Easy Baked Lemon Chicken and Brown Rice

This recipe has been adapted to be gluten and dairy-free (contains ghee though) from the One-pot lemon chicken with brown rice and leeks in Sophie Hansen’s Local is Lovely recipe book.

It’s a great nutritious, week-night dinner if you have to time to get it on early, and can set and forget for baths and homework.

It’s also great to share with friends as it’s low maintenance and tasty so leaves you more time to socialise rather than fussing in the kitchen when you have guests.

Prep: 10 mins

Cooking: approximately 2 hours

Ingredients:

1 x large free range chicken (two small ones also works if your pot is big enough)

Fresh or dried oregano

Extra virgin olive oil

1 x large leek, washed and sliced (onion also works but leek is better)

3 x garlic cloves, crushed

2 x cups of brown rice

80-100g grass-fed ghee

1 x litre of hot bone broth or meat stock (I prefer chicken stock/broth but beef will also do)

2-3 lemons

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2. In a Dutch oven on medium heat add a good lug of olive oil and cook leek and garlic until soft.
3. Add the brown rice to pot and stir so that the rice is covered evenly in oil.
4. Push rice to the sides of the pan like a little nest and add the chicken in the middle.
5. Drizzle olive oil over the chicken then splash some oregano and salt and pepper on top (should stick to the olive oil)
6. Gently pour the hot bone broth/meat stock over the rice, then add blobs of ghee to the stock, placing them evenly around the chicken.
7. Squeeze the juice of one lemon evenly over the stock/rice, and top the rice with slices of the remaining lemons (seeds removed).
8. Cover and bake for 1.5 hours (check it doesn’t get too dry while baking and add a little extra stock/broth or hot water towards the end if necessary).
9. Turn up the oven to around 200 degrees celsius. Remove the lid and bake for a further 15-20 mins to ensure the chicken becomes nice and crispy.
10. Serve with whatever you want, but I like baked cauliflower, peas and pumpkin with the nuttiness of the brown rice.

Enjoy x