Roasted Root Veggies with Rosemary Chicken

This recipe is based on one of our favorites from the Whole 30 Cookbook. I adapted it to use ingredients I’m more likely to have on hand (bacon instead of pancetta), to use only one pan (because why dirty two?), and to use radishes that I can grow in my garden (the little color pop they give is really pretty). This is a perfect fall or winter work night dinner. Yes, you’ll need about 15 minutes or so to chop the veggies but that is really all the hands on time necessary. Then you have 30 minutes (while the one pan dinner cooks) to play with the kids or do whatever else you need to.

When roasting chicken, I prefer chicken thighs but I have included information in the recipe on how you can use chicken breasts if that is all you have on hand. If you are using chicken breasts for this recipe, check out how I make my chicken breast so much better by beating them.

This recipe calls for 1-2 pieces of bacon. You might be thinking, “Why would I open a whole pack of bacon for one piece?” But that’s not what I do most of the time. If we have bacon sometime during a weekend for breakfast, I frequently hoard a piece or two in a plastic baggie to cook with the rest of the week.

If you see radishes on the ingredient list and think “I’m out” please hear me out: roasted radishes taste completely different than raw. They have a much milder taste when cooked that is very similar to other root vegetables. I learned this when a good friend was telling me how she steams her radishes with butter for her kids who eat them faster than she can make a second batch. I’d basically avoided radishes since I was a kid up until she told me that. And those cooked radishes were apparently a gateway into radish loving for me because now I can’t get enough of them, cooked or raw.

So try it out and let me know what you think!

Happy cooking!

Roasted Root Veggies with Rosemary Chicken

by Mel from Served With Love (in Colorado) February-13-2018

This one pan dinner is perfect on a fall or winter work night. If you don’t have bacon, substitute olive oil. If you don’t have fresh rosemary or a lemon, salt and pepper will be just fine. (But the lemon and rosemary do make it extra special.)

Ingredients

1 peeled sweet potato
1 peeled rutabaga
2 carrots
2 parsnips
1 small onion
1/2-1 bunch, depending on size/preference radishes
1-2 slices bacon
3-6, depending on size chicken thighs or breasts
1 Tablespoon fresh rosemary
1 lemon lemon zest
1 garlic clove
salt
pepper

Instructions

1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees

2) Cut onion into half moon slices

3) Chop vegetables (peeled sweet potato, peeled rutabaga, peeled parsnip, carrot, and radishes) into 3/4 inch cubes

4) Chop bacon into 1/2 in pieces

5) Combine vegetables, onion, and bacon in a shallow roasting pan or cookie sheet with edges

6) Sprinkle with salt and pepper and toss to combine

7) Cover with foil

8) Bake for 10 minutes

9) While the vegetables are roasting, prepare the chicken. If using chicken breasts, put them in a plastic zip loc bag and flatten them to 3/4 in thick. If using chicken thighs, no flattening is needed.

10) Zest lemon

11) Chop fresh rosemary

12) Mince garlic clove

13) Combine lemon zest, rosemary, and garlic and run your knife through them together a few times

14) Once 10 minutes is up on veggies, uncover the pan and mix the veggies. Push chicken pieces down into the pan, removing the large veggies from underneath them. (The occasional onion or bacon under the chicken won’t do anything but good.)