If you are planning to cook chicken over this Christmas period, look no further! Our Christmas Chicken recipe has all things associated with the festive period working in perfect harmony! One-pan dish with minimal fuss and maximum flavours coming from tart cranberries, pungent garlic, and sweet oranges. Serve your tender, fall-apart chicken thighs, infused with all the Christmas flavours on a bed of rice or our favourite Festive Pilaf!
Although all the ingredients in this dish are separately very familiar, when put together, it tastes new and exciting. In the words of Seb: ‘It’s very special… It’s like eating Christmas!’
Whether you’re planning Christmas on a budget, hate spending time in the kitchen, or cooking for just a few people and can’t justify cooking a whole turkey, this dish will definitely feel very special and fill the shoes of a full-blown traditional Christmas dinner.
We think it goes well with simple white rice. However, we took the rice a step further and created a Festive pilaf specifically to go with this Christmas Chicken. Have a look, it’s as easy to make as this recipe and cooks at the same oven temperature and is perfect to make it even more Christmasey.
How we Make our Christmas Chicken with Cranberries & Orange?
It is a simple one-pan recipe. All you need to do is pile everything in a large ovenproof dish and pour in the stock. Yes, it’s that simple.
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Preheat the oven to 180°C Fan. First, place the chicken thighs in a nice festive ovenproof dish (we used our Le Creuset Fluted Flan Dish that we love), but there are so many lovely festive overproof dishes around, that I wish I had one of the ones below.
Then add a halved garlic bulb, quartered onions and thickly sliced oranges. Add rosemary sprigs and a cinnamon stick. Finally, scatter cranberries all over.
Dissolve a stock cube and 1 teaspoon of cornflour in around 350ml of water. You need just enough to submerge halfway up the chicken.
Place in the oven for 40 minutes. If you’re using chicken thighs with skin on, and want a crispy skin, place the dish under the grill for 5-8 minutes afterwards, to really crisp that skin up. Just make sure to press the cranberries down into the sauce before grilling to make sure they don’t burn.
And here you have it, our Christmas Chicken with Cranberries and Orange. Serve it with white rice or our Festive Pilaf and spoon the lovely cranberry and orange infused gravy all over.
For other Christmas ideas, have a look at a variety of recipes we have in our Christmas section.
Christmas Chicken with Cranberries and Orange
Ingredients
- 8 thicken thighs boneless, with or without skin
- 2 brown onions quartered
- 1 bulb of garlic
- 1 orange quartered
- 120 g cranberries frozen or fresh
- 2 sprigs of rosemary
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 1 teaspoon cornflour
- 1 stock cube + 300 ml of water
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180°C Fan.
- In a large ovenproof dish, add the chicken thighs.
- Cut the garlic bulb in half and add the halves alongside the chicken. Quarter or slice the orange into thick slices. Peel and quarter your onions. Add to the dish.
- Finally, add rosemary sprigs and a cinnamon stick. Scatter the cranberries all over.
- Dissolve a stock cube and 1 teaspoon of cornflour in 350ml of water and pour into the dish, so that the stock level comes halfway up the chicken thighs. Pop in the oven for 40 minutes.
- If you're cooking chicken thighs with skin on, and the skin isn't crispy after 40 minutes of cooking, place the dish under the grill for another 5-8 minutes.
- Serve with white rice or our Festive Pilaf (find it at htts://somebodyfeedseb.com/christmas-rice/)
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