One-Skillet Braised Chicken with Shallots

Hungry for moist, flavorful chicken without a lot of fuss? Tired of a pile of pots and pans after cooking dinner? Say hello to your next best chicken recipe, easy, adaptable and cooked in a single skillet right on the stove, no need to heat up the oven. It's so simple: just braise chicken drumsticks and/or chicken thighs in a gorgeous light white wine and mustard sauce, your kitchen will smell so good!

Real Food, Fresh & Flexible. Another Quick Suppers, a Kitchen Parade Specialty. Budget-Friendly. Low Cal. Weight Watchers Friendly. High Protein.

~ Skip Straight to the Recipe ~

What About It, Is There Such a Thing As Too Many Chicken Recipes?

"Because I just don't need any more chicken recipes!" I parry back whenever someone probes why I don’t write / haven’t written / aren't writing a cookbook.

And the truth is, Kitchen Parade, of sorts, has become my online cookbook, a body of work, a collection of my very best recipes but in living form, easy to update with new tweaks, new lessons, new simplifications, new adaptations.

So when I contemplate "creating" more recipes – where, from the air, just to be different? and just to say I've written a cookbook? – my eyes cross and my mind goes blank.

Because really, I have enough chicken recipes for a lifetime. Why would I seek out more? I'm just not a more-more-more person. I'm more an enough-is-enough person.

Well, How About Just One More?

So how did I end up with – happily I might add – still another chicken recipe? Thank you, Facebook friends who occasionally share recipes, lookin' at you, Cathy WH! I was out of dinner ideas and had all the ingredients on hand. Voila, supper on the table!

What Is Braising, Again?

So to understand braising, let's look at three cooking techniques, paying close attention to the liquid amount.

BAKED or ROASTED (NO LIQUID) Baking chicken is easy, just throw some chicken pieces onto a pan and into the oven. Here I still call chicken pieces baked in a hot, dry oven without any extra liquid Vince's Baked Chicken. Or if you bake a whole chicken, we call it roasting, like my wonderful Fast Roast Chicken. So good! But take note: there's no liquid when baking or roasting chicken.

BOILED or POACHED (LIQUID TO COVER) Boiling a chicken is also easy, just cover it with liquid and let it simmer away, usually on the stove but also in a low oven. There's a very slow simmer called "poaching" but either way, take note here, the chicken is completely immersed in liquid.

BRAISED (SOME LIQUID) When it comes to liquid, braising sits right in the middle between baking/roasting and boiling/poaching. The braising technique uses some liquid, usually enough to come about halfway up the sides of the chicken pieces, but doesn't cover the chicken. Braising liquids vary so much, from stock to wine to apple cider to milk to (you get the idea) and often there are other ingredients that flavor the liquid as well as the meat and/or vegetables. When the braising liquids cook down, they form a sauce, right in the pan, no extra effort! Braising is a great choice for moist, flavorful chicken that's slow-cooked either on the stove (like this recipe) or in the oven.

And What Are Shallots, Again?

Shallots are small elongated onions with brown papery skins. In my grocery stores, they're usually sold loose alongside garlic bulbs. I keep a few in the fridge, they seem to keep better and longer than regular onions – and handy to have on hand for recipes that call for just a tablespoon or two of onion.

Think of shallots as having "kinder, gentler" onion flavor with a hint of garlic. When cooked, they go all soft and dreamy-creamy. If you're new to shallots, they're definitely worth a try.

And what if you don't have any shallots? I haven't actually tried this but I would definitely cut up a red onion or two into wedges (about eight wedges per onion). Would a yellow or white onion work too? I do believe!

And what if you're not into onion? Then I'd cut up wedges of butternut squash or sweet potatoes or even carrots or celery sticks. What's special about this recipe is the white wine and mustard sauce, the vegetables are entirely variable!

Bookmark! PIN! Share!

How do you save and share favorite recipes? recipes that fit your personal cooking style? a particular recipe your mom or daughter or best friend would just love? If just one more chicken recipe hits the mark, go ahead, save and share! I'd be honored ...

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QUICK SUPPER: ONE-SKILLET BRAISED CHICKEN WITH SHALLOTS

Hands-on time: 30 minutes
Time to table: 90 minutes
Makes 8 drumsticks or 8 thighs or a mix

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt
• 1/2 - 1 tablespoon ground black pepper (depending on your taste for pepper)
• 8 pieces chicken - drumsticks or thighs

• 8 large shallots, peeled and halved or 16 small shallots, peeled but left whole
• 2 cups white wine
• 1 - 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard (fresh Dijon can be quite sharp, even harsh)
• Grape tomatoes, halved
• Fresh tarragon or other herbs

Heat the butter and oil on medium high in a large, heavy skillet with a cover until shimmery.

While the fat heats, stir together the flour, salt and pepper in a shallow dish. If you like, remove the skins from the chicken pieces and pat the meat dry. Dust chicken pieces with flour. When the fat is hot, drop the chicken into the skillet (it should sizzle) and brown the chicken well without moving on both sides, turning just once. Set the chicken aside.

Reduce heat to medium and add the shallots to the skillet and let cook, turning once, until golden brown. If the skillet gets dry, add a little liquid (a splash of the wine or water, either one); you want to cook the shallots not burn them. Stir in the wine and mustard, then nestle the chicken pieces into the liquid.

Reduce heat to low and cover the skillet, let simmer for 30 minutes.

Remove the cover, nestle in the tomatoes and let simmer for another 15 minutes until sauce begins to thicken and tomatoes soften.

Top with tarragon, serve tableside with Mashed Potatoes & Carrots or Rustic Mashed Sweet Potatoes & Carrots.

ALANNA's TIPS Ours is a skin-on drumstick (him) and skinless thigh (her) household and lucky me, this one-pot skillet dish handles both with ease, separately or mixed. Could you use chicken breasts? Sure but I would cut large breasts into three- or four-ounce serving pieces before browning them. If you're a skin-off household, one trick is to keep the skin of just one leg or thigh and add it to the skillet with the butter and oil. This adds just enough good chicken flavor with many fewer calories. Do be sure to brown the chicken really well, it's needed for color. The shallots almost melt into something creamy, very good! Pearl onions would work too, the frozen ones are so convenient! No tomatoes or tarragon? Don't worry, they're mostly for color. Careful readers will spy mushroom pieces tucked into the sauce, very good but also not necessary.

NUTRITION INFORMATION (Assumptions: 3 ounces cooked dark meat per serving; only half the flour/seasoning mixture is used; 75% alcohol cooks off.) Per serving: 285 Calories; 10g Tot Fat; 3g Sat Fat; 82mg Cholesterol; 351mg Sodium; 17g Carb; 1g Fiber; 1g Sugar; 26g Protein. WEIGHT WATCHERS POINTS (Assumption: 3 oz cooked chicken breast.) Old Points 6 & PointsPlus 7 & SmartPoints 7 & Freestyle 3 & myWW green 5 & blue 3 & purple 3 CALORIE COUNTERS 100-calorie serving = 1.75 ounces (13g protein).

Adapted from New York Times, thanks to the Facebook inspiration of my friend-in-real-life and fellow food fanatic Cathy WH who made it for dinner and served it with mashed potatoes, good idea!

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Six Reasons I Don't Need Another Chicken Recipe

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~ My Best & Favorite One-Pot Supper Recipes ~
~ more chicken recipes ~

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Kitchen Parade is written by second-generation food columnist Alanna Kellogg and features fresh, seasonal dishes for every-day healthful eating and occasional indulgences. Quick Suppers are Kitchen Parade favorites and feature recipes easy on the budget, the clock, the waistline and the dishwasher. Do you have a favorite recipe that other Kitchen Parade readers might like? Just send me a quick e-mail via recipes@kitchen-parade.com. How to print a Kitchen Parade recipe. Never miss a recipe! If you like this recipe, sign up for a free e-mail subscription. If you like Kitchen Parade, for more scratch cooking recipes using whole, healthful ingredients, you're sure to like my food blog about vegetable recipes, too, A Veggie Venture. If you make this recipe, I'd love to know your results! Just leave a comment below.

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