One-pan Portuguese Chicken and Potato Bake

Here’s a fabulous chicken and potato dish that comes together quickly and is all baked in one pan! It’s a Portuguese flavoured chicken that’s roasted on a bed of garlicky lemon potatoes that soaks up all the glorious chicken drippings. Fast prep. Big flavours!

One-pan Portuguese Chicken and Potato Bake

Last year I shared a Nando’s Portuguese Chicken and Rice recipe that was such an unexpected hit, it was only a matter of time I did a potato version. And here it is – only took me a year!

The chicken is slathered in a Portuguese Peri Peri spice rub that only calls for pantry staples, then it’s roasted on a bed of sliced potatoes tossed in a good amount of garlic and lemon. The chicken bakes up beautifully golden and the potatoes soak up the chicken juices and end up tasting like Greek Lemon Potatoes!

I really hate to play favourites with food…..but I really think this might trump the chicken and rice version…..

Ingredients in Portuguese Chicken and Potato Bake

Here’s what you need to make this chicken and potato bake.

1. The CHICKEN, potato AND VEGETABLES

• Chicken cut – The chicken I’ve used is bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs. The skin helps the spice paste caramelises beautifully in the oven, and chicken releases a good amount of juices that gets absorbed by the potatoes and makes the tasty sauce too.

  Other suitable cuts – Drumsticks and Marylands (chicken leg quarters) are also ideal, quantities and adjusted bake times are in the recipe card. Boneless cuts – Breast and boneless thighs also work, but need less oven time and a quick blast under the grill/broiler to brown. Directions for these are in the recipe card too!

• Potatoes – Use a waxy variety if you can, the washed potatoes sold in Australia are typically all-rounders that lean towards waxy, or red potatoes or baby potatoes (new potatoes). That supermarkets don’t usually specify the variety does my head in! But white washed = waxy and dirty = starchy is a good general rule of thumb.

  Yukon Gold are ideal if you’re in the States. Waxy potatoes hold their shape better so they won’t break as easily when you scoop them up. But actually this recipe will work just fine with starchy potatoes too, the potatoes will just be a little more delicate.

  Don’t use sweet potatoes though, they will turn into mush!

• Red onion and capsicum – Bringing some vegetables into the dish, along with flavour. I especially love what capsicum brings into this dish! If you want to dial up the vegetables, you can reduce the amount of potato and add carrots instead.

2. THE FLAVOURS

The Portuguese Chicken is flavoured with a spice blend rather than the pureed type of Peri Peri marinade (like in this one). Quicker and pantry friendly, it’s a shameless copycat of the Nando’s Peri Peri dry rub and also the Portuguese seasoning from Herbie’s. 🙂. 🙂

• Simple Portuguese seasoning for chicken (Nando’s copycat) – Pantry staples!

  • Herbs and spices – Paprika, garlic powder (substitute fresh garlic), dried oregano, coriander, brown sugar and cayenne pepper for touch of warmth (feel free to omit). The brown sugar is a bit of a secret ingredient here, makes the chicken caramelise beautifully!

  • Wet ingredients (to make a paste so it coats the chicken) – olive oil and lemon juice (substitute with white or red wine vinegar, or apple cider vinegar). I add the lemon juice to cut down on the oil, and also a bit of tang balances the flavours.

• Lemon juice, dried oregano and garlic (lots!) – For flavouring the potato bake with a tasty garlicky lemony flavour. Greek Lemon Potato vibes! Plus, it gives the potatoes their own flavour rather than everything in the pan tasting the same.

• Olive oil – I like to use extra virgin olive oil here, as it adds flavour. But it’s ok if you just use regular olive oil.

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How to make One-pan Portuguese Chicken and Potato Bake

This recipe has a nice flow to it – chop the veg, pile into the pan, toss with seasonings. Then give it a head start in the oven while you prepare the Portuguese spice mix and coat the chicken. Once the chicken is in, there’s nothing to do except put out plates for dinner!

1. Potato bake first – Slice up the potatoes, capsicum and onion, and put them straight into a roasting pan. Squeeze over lemon juice, drizzle with olive oil, mince the garlic straight on using a garlic press, sprinkle with dried oregano, salt and pepper. Give it all a good toss with your hands.

2. 25 minute head start – Then pop it in the oven to give it a head start. Because we’ve got a fair volume of potatoes here, they take longer to cook than the chicken.

3. Portuguese spice blend – Mix the Portuguese spice blend, olive oil and lemon juice in a large(ish) bowl. Then add the chicken and use tongs to turn and swipe, to coat all sides of the chicken with the bright red paste.

4. Top with chicken – Pop the chicken on top of the potatoes. I like to tuck the flappy skin under so the thighs are bundled up into a neat shape. This helps them cook more evenly, holds the juices in a bit more, plus it leaves more potato surface exposed so they can get a bit of colour on them.

5. Bake for 40 minutes or until the surface is beautifully caramelised, or if you have extra large or extra small ones, you might want to check the internal temperature – 76°C/161.6°F is what it should be (it will climb higher as it rests).

   Note on baking time – I know 25 minutes plus 40 minutes sounds like an unusually long time for the potatoes to cook, but because of various factors (using quite a bit of potato, waxy potatoes take longer to cook than starchy ones and chicken is added partway through cooking), they really do take this long.

6. Dinner, ready! Pull the pan out of the oven, and serve! Chicken, potatoes and vegetables for everyone, with plenty of the tasty lemon sauce to spoon into bowls and mop up with bread!

Serve this with some regular bread or pita bread to dunk into the sauce, or just slurp it up like soup (it will surprise no one I did the latter).

And as I briefly mentioned in the ingredients section, if you’d like to add extra vegetables into this (ie. the non starchy kind) rather than making a separate side salad, you can swap out some of the potato with carrot. Otherwise, scatter over a punnet of cherry tomatoes for the last 15 minutes of baking, or when it comes out of the oven litter it with a handful of rocket lettuce (that’s arugula, for those of you in the States!). Double duty – garnish and salad in one! 🙂 – Nagi x

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Watch how to make it

Life of Jaffle

Scenes from a Jaffle weekend. Still small enough to forcibly cuddle (just):

Mother and son (Yes, at 5 months old, son has outgrown mother):

Contemplated swimming:

Ready to work:

Not ready to leave:

Found a restaurant that recognises his importance:

Sat for a portrait that made him look like he’s never dug a hole in his life:

And took a moment to remember the legend that came before him. Here he is, on this day, 12 months ago:

I still miss you Dozer, every single day. The chaos that is Jaffle will never heal the hole in my heart that you left, but he’s brought smiles back into my life. I will love you forever – your mum. xx