One Pan Tomato Basil Chicken & Rice (2024)

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BY Karina | 49 Comments

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Crispy chicken bakes over a bed of tomato basilrice in this One Pan Tomato Basil Chicken & Rice. Dinner isready in 45 minutes!

All madein one pan and soeasy to prepare, you won’t believe it when it’s done. No rice cookers and no extra pans needed! Tomato Basil Chicken & Rice has the most popular vote for dinner in my house!

Chicken and Rice

Back up a second. Let me rephrase. Chicken SO crispy on the outside; tender and falling apart on the inside;tomato, basilrice with so much flavour and cooked in so.much.sauce. Chicken broth, tomato juices and chicken flavours, mixed through with chopped tomatoes, fresh basil leaves AND the addition of sun dried tomatoes if you so desire.

Easy✔
Delicious ✔
One-pan ✔

CHECK.

One Pan Recipe

This Italianinspired recipe comes from this One Pot Italian Chicken and Rice recipefrom so long ago. An even BETTER version times a thousand!I have no doubt in my mind you will fall in love with THIS ONE.

How To Make One Pan Tomato Basil Chicken And Rice

This recipe calls for a skillet, but if you don’t own one you can a normal pan to sear your chicken in over stove top, add the rice and the rest of the ingredients, then transfer everything to a large 9×13-inch baking dish.
You can use bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts if you don’t like thighs.
The recipe is the perfect rice to liquid ratio when using white rice. If using brown rice, you will certainly need up your liquid. I have not tried this recipe with brown rice, so I cannot give you any advice.

Chicken thighs are crisp-tenderand juicy, cooked WITH the ricein one pan to minimise cleanup! You are SO welcome!

More One Pan Recipes!

One Pan Spanish Chicken and Rice
Oven Baked Chicken Rice

One Pan Tomato Basil Chicken & Rice on VIDEO!

Crispy chicken bakes over a bed of tomato basil rice in this One Pan Tomato Basil Chicken & Rice. Dinner is ready in 45 minutes! All made in one pan and so easy to prepare, you won’t believe it when it’s done. No rice cookers and no extra pans needed!

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Prep: 10 minutes mins

Cook: 50 minutes mins

Total: 1 hour hr

Serves: 6 people

Ingredients

6 chicken thighs , skin on, bone in
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic , chopped
1 onion , diced
1 red bell pepper (capsicum) , deseeded and chopped
1/3 cup sun dried tomato strips in oil , chopped (optional: but adds flavour)
1 1/3 cup uncooked long grain rice , rinsed (arborio rice may also be used for a risotto-like consistency)
14.5 ounce (400g) tin crushed tomatoes, with liquid
1 3/4 cups chicken broth (or chicken stock)
1-2 teaspoons salt (adjust to your taste)
1/2 teaspoon pepper , (adjust to your taste)
1 teaspoon dried basil
1/4 cup fresh basil leaves , chopped
extra chopped fresh basil (to serve)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 200°c | 400°F. Heat the oil in a large, deep ovenproof cast iron skillet/or pan (over 30 cm or 12-inches). Add the chicken, skin side down; sear for 3-4 mins on medium-high heat. Turn each thigh and sear until golden all over. Transfer the chicken onto a warm plate.
Add the garlic; fry until fragrant (about 30 seconds). Add the onion and red peppers / capsicum; fry for about 3 minutes or until and onion is transparent. Stir in the sun dried tomatoes, rice, crushed tomatoes and chicken broth (stock). Season with salt, pepper and dried basil. Bring to a simmer and allow the rice to soak up all the tomato flavours.
Place chicken thighs, skin side up, over rice. Bring to the boil; rotate the chicken in the tomato sauce to coat; cover with foil; transfer to preheated oven and allow to bake for about 40 minutes, or until the rice has softened and absorbed the liquid and the chicken is cooked through. Stir through an extra 1/4 cup of water to the rice ONLY if needed (if rice hasn't cooked fully).
Remove cover; change oven settings to broil / grill on medium heat for a further 8-10 minutes or until the chicken is crispy and golden.
Season with extra salt to taste; sprinkle with freshly chopped basil to serve.

Notes

Adapted from this One Pot Italian Chicken and Rice recipe

Nutrition

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Reader Interactions

Comments

Hillary says
July 30, 2023 at 5:18 pm

Used the ingredients to make tomato sauce, I didn’t want to mix my rice. It has to be one of the best tomato sauces I’ve had and made 😍😍😍 it has a nice balance of sweetness. How are you this good at everything you make?😭😭😭😭
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Tim Stubbe says
December 14, 2022 at 12:49 am

Excellent Recipe!!! Great Flavor, easy to make…
Reply
Quentin Thomas Adams says
February 04, 2021 at 1:58 pm

Is there a marinade anyone has used for the thighs beforehand?!
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Mary Beth Einerson says
September 13, 2020 at 10:49 pm
Forgot to mention that I used a Le Creuset Braiser with lid. a perfect fit for this recipe.
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Mary Beth Einerson says
September 13, 2020 at 10:33 pm

Delicious! The only changes I made were to concentrate on the skin side of the chicken during the sear so that I could skip the broil at the end and to stir the arborio rice into the onion mixture and cook for a minute or so before adding the liquid ingredients. Sun-dried tomatoes added tons of great flavor. If making again I might use the ones not in oil as my only complaint was the the finished dish was a bit on the oily side.
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Elizabeth says
August 08, 2020 at 12:43 am

This was excellent! I used boneless skinless chicken. I did have to cook the rice longer and add more broth because I didn’t have enough white rice on hand and had to use about 1/3 cup of brown rice to piece it out, but that one was on me. I ended up taking out the chicken after the first bake to keep it from overcooking and covered it on a separate plate. Worked perfectly.
This was also a great way to use some garden produce, too! We’ve been overrun with tomatoes, bell peppers and basil recently, so this was a great way to use them up, too. To use the tomatoes, I washed them, boiled them for a minute, then dumped them into ice water. Then I peeled the skins off and chopped the tomatoes into a bowl set on my kitchen scale. Worked perfectly.
The few tweaks I made were to add a pat of butter to the olive oil before browning the chicken, sprinkle the chicken with a small amount of garlic salt before browning it and, at the recommendation of one of the commenters here, added a couple pinches of saffron to the mixture before transferring it to the oven. I served it with a summer squash side dish (more tomatoes, bell peppers, zucchini and yellow squash and an onion), and the flavors really complemented each other well.
Excellent! I’m keeping this recipe, for sure! Thank you for sharing!
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jb says
June 21, 2020 at 12:30 pm

I have been married 27 years and have cooked many chicken and rice dishes. I made this dish last weekend and my husband said it is the best chicken and rice dish he has ever had and I have ever cooked for him! My mom said the dish was perfect! My sister and sister in-law both said the flavor was so good. Every thing cooked so well, the measurements were right on. Thank you for this recipe.
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Silindile says
May 23, 2020 at 3:08 am

This is one of my favourite recipes. It just tantalises my taste buds. I have made it so many times since discovering it. 🙂
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Carrie86 says
March 11, 2020 at 4:13 am

I’ve made several of your recipes and all of them have been great but this one blows the rest out of the water!! The way the rice soaks up the crushed tomato juices along with the fresh basil is simply HEAVENLY!! Thank you so much for sharing your recipes, you’re truly a wonderful cook!
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Carrie says
September 27, 2019 at 3:17 pm
thank you for another wonderful recipe. Your website is my go-to now. Just a random question: what is the funky music (or what genre) that you always have to go with your recipe videos? They are awesome, and would love to play that at home while I am cooking.
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