A tangy yogurt based marinade transforms chicken into zesty little bites in this meal prep friendly recipe.

Time: 2/5
Pre-butchered parts are where it’s at for maximum efficiency

Effort: 2/5
Why do the work when you can outsource it to your appliances?

A winning chicken dinner

Chicken, broccoli and rice. It’s a gymbro cliche for a reason – it’s a simple and effective way to eat right. I inadvertently started on a quest to document the many variations on chicken and rice that I’ve tested throughout the years, and I’m very happy to see my collection growing.

This recipe was actually a prototype for my earlier post on Yogurt Mint Chicken. I was researching how to replicate Chicken Tikka at home, and came across the concept of making use of the acidity of yogurt to tenderise meat. The fat also extracts fat-soluble flavours from the seasoning, and the viscosity allows the marinade to cling on the meat. Add to that some sugars to aid in browning, and you have a pretty powerful ingredient that combines many functions into one!

I’m a bit ashamed to admit that it took several rounds of Chicken Tikka for me to realise that the same principle can be applied to other recipes as well. A Chef John blog post (excellent as always) piqued my interest in chicken with a Mediterranean inspired flavour profile, and soon I was on my way to the store.

It worked really well! The chicken came out tender, tangy and deeply flavoured as a result of the yogurt marinade. Best of all, it was the kind of low-effort high-reward and scalable operation that lends itself so well to meal prep. While I served it as a topping for a rice bowl (of course), there’s no reason why it wouldn’t work equally well on a salad or in a sandwich.

If you’re interested in chicken that is even lower effort, check out what happened when I simply marinated chicken thighs in store bought barbecue sauce and stuck it in the oven.

Dramatis Personae

Chicken – 1kg of boneless wings for six meals

I picked up boneless wings from the store because they were on sale and I’ve always been curious about what they’re like. Turns out they’re a meal prepper’s dream, because it’s essentially dark meat with skin that comes in bite-sized pieces straight from the package with no further prep required.

Here is where I tell you that I have not been entirely truthful with rating the time and effort for this recipe. If you get boneless thighs and cut them into pieces yourself, it’s going to add a point each to time and effort. Of course, you could just do larger pieces of chicken or any other cut that roasts well like whole thighs, mid-joint wings, drumsticks or drumettes.

Marinade

Plain unsweetened yogurt is what’s going to bring everything together. Add to that lemon juice (from a Lazy Lemon, because I don’t use lemons often enough to justify keeping fresh ones around), plenty of finely minced garlic, dried mixed herbs (mine was mostly thyme, rosemary and sage) , copious amounts of black pepper and salt to taste.

Vegetables – 2 heads of broccoli, again for six portions

Always eat your veggies! Broccoli is nice because it’s relatively quick to break a head down into florets. Also, they don’t shrink by a ton after cooking like spinach so it is easier to judge how much you need to buy by eyeballing the volume.

Executive summary

1. Mix the chicken and marinade in a bowl. Cover and keep in the fridge overnight.
2. Get rice cooking. Preheat the oven and line your baking sheets.
3. Roast chicken pieces at 350F/180C for about 20 minutes, or until browned.
4. While chicken is roasting, bring a pot of salted water to boil.
5. Wash, cut up and blanche some broccoli in the salted water.
6. Assemble and serve.

Play by Play

Marinating in the biggest bowl I got. Make note of the garlic-to-chicken ratio: this is a SWR-approved level of garlicky-ness. Forgive the lighting, this was shot two kitchens ago where the lights would basically flip a coin to decide whether they wanted to function or not that particular day.

All dressed up and ready to go! This has been sitting overnight marinating in the fridge. I got back from work, switched on the oven to preheat and went to work lining a baking sheet with foil.

The baking paper makes sure there’s no sticking, and the foil makes clean up just, so easy.

While preparing the marinade I minced some extra garlic for the broccoli too, because that’s just a smart thing to do. Now the broccoli garlic gets a quick sizzle in hot oil.

I like my broccoli on the softer side, if you like yours greener you could stop before this point. The rice cooker was done by this point, so I could start dividing the rice up while waiting for the chicken.

First batch of chicken is done, and the second sheet tray goes in while I devour the first. Notice how my oven doesn’t heat up evenly, and some pieces of chicken are browner than the others. If you have the time, you could give the pieces a flip and a toss to even them out, but I’m after maximum efficiency here.

Bon appetit! My SO was out of town, so I didn’t bother plating everything up all nice. One meal down the hatch, five more to go.

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