“Chicken Hurry” is a fast and simple recipe for busy weeknights!
Serve over some rice, throw a veggie with it if you'd like, and you're done.
It's basically an easy chicken dish with a super flavorful barbecue-type sauce, but it's a FAST dish to pull together and you'll love it! It came from my friend's Mom, who has since passed away, God bless her soul. I've changed the recipe quite a bit, though, because it originally called for “onion soup mix”, but those packets are still full of MSG and other scary mystery ingredients. Instead it's pretty simple to just make a few easy substitutions!
Since “busy” seems to describe most of us these days, I figured you could use another “fast food at home” meal.
You can easily make this ahead too!
Chicken Hurry Recipe
Servings: 8 servings
Ingredients
Chicken
- Chicken – use any chicken pieces you'd like, with or without bones, with or without skin. Breasts or thighs. I used 4 pounds of boneless, skinless thighs. If you don't have a good local farm source for safe, pastured meats, here's where I get healthy meat online. (See the note below if you're using chicken that was frozen.)
Tangy sauce
- 1 cup organic ketchup
- 2 Tablespoons yellow mustard
- 1/4 cup water
- 1/3 cup organic palm sugar or maple syrup (If you use palm sugar, dissolve it in the water before stirring it in)
- 2 Tablespoons organic dried onion or 2 fresh onions, chopped and caramelized/fried in butter
- 1 Tablespoon organic onion powder
- 1 Tablespoon garlic powder
- 3/4 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
For the top
- Optional: toasted sesame seeds and/or chopped green onions for the top
Instructions
- Place chicken in a buttered (or avocado sprayed) baking pan — I used an 11×14 stainless steel pan.
- Mix the sauce ingredients in a bowl and spread over the chicken. Flip the chicken over once and then back to get the sauce on both sides.
- Bake at 350* until done. Mine took about 35-40 minutes, but if your pieces are thicker or you're using chicken with bones, it may take longer.
The key to this Chicken Hurry recipe is cooking the chicken just long enough to make sure it's done, but no longer – then it's still moist and flavorful and won't be dried out. I like to use a thermometer, chicken is done when it reaches 165*.
- After it's done, sprinkle on the optional green onions and/or toasted sesame seeds. If your sesame seeds aren't toasted and you don't have time to pop them into the oven for a few minutes to toast them, just sprinkle them on for the last 15 minutes or so of baking.
- Serve with rice if desired. (We also used a little extra of our favorite barbecue sauce with a good ingredient label.) Rice cooks FAST in the pressure cooker and perfectly every time! See #9 at this post for how to do it: 10 best ways to use a pressure cooker for fast healthy meals. Or check out this easy make-ahead confetti rice recipe.
Notes
For an easy make-ahead main dish, after putting it together, just cover and keep in the fridge until about 45 minutes before you want to eat, then uncover, preheat and bake as directed above.
If you're using chicken that was in the freezer, bake it first for 20 minutes or so with a little sea salt and pepper sprinkled on top, strain the juices out from the bottom (being careful not to lose any chicken down the sink!), then spread the sauce over the top and finish baking.
See a whole list of easy fast food at home meals here!
The best ways to use a pressure cooker for healthy and fast meals
More you might like:
- My yummy organic popcorn recipe with coconut oil (be sure to use plenty of butter on top, because we all know now that butter is truly a healthy food, right?!)
- Scroll through more recipes here — this one will come up again too, just scroll through to the next ones
photo, Creative Commons 2.0
Karianne Leslie Rondeau says
Looks yummy
Carly Pugliese says
I’m going to have to try this! We make a similar sweet and sour (ketchup, honey, stock) with meatballs but your recipe is way less hands on
Tamsyn Medina says
I tried out this recipe today. I didn’t have dried onion, so I used some dried garlic instead. I made this with jasmine rice, so I used coconut oil for the rice and also to grease the baking pan. I also tried the maple syrup approach, and it is FABOOSH!! I will definitely make this again! Yummy! Thanks so much!