Easy One Pan Lemon Chicken Orzo Recipe

Look! Ingredients! And look! Best kitchen helper ever! Look at that smile on your face today. My goodness! Did you miss us last week? Last week we were in Virginia and I had plans to do a cooking video with everybody. That never happens. So, we're back and we're doing another video and Jamie and I needed dinner. So, we're going to make some dinner. We are going to make some lemony chicken orzo. This is going to be amazing. I can already smell the lemon zest from the zest that Jamie just did for me. This is going to be really good. It's really easy. It's a one pan dish. I love one pan dishes. Well, I mean, besides the other things I put out here. But basically, it's one pan dish which makes it easy. This is one of those things that a lot of people are like, Oh! I'm really bad at cooking. Try this! This is a simple, easy recipe and you're going to be really, really happy with it. Let's check in on the other dogs real quick. Second best kitchen helper ever in here watching some hockey. And third best kitchen helper ever knows that I'm at the stove. So, she's in her spot. Okay, I'm going to make some food. I will pay a cheese tax today though. Just so you know. So real quick, I'm going to go over everything that you're going to need for this recipe. It is also listed in the video description below. You're going to need about a pound of chicken. I chose to cube my chicken ahead of time. Pro tip! If you take your chicken out of the freezer and let it thaw just a little bit, it is ten times easier to cut than letting it thaw all the way and then cutting it. Now, you can do it like this. You can cut it into strips to make it fancier. I cubed it because that's what I'm going to do anyway. You could also use pre-cooked chicken. You could use rotisserie chicken for this if you want. Just put it in at the end. Super easy. Anyway, as I said, you're going to need about a pound of chicken. We're going to need some olive oil. About three tablespoons total. You're going to need some baby spinach. Five ounces. I think this is a six ounce bag which means we will be paying a spinach tax as well. You're going to need a cup and a half of uncooked orzo. You can use the regular or the wheat kind. You're going to need three cups of chicken broth. I'm using the reduced sodium broth. You don't have to, but you can. You're going to need one of these. Like a medium or a small shallot. I got to cut that up really fine. You're going to need some garlic. You can use garlic if you want. I'm going to use regular garlic today and I'm going to mince it. Anywhere between three to six cloves depending on how heavy you want your garlic. You're going to need a quarter of a teaspoon of crushed red pepper. You're going to need a couple of teaspoons of some Italian seasoning. A little bit of salt. A half a cup of heavy cream. A half a cup of freshly grated parmesan which Jamie already did for me. We're going to need two tablespoons of lemon juice. You're going to need two teaspoons of lemon zest. I have not measured this out yet. That's all the ingredients you're going to need. Like I said, this is a one pan recipe. If you have a cast iron skillet, you can use that. I'm using my big ninja skillet because I have a glass top stove. Apparently I can't use cast iron on a glass top stove. Although some people tell me I can. Tell me in the comments. Can I put a cast iron skillet on there? I would love to know your opinion. I guess I could do an enamel coated. Somebody tell me in the comments. We'll figure it out. Let's get to cooking. Before I even put anything in the pan, I'm going to finish cutting everything up. Diced up my shallot nice and fine. You can make this as thick or as thin as you want but I like mine to be nice and small. Now I'm going to take my lemon, put it in this lemon squeezer. I'm going to get two tablespoons of lemon juice. There's the juice. Now I'm going to take my garlic and I'm going to take my garlic mincer and mince the garlic. All nice and minced. Now we're going to take our pan. We're going to put about a tablespoon of oil in here. Oil in the pan. We are going to put this on a medium high heat. For my electric stove, I'm going to do a six. We're going to let that heat up just a little bit. Oil in the pan is pretty warm here. We're going to take our chicken and just put it right in there. Okay, maybe it wasn't super warm but that's okay. I still got to season this. Chicken in the pan. Put some Italian seasoning on it. How much? I don't know. Like a teaspoon or two maybe. Shake some on there. It'll be nice and good. You can also put a little pepper on here if you'd like as well. And then a little bit of salt. Not a ton. About that much. We're just going to let this fry until it's done. Probably about... Because I cubed mine up, it'll probably be about three minutes. I'll flip them all over. Three minutes and they should be done. That's what it's supposed to sound like. Also, anytime you touch raw meat or the bowl it was in or anything else, wash your hands. Wash your hands. I also washed the bowl that the chicken was in because I'm going to put it back in that bowl. I washed that as well. You don't want to overcook your chicken. You want to make sure it's done. You can take one of your bigger pieces of chicken and you can push through it with this. Yeah, this is definitely done. See how it kind of went through it? It's not pink in the middle. That's what we're looking for. This is mostly done. I'm going to let it go for probably another minute. Maybe give it a little bit of browning on it. Then I'm going to put it in my bowl. When your chicken is done, transfer it to a bowl or plate or whatever. Don't worry. We'll come back to it. While I'm giving it that last few seconds, I'm going to reduce this to a medium low. About a 3.5. Don't wipe this pan when you take your chicken out. Take your chicken out. Get some little bit of browning on there. I'm going to set that aside. As I said, do not wipe this pan. Leave it like that. We're going to take two more tablespoons of olive oil and put it in this pan. I did pull my pan off of the heat because I had turned it down. Again, I have a glass top stove. I don't want this to overheat too much. As important, I don't want it to splash a whole bunch. I have more oil in. We're going to slide it back over where it belongs. We're going to add the shallot. All of it. We're going to add the minced garlic. Right in there. I'm going to add the crushed red pepper. Right in there as well. Stir this around for probably about two minutes. A minute. I just want the onions to get a little bit translucent. Just a little bit. You may be thinking, that's a lot of extra oil in there. Wait until you see the next step. There's extra oil because we're going to lightly toast the orzo. After about another minute, this is going to go into that bowl. We're going to stir it around in all that oil. We're going to toast this. It actually helps the noodles to... These are noodles. It helps them to not clump together. It's also a trick you can do with rice. You can toast your rice. It makes it so it doesn't get all gummy and stick together. You don't have to, but you should try it sometime. Like I said, I'm going to pour this in. We are going to continuously stir this. I'm going to get it in all this oil that's in here. You want to continually stir this. You do not want this to burn. Toast it for about one to two minutes. The color probably won't change too much. We'll see. Make sure you get it all coated in the oil. Scrape the bottom of that pan so nothing is burning. This honestly is probably the hardest part. It's really not that hard. Trust the process you guys. It's going to be delicious! The next thing we're going to do is... I've measured out three cups of chicken broth. And a half a cup of the heavy cream. Make sure you add this before you add this. If you add this first to this, it's going to curdle. You don't want that. This is going to bring the temperature of this down. Then, you can add this. Still add it slowly. This is looking pretty good. You can see it's kind of getting a little toasty. I'm stirring it pretty frequently. I'm probably going to let it go another minute. Then, I'll add the other stuff. You can probably see now the difference in the color. It's definitely lightly toasted. As I said, now... Slowly pour in your broth. You don't want to go too fast because there is oil in this pan. We're going to go slow. I should probably turn the fan on. We'll go slow enough. It should be okay. Now, before it heats up too much... We're going to slowly pour this in. Kind of move it around. Slowly pour it in. Now, we're going to bring this back up to a medium-high heat. I brought my stove back up to 5.5. We want to bring this to a simmer. Then, we're going to reduce it. We want to maintain just barely a gentle simmer. I'll show you guys as we're going. See how it's just barely starting to simmer? We're going to go ahead and take our 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. We're going to pour that in. Right now. It's probably going to take it back down a little bit. It's going to take a second for it to simmer again. I'm also going to go ahead and add the 2 Tablespoons... Tablespoons? The 2 teaspoons of lemon zest to this right now as well. We're at a pretty even simmer. You can kind of see it happening everywhere. We're going to turn this down. I'm going to turn mine down to 2.5 because I know how my stove works. Actually, I'm going to turn it to 2.2. You want to lower and you want to simmer this for about 8 to 10 minutes. Basically, you want that orzo to become tender. We're kind of doing the noodle boiling part of this right now. While that's happening... You know, don't you? This is washed spinach. I'm going to go ahead and wash it and run it through my salad spinner again while that's doing the 10 minute thing. Which means, it's time for the dogs to get some spinach. Look at this big spinach! Look at it Memphis! Memphis is like... Guys! I love spinach so much! You can have it! That one's yours! Thank you for being patient! I do love spinach! It is one of the few things she actually chews. Oh! Gee! There's second best kitchen helper ever! Hello! Would you also like spinach? It's spinach! There you go! I know you like it as well. She's indecisive on whether or not she actually likes it. She just likes it cause she eats it. So, she'll eat it. Spinach delivery! Hi ma'am! Would you like a spinach? Yeah? She's like... Mmm! It's rabbit food! Yeah? You like spinach though, don't you? Don't worry! I won't let them come and take it from you. She takes her time eating the spinach. She will eat it though! She does like spinach. There! She's like... Mmm! Rip it apart! Okay! I got to go check my stuff. Kira! I got to go check my stuff. Simmering away! You can stir it just a little bit as well. I want to make sure nothing is sticking to the bottom. But you can see some of this moisture is already getting sucked into the orzo. Then of course, because we're simmering it with no lid, some of it's gonna kind of evaporate away. I tell you one thing, the house smells amazing! Alright! I got one minute left on my timer. That is about tender. I'm gonna let it run the one minute. Then, we're gonna slide the pan over and start adding the spinach. Okay! Well, apparently I hit the record button wrong. But you can see here, I have added my spinach. You add the spinach a little bit at a time. You have this removed from the heat and it's just gonna wilt right down. It will probably take about one to two minutes for all of your spinach to wilt down. Just gonna stir it around a little bit more. Now, we're gonna add our cheese. Yeah, sometimes you hit a record button and it doesn't record. Then, you set your camera down because you stop recording and it records for like two minutes while on the counter. Anyways, you guys figured it out, right? Put the spinach in and stir it around slowly. Now, we're gonna take the parmesan cheese and I am gonna just go ahead and slowly sprinkle it and kind of let it melt. I'm gonna stir some of it together and then add a little bit more. Again, we are off the heat. This is just the heat from the pan helping this out. Last but not least, remember that chicken? Mine is still pretty warm. Go ahead and put that right back in. Stir it around. It should heat it all right back up. Oh my goodness! Looks amazing! Smells amazing! Let's give it a try. That was so easy! It's not for you, ma'am. It's not for you. Oh my goodness! I almost forgot to pay the cheese tax. Here! Some parmesan for you Some parmesan for you Oh, and you have decided to join us? Some parmesan for you! There you go. Alright, we need your review. I already tried it. I know. It was very lemony at the start, but I kind of like it. Yeah, I think the red pepper with the lemon, the red pepper flakes give it that little bit of... You can kind of feel it. Yeah. It's good. Yeah, I tried it too. I thought it was pretty good. That's a win? Also, we had an ice storm. You guys should follow our vlog channel if you want to see more about that. YouTube.com slash NoDogsVlogs if you want to see the ice storm. So that not only was super easy to make, but it was really, really good. If I wouldn't have been filming, probably would have taken me less than 30 minutes from start to finish with prep and everything. So if you're looking for a quick, easy dinner, that's it. And also, I was thinking about it. If you wanted to make it vegetarian, you could use vegetable stock instead of chicken. You could leave out the chicken. You could put in some other vegetables if you want to. Play around with it. Let me know if you make it a different way and what you think about it. Oh, and if you don't like it spicy, leave the red pepper flakes out. I didn't think it was spicy, but I know some people think like black pepper is spicy. Alright, you guys. We hope you enjoyed today's video. As always, thanks so much for watching. Thanks for subscribing. Stay positive, dream big, and we will see you again soon. Goodbye! Party!