{One Skillet} Lemon Chicken and Red Potatoes

A healthy, fresh, and flavorful one skillet meal – lemon chicken, red potatoes, and carrots. This is a simple dish all made in one skillet over the stove-top.

How was your weekend everyone?! Are you all sad it’s Monday already? Just the thing to combat with the Monday Blues is this dinner! It’s a super tasty and ridiculously easy one pot meal for you all. BONUS: it’s quite healthy – no cream sauces and still loads of flavor! Second bonus: definitely a family friendly meal!

We missed the celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. day last weekend, but this Monday all of Australia is celebrating Australia Day so the husband has the day off and it feels like a long weekend for us. It’s also supposed to be super hot so we are thinking it will be a beach day! We finally made it down to the zoo over the weekend and that was so much fun. I’ve always said the Chicago Zoo is my favorite, but I have to give the Perth Zoo first place now. I mean, is it really fair though when the Perth Zoo has koalas? <3.

The little man loves animals and naturally was just going crazy over all the new types of animals, especially the pelicans. He threw a fit when we left the bird exhibit because he wanted to go back. He also kept trying to pet the birds or pick them up. There are a lot of free roaming birds throughout the zoo, so this became his goal for the entire trip. Luckily the birds were always a bit quicker than him, but this was much to his dismay.

We were at the zoo for over 5 hours because there was so much to see and do. We watch an Elephant Show were one of their elephant’s just celebrated her 58th birthday. So the zoo keepers had made her a ginormous cake out of bread and fruit which she was inhaling.

Other highlights:

The tiger came right up to the window and paced from one end to the next for at least 20 minutes. We were totally mesmerized especially the little guy. It was cool being that close to such an active animal when they are usually hidden and sleeping somewhere in the exhibit.

The husband pet a kangaroo and I’m working up my nerves to do it. The kangaroos have a whole section in the zoo where they can roam freely and you can pet or interact with them. (SO COOL.)

I saw a KOALA BEAR. All caps needed because I’m obsessed with those cute, cuddly little bears <3. P.S. Did you know they sleep for 20 hours a day? I would go crazy.

But enough about the zoo! Let’s talk about this food! It is an extremely easy dish, but there is a bit of prep work in the cutting.

The carrots, red potatoes, and chicken all need to be sliced up before the meal is ready to be made. You could always use baby carrots in the place of cut up big carrots, although you may have to cook em a bit longer. Red potatoes are super easy and fast to cut, and then it’s just the chicken.

So a bit of prep, but easy stuff right? I mean, cutting is pretty mindless right? I love that part of cooking!

The red potatoes and carrots take a bit longer than the chicken to cook, so you start by cooking them in a melted butter + olive oil mixture. I place the vegetables (red potatoes cut side down) into two separate sections of the skillet and let them cook without touching them too much (monitoring, but leaving them alone).

This gives the red potatoes a nice crusty “shell” which I love – it’s so much flavor and a nice crunch. Definitely cook the potatoes to your preference though – if you don’t like the crusty feel of the potatoes, you’ll just need to stir them a bit while they are cooking.

The chicken goes into the last section of the skillet and the red potatoes + carrots get flipped/mixed around at this point. Then all the yummy spices and seasonings are added. My personal favorite is the sliced up lemon. I’ll admit, it’s probably because it’s so pretty looking that I love it so much, but putting the sliced lemon on top of all of the food and stirring it around with it all gives a boost of delicious and fresh lemon flavor.

It intensifies the flavor of the dish and will make your guests think the chicken had been marinating for hours. When it hasn’t. 🙂

With so few ingredients though make sure you are’t leaving anything out or you’ll likely miss out on flavor. I’m especially saying this about the fresh parsley – that is a MUST!

It adds so much good flavor and a perfect complement to the lemon. You can however, switch it out for a different herb like rosemary if you like that better. Just make sure there are some good herbs in the dish.

Oh and lots and lots of lemon pepper. Because yum.

5 from 6 votes

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{One Skillet} Lemon Chicken and Red Potatoes

Author: Chelsea

Ingredients

• 6 tablespoons olive oil separated
• 2 tablespoons butter do not substitute
• 1 cup chopped carrots
• 2 (~3 cups) chopped red potatoes skin on
• 2 large (~2 and 1/2 cups) boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 2 lemons
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• Salt, lemon pepper, and paprika, to taste
• Fresh parsley
• Optional: poultry seasoning, yellow onion

Instructions

1. Preheat a large (must be nonstick) skillet over medium heat with 2 tablespoons of olive oil and butter. (Use a large skillet dutch oven for more flavor).
2. Once the butter is completely melted, place the peeled and chopped carrots in one section of the skillet and the chopped red potatoes in another section of the skillet. (See picture above).
3. Make sure the cut side of the red potatoes are touching the skillet.
4. Allow to simmer uncovered without stirring for about 8 minutes.
5. Meanwhile, remove the fat from the chicken breasts and slice into thin tenderloins. Sprinkle the chicken with poultry seasoning or just a mixture of lemon pepper and salt. In the remaining section of the pan, add in the thinly sliced chicken tenderloins.
6. Flip the potatoes and carrots around and cook for another 5 minutes or until easily pierced with a fork while stirring and flipping the chicken until no longer pink.
7. Stir all of the ingredients together and add a generous amount of salt and lemon pepper. (I used A LOT).
8. Zest one of the lemons to get 1 teaspoon lemon zest. Juice one of the lemons.
9. Add the lemon zest, 3-4 tablespoons lemon juice, 4 tablespoons olive oil, very finely minced garlic, and a sprinkle of paprika to a small bowl. Stir together and pour into the skillet. (Add a chopped onion here if desired.)
10. Slice the remaining lemon into thin slices. Add the lemon slices to the skillet and allow the ingredients to simmer on low.
11. Stir the ingredients often (add extra olive oil if needed) until the liquid is absorbed into the ingredients and the chicken is completely cooked through.
12. Add more salt and pepper if desired and sprinkle with fresh parsley. (Discard lemon slices before serving).

 More Easy, One-Skillet Meals:

One Skillet Sweet Potato Burrito Bowls

One skillet cheesy taco pasta

One Skillet Southwest Quinoa Chili with Sweet Potato