – Add a glug of olive oil to the pan. You won’t need much, as there is fat in the chicken (this flavours the dish). Add the meat and a sprinkle of the herbs. Then fry over a medium heat for 4–5 minutes on each side until the skin is golden and crisp.

Take the chicken pieces out of the pan and set to one side. 

Step Three – Add the chopped onion and garlic to the pan and fry it in the olive oil and chicken fat for a few minutes until browning and fragrant. 

Step Four – Add the rice, and stir well to coat the rice. Reduce the heat and add a little of the stock. 

Give those brown delicious bits a good scrape off the bottom of the pan. These taste amazing when you mix them in, but if you leave them there they can cause the rice to catch and burn. They are called the fond, and the process of scraping them up and mixing them into the sauce is called deglazing.

Step Five – Add the rest of the stock, the herbs and the lemon zest. Give it all a stir. 

Step Six – Quarter the lemon and place on top of the rice, along with the chicken and olives.

Bring to a simmer, then put the lid on the pan and turn the heat right down.

Leave the rice cook for 18 minutes. Turn the heat off and wait another 5 minutes.

Serving suggestion

Garnish with fresh herbs, and if you are feeling fancy, fresh wedges of lemon. These are especially good if you quarter them and then char them on a griddle.

Variations

• Any long grain white rice will work. I prefer basmati. Brown rice will work but will take longer and will probably need more liquid. 

• Add a splash of white wine or a little ouzo.

Storage

Pack any leftovers into airtight containers, put the lid on and allow to cool. As soon as your Greek chicken with rice is cool, put in the fridge or freezer.

Fridge – You can store your Greek chicken and rice in the fridge for up to 48 hours. Reheat thoroughly and do not return to the fridge a second time.

Freezer – Freeze keep it for up to 3 months. You can defrost it in the fridge overnight before reheating, or microwave from frozen. Either way, it should be piping hot before you serve it.

Hints and tips

• Ideally, you should always leave the lid on the pan while it cooks. Don’t peek. You do, however, need to figure out how your cooker behaves. The first time you make a stove-top rice, do check it half-way through (you will need to add a little extra liquid to compensate for lost steam). Once you know how your cooker behaves, try to leave the lid on throughout.

• If the heat is too high, your rice can catch and burn. Many cookers need a diffuser ring to make the heat gentler.

• This Greek chicken and rice recipe can be made in the oven. Follow the technique described in my chicken biryani. Cook the chicken on the stove first, as described above. 

• Leftover roast chicken works too. Add it in at step 3 instead of using the thighs.

• I normally use jarred olives for this. Once opened, they will keep in the fridge about a week. If you won’t use them this time, drain and rinse. Then open freeze them before packing into an airtight pot. Use from frozen in other rice and pasta dishes or on a pizza.

• Leftover Greek style chicken with rice is delicious microwaved for a quick lunch. You can also freeze leftovers. 

More rice one pots and rice dishes

• Spanish chicken
• Peri peri chicken
• Moroccan chicken
• Nandos rice
• Spicy rice
• Mushroom rice
• Pilau rice (Pressure Cooker Pilau rice)
• Leftover chicken biryani 
• Leftover turkey biryani
• Leftover lamb biryani
• Other easy rice recipes