One Pot Chicken And Orzo

This One Pot Chicken and Orzo is our kind of comfort food. An easy to make, one skillet dinner that’s mega satisfying with tons of flavor. All you need are a few simple ingredients to get this chicken and orzo recipe started!

Why You’ll Love This One Pot Chicken And Orzo Recipe

Not only are we excited to share this One Pot Chicken and Orzo Recipe with you, we have lots of helpful tips and details to make this recipe look and taste it’s best!

However, if you’re ready to dive right into making this chicken and orzo, scroll down to the recipe card or click the “jump to recipe” button above the first photo.

• Easy To Make: All you need are a few ingredients and about 25 minutes to make this comfort food meal, and clean up is easy since it’s all made in one pot. We use this Amazon Enameled Covered Casserole Dish to make this one pot meal.
• Hearty & Comforting: There’s nothing like a flavorful orzo recipe that’s been cooked in herbs and chicken stock to fill you up. Diced chicken breast for protein and flavor rounds out this meal.
• Customizable: There are so many different ingredients that you can add to this recipe, we’ll get into lots of variations further down in the post.
• Affordable: Pasta and protein are filling ingredients, and this orzo recipe is packed full of them. This recipe will feed 6 comfortably for less than 20 dollars.

Ingredients You’ll Need

• Olive oil: Olive oil will add the most flavor, but you can also use avocado oil or canola oil.
• Boneless, skinless chicken breast or chicken tenderloins: 1 pound, diced.
• Seasonings: Kosher salt, garlic powder, dried oregano, poultry seasoning, black pepper.
• Large shallot or small onion: Diced.
• Fresh garlic: Minced.
• Orzo: Dried orzo pasta.
• Fresh thyme: Stemmed and chopped.
• Chicken stock: Or chicken broth, but best quality you can find (homemade is great!)
• Grated parmesan cheese: Good quality, fresh grated.
• Fresh parsley: Chopped.

How To Make One Pot Chicken And Orzo

We’ll go over the basics here, but for complete ingredient amounts and instructions scroll down to the recipe card at the bottom of the post.

• STEP 1 – Add olive oil to a deep and wide, 4 quart casserole skillet like you see here. More notes on the pan in the recipe card. Add diced chicken breast along with salt, pepper, garlic powder, oregano and poultry seasoning and cook until the chicken is no longer pink inside. Add diced onion or shallot along with fresh garlic and cook 1 minute longer.

• STEP 2 – Add 2 cups of uncooked orzo and fresh thyme to the pan and then pour in 4 cups of chicken stock. Stir and bring to a simmer. Once simmering, stir again to make sure the orzo doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan. Cover and simmer over low heat for 15 minutes, stirring twice in between cooking time.

• STEP 3 – Once the pasta has cooked and the broth is mostly absorbed, stir in grated parmesan cheese and fresh parsley. Taste for seasonings and serve. You can add more chicken broth if you want a looser consistency, but the end dish should be cooked orzo with all of the broth absorbed.

Variations

There are many ways that you can jazz up this simple chicken and orzo recipe. While we think it’s perfect as is, it’s a great recipe for using up produce in the fridge to pack in more veggies.

• Rotisserie Chicken: Skip a step and dice up some rotisserie chicken or leftover chicken instead of cooking the chicken from raw. Toss the cooked, diced chicken in the seasonings listed and then add to the pot along with the orzo and chicken broth, after cooking the onion and garlic in olive oil.
• Vegetables: Pile on the veggies by stirring in fresh spinach (or frozen), peas or chopped broccoli. Mushrooms would also be delicious, slice and brown them along with the onions and garlic in Step 1.
• Pasta: While we think orzo is best for this recipe, you can use other small pasta like ditalini or even broken spaghetti. Pastina would be too small and end up mushy, and other pasta shapes like bow ties wouldn’t cook properly in the given amount of time.

Tips For Success

• STIR: Make sure that after you add the orzo you stir at least 3 times. Once after you add the chicken broth and then 2 times during the 15 minutes cooking time. If the orzo does stick to the bottom of your pan, remove the pan from the heat after cooking, cover and let it sit for 5 minutes. The steam should release most of the orzo from the bottom of the pan.
• LOW HEAT: Simmer over low heat for 15 minutes. Again, this is to prevent the orzo from sticking to the bottom of the pan and also to prevent overcooking the chicken.
• SERVE IMMEDIATELY: This chicken and orzo recipe is best when served right away. Leftovers are still delicious, but the flavor and texture is best when served right away.
• USE FRESH HERBS: Fresh herbs brighten the flavor of a dish, especially one like this that only has a few ingredients and is very pasta heavy.

Storing And Reheating

This chicken and orzo recipe will keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. To reheat leftovers, add a splash of chicken broth before heating in the microwave to loosen up the orzo. Season with more parmesan cheese, black pepper and parsley if desired.

Looking For More Easy Dinner Recipes?

• Cheesy Tortellini Bake
• Easy Ground Beef Stroganoff
• Beefy Tomato Soup
• Easy Parmesan Chicken Tenderloins
• Dr. Pepper Pulled Pork
• Air Fryer Scallops

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