One Pan Chicken Dinner

Reasons to Love This One Pan Chicken Dinner

• Easy clean-up. I love one pan dinners like this skillet chicken with orzo and my lemon chicken skillet that don’t require a full evening’s commitment in the kitchen! Cleaning up afterward is fast, with only one skillet to wash.
• Full of flavor. Since everything cooks in the same pan, all those flavors build on each other. The result is a delicious yet super simple dinner that’s packed with the flavors of smoky seared chicken, fresh lemon, and garlic, with herbs like thyme, oregano, and parsley.
• Great leftovers. I love meal-prepping this skillet chicken recipe. It’s fresh and easy, and it stores well in the fridge for quick lunches.

Ingredients You’ll Need

This easy chicken recipe ticks all the flavor boxes: onions, garlic, herbs, and lemon. It’s bulked up with orzo pasta, and you need just a few easy ingredients to make it in one pan. Here are some quick notes. Scroll down to the recipe card for the printable ingredients and instructions.

• Chicken Breasts – You can also make this recipe with chicken thighs. If you’re using bone-in chicken or thighs, the chicken will need slightly longer to cook.
• Herbs – Dried oregano and thyme, plus salt and pepper. You can replace dried herbs with fresh (I recommend a 1:3 ratio of dried to fresh), or use an herb blend, like Italian seasoning.
• Olive Oil and Butter – For sautéeing. You can use all of one or the other if you prefer, though olive oil is best for searing the chicken. 
• Onion – Sweet or yellow onion, finely chopped.
• Orzo – Despite its rice-like appearance, orzo is a short-cut pasta made from semolina flour. You’ll find it in the grocery aisle next to the other dried pasta.
• Garlic – Freshly minced, or you can substitute ¼ teaspoon of garlic powder per clove.
• Chicken Broth – I like to use low-sodium chicken broth or stock. You could also use vegetable stock.
• Lemon Juice – Freshly squeezed lemon juice has the best flavor, but since there’s just a small amount, the bottled kind will work here, too.
• Fresh Parsley – Chopped, for garnish.

How to Make One Pan Chicken With Orzo

Follow these steps to make this delicious weeknight chicken dinner. You’ll find the full printable recipe in the recipe card after the post.

Recipe Tips and Variations

• Rest the chicken. Cover the chicken with foil and give it at least 5 minutes to rest while you prepare the orzo. Resting lets the juices redistribute throughout the chicken, so it’ll be extra tender when you slice into it later.
• Don’t overcook. Since the chicken will continue to cook through while it rests, and you’ll heat it through again afterward, be careful not to overcook it with the first sear. The final internal temperature of the chicken should be 165ºF, so it’s fine if you remove it from the pan when it’s just shy of that. Check the chicken for doneness at the end, too, to ensure it’s cooked to 165ºF for serving.
• Add veggies. You can sauté more vegetables like broccoli, cherry tomatoes, asparagus, carrots, and mushrooms in the pan before you cook the orzo. Move the veggies to a plate and add them back in with the chicken at the end.
• Use leftovers. This one pan chicken recipe is also a wonderful way to use up leftover ingredients in the fridge. Use cooked chicken breasts and leftover vegetables like roasted butternut squash or roasted Brussels sprouts. In this case, add them to the orzo at the end (when you’d usually add the chicken back to the pan) so that everything heats through.
• Swap orzo for rice. If you wanted, you could substitute orzo pasta with rice in this recipe to make an easy one pan chicken and rice. I’d recommend risotto rice, like Arborio, but any type will work. The cooking times may vary.

Serving Suggestions

The idea of a one pan chicken dinner is that you have a complete meal in one! So, this chicken and orzo is a delicious dinner served hot from the skillet with a sprinkle of freshly grated parmesan. If I want to round out the meal further, I’ll serve it with a tomato mozzarella salad on the side. It’s also great with other vegetables, like roasted green beans, and bread, like this cheesy quick bread. Another favorite is these copycat Olive Garden breadsticks. As for dessert, we’re all about these lemon sugar cookies lately!

Storing and Reheating Leftovers

• Refrigerate. Store any leftover chicken with the orzo in an airtight container. This chicken dinner lasts in the fridge for up to 3-4 days. It’s also great to portion into individual servings for meal prep.
• Reheat. Warm leftovers in the microwave, or you can reheat them in a skillet. The orzo tends to dry out a bit when stored, so I always sprinkle in chicken broth or water when reheating to help moisten it up again.
• Freeze. Freeze this chicken dinner for up to 2 months. Thaw it out in the fridge before reheating.

More One Pan Chicken Recipes

• Tuscan Chicken
• Chicken Marsala
• One Pan Garlic Chicken
• Salsa Verde Chicken Skillet
• One Pan Southwest Chicken Skillet