The chill in the air is just right for warming one-pot meals. Make them healthy, quick, and easy to put together and you have a winner on your hands. Last year at the Cake and Bake show which I attended with a dear friend and fellow blogger, I ended up spending a bomb (£££!!!!) on four different sized pots – non – stick being one of their biggest virtues. One of them is a huge wok which I intend to use to make a stir fry over the weekend. The coating is said to last for years and each vessel comes with a glass lid. I can apparently also shove them directly into the oven but haven’t tried that yet. The big and rather saucepan is what I use as my crockpot for making one-pot meals in. In fact, there is something very comforting watching a warming curry or gorgeously tasty and nutritious one-pot meals!
Ok so coming back to my one pot recipe. I had a bag of baby spinach leaves in my fridge and was craving a wholesome soupy stew with lots of vegetables. So managed to gather a few things that I think would taste great together and then added in Knorr onion gravy pots and Knorr mixed chilli pot for flavour and the result was so very satisfying. But the best part was adding in Ras El Hanout a delicious and fiery moroccan and North African fragrant spice mix. The delicate dried rose petals look so pretty , that’s why I decided to name my dish Moroccan Chicken one pot.I also devoured it for lunch today – umm.
Make this in a large quantity and it will freeze well. Batch cooking is highly recommended as it saves you time and ensures that you do not eat things that you will end up regretting when you are hard pressed for time and simply cannot cook.The freezer is a wonderful boon, use it!
I purchased a beautiful Red Leicester and Pumpkin seed batard to go with my meal – it is soul-satisfying to mop up the thick gravy with the bread while sitting on the couch watching my fav crime show on the telly, feeling all warm and happy.
The best part of this recipe is I haven’t added in potatoes or extra sugar to taste and yet the flavours are so well balanced. (Though both gravy pots do contain sugar) I love stocking up on these tiny Knorr flavour pots they are life-savers!
A recipe with enough spinach to make Popeye jump with joy! Spinach has several health benefits and is known to be a great source of folic acid and several essential vitamins and great levels of iron too. Best part is a big bag of spinach can be consumed in no time as the leaves are high in water content and it reduces in size when cooked.
Easy Moroccan Chicken one pot
Ingredients
- 2 tsp Olive oil
- 1 Large Red Onion
- 2 cloves Garlic
- 270 Grams Mixed – Broccoli, Carrot and Cauliflower
- 500 Grams Chicken thighs
- 75 Grams Trimmed green beans
- 4 or 5 Chestnut Mushrooms
- 1.5 Knorr onion gravy flavour pot
- 1 Knorr mixed chillies flavour pot
- 4 tbsp spinach leaves
- 3/4th Cup Red lentils – without skin and halved
- 1/2 tsp Ras El Hanout
- 1/2 tsp Roasted Cumin Powder
- Salt as per taste
- Water
Instructions
- Remove the skin from thechicken thighs after washing thoroughly under running water
- Chop the chicken thighs to make strips of the flesh leaving just enough on the bone
- Wash and cut the broccoli, carrots,cauliflower, green beans and chestnut mushrooms bitsinto bite sized pieces
- Slice an onion lengthwise into fine strips
- Remove the skin from the garlic cloves and chop into tiny bits
- In a large saucepan or stockpot heat olive oil on a medium flame, when the oil becomes to heat up add the finely chopped garlic and saute’ until they turn a golden brown then add in the sliced onion
- Stirring occasionally allowthe onion to sweat and just when it begins to brown add in the chopped vegetables and saute for half a minute
- Then add in the chicken thighs and saute for another minute
- Then wash and add the red lentils , add enough water to create a thick gravy – enough to allow the lentils to cook and not soak up all the water. Then add in the Knorr flavour pots and mix well
- Then add the washed spinach leaves, cumin powder and cover and cook on a medium flame for 15 minutes
- By now the lentils will have cooked and the chicken will almost be done too
- Then taste the soupy water and if it is too spicy add just a very tinypinch the Ras El Hanout , I added 1/2 a tsp as the tastereminded me of garam masala. Ras El Hanout is a moroccan mixture of fragrant spices with rose petals and gives the stock pot a gorgeous full bodiedflavour
- Cook for a further 10-15 minutes on a gentle low flame
- Serve in large bowls with a big portion of the pumpkin batard bread
Oh wow!
This sounds amazing! <3
I would love to give this ago – My mouth is watering already.
Thanks for sharing lovely
Charlotte x
Awww Thanks a ton for ur super compliments Charlotte!
WOW! this looks and sounds amazing! I am going to try this chilli next week
You must try it out Vicky, I have one portion in my freezer saved for next week!
Mmmmm this looks delicious! I always love trying new Moroccan recipes – reminds me when we completed a cookery course in Marrakech.
Thank You, Samantha, I too love Moroccan recipes, oo love the sound of a cookery class in Marrakech!
Love moroccan flavours and your dish looks very comforting! It must be amazing and very fragrant looking at all those ingredients 🙂 xx
Thanks!It is quite fragrant Sylvia and oh so comforting.xx
I’m a big fan of one pot cooking! Saves on the washing up apart from anything else
Oh yes, that is such a blessing!
Sounds so tasty and flavourful! One to try very soon, my family will love it.
ah sounds good Lucy, I absolutely love easy, healthy meals 🙂
I am a big fan of the one-pot and also rather envious of your new pans, that one certainly looks really useful. Tasty looking meal, always good when you can include stuff lurking in the fridge.
Yes, Janice, I am now buying fewer things and sop less often and aim to use up everything in the fridge in a big attempt to eat healthily, cook daily and also as a result reduce wastage. It is also helping us eat much more healthier as I am not tempted to buy things that are not good for us. Oh and yes those pans sighhh I am in LOVE with this one!
Just the sort of recipe I love – so easy too!
Thank You Harriet we are both great fans of Red lentils and I love quick and healthy one-pot recipes!
This is my kind of food – I Love Moroccan flavours and I love adding lentils to stews … wanders over to shopping list of fridge to add lentils as I know I finished the last of them last week with pumpkin, lentil, chilli and coconut soup.
umm love the sound of your soup too!
I really like the sound of this one Manjiri.
Thanks, Bintu!
I’m loving the simplicity of this! A fab recipe, thank you for sharing with the no waste food challenge, and apologies for taking so long to do the round up!
Hi Elizabeth, thank you so very much for your kind compliments. I love the challenge you have created and it is so important that we as bloggers make the most of what we have and believe and minimize waste and work towards eliminating food waste.