One Pan Honey Garlic Chicken Recipe

Honey and garlic chicken. What a combination. The great thing about this recipe is that you have sizzling, you have frying and it all results in a gorgeous chicken dinner that is perfect for midweek suppers. Let's get cooking. In my books every good chicken recipe starts with chicken thighs. I'm going to get a pan on nice and hot. So I'm going to get oil in our pan. Now this is going to get quite hot so use something that has a high smoking point like Irish rapeseed oil. We've got our chicken thighs looking pretty good. You want skin on, bone in. They're going to give you great flavour and give you really crispy chicken skin. When you're browning off the chicken like this, important you go heavy on the seasoning. So these are pretty much good to go. I've got my pan nice and smoking. And this is the trick to chicken thighs. It's to get them in there nice and hot. And I think a lot of people have this tendency when it comes to frying meat in general that they move them in the pan. But here you want to leave them and let them crisp up and go nice and golden. Anytime you see chicken or meat sticking to the bottom of the pan it tends to be because you're turning them too soon. Leave them rest, give them a moment and you will get glorious crispy golden chicken. Okay quick wash of the hands and then it's garlic time. Now everyone has their own way of peeling garlic and some work better than others. I like to crush the bulb with my hand, releasing the cloves. The quickest way to get the skin off is to cut the end off the clove and then using the flat of a large knife press down until it pops. It ain't pretty but the skin will come right off and you're good to go. Now this is honey and garlic chicken so we've got to go heavy on the garlic. I've got about six cloves here and I'm just going to finely slice them. What I love about this is that it goes heavy on the garlic. So you've got that honking stink of garlic. This is not one for if you've got a date coming over. This is one for really great comfort food. There's nothing like the smell of garlic frying. So let's get this straight in the pan, sprinkle it over the top of the chicken all the way over and now get in there with the tongs and it's time to flip this chicken. Now this is why I love using chicken pies. Look at that golden crispy skin and then those lovely bits of garlic that are just kind of going jammy in alongside it. This is looking absolutely gorgeous. It's time for the sauce. Start off with three tablespoons of reduced salt soy sauce for that salty umami flavour. Three tablespoons of white wine vinegar for sharpness and then three tablespoons of oozy honey to balance out the flavour and make it rich, sweet and sticky. That is it. Three ingredients, soy sauce, a little bit of vinegar and a touch of honey. Three tablespoons, three tablespoons and three tablespoons. Super simple to remember. Now that we've got our sauce together it's time for our veggies. Broccoli, spring onions and some sugar snap peas. Now all of these I've chosen specifically because they cook out quite quickly. With your broccoli take a sharp knife and just cut around the florets and this is where the super food in minutes moment happens with this recipe because we've all these gorgeous nutritious veggies that get plonked straight in amongst that sauce. We've got the sugar snap peas. I love these peas because they're going to cook really quickly but they still add a bit of crunch and green to this dish. Now have a look at this. This is where you take your spring onions to the next level. We're going to slice them on the diagonal just to give them a little bit more interest in the pan. So don't slice them too thinly. You want a bit of spring onion bite as part of this dish. Now I'm using all the spring onion here, white and green parts, no waste and I'm just giving them a quick wash before I'm slicing them up just to make sure there's no grit. Right, a lot of spring onions here. They all go straight in and grab up the tongs and it's time to kind of nuzzle those veggies in around the chicken. Make sure that they get coated in a little bit of that sauce. If your sauce is a little bit dry looking at this point, grab up a bowl, take some water and this is where you have to have a bit of confidence in the kitchen. Even if it doesn't follow exactly as it is in the recipe, improvise a little bit. A little touch of water will just bring that sauce back to life. Just look at those gorgeous greens and remember this is all about balance. We've got that crispy umami bite in the chicken but we also have that great nutrition in the greens that we've added here. Now on with the lid. This touch steam that's going on in here is going to help cook off our chicken. It needs no more than about three to five minutes just until those veggies are nice and tender. Let it cook for just a few minutes and then it's time for the final flourishes. Look at that beautiful steaming one pot chicken. To garnish, add a generous sprinkle of sesame seeds and for a hit of fragrance and freshness, tear in a handful of coriander. Now it's time to taste. I mean this is the magic of this dish. Tang of vinegar, saltiness from that soy sauce but the honey, that sweetness wrapped around it and then the really really tender chicken. This is why it's a magic one pan dinner. It's going to save you time in the kitchen and give you a really hunkenly good dinner. You can serve it straight to the table just like that and everyone can dig in. Happy days. Sticky, easy to remember and seriously delicious.