The One-Pan Chicken Dinner That’ll Save Your Weeknights

As a recipe developer, I spend my days cooking, baking, and tasting. As much as I love my job, I’m ready to get out of the kitchen by six o'clock each day. This means I often rely on quick, simple, and, most importantly, dependable recipes for weeknight dinners. Sheet pan meals are a favorite, as they let the oven do most of the work and require just a few minutes of prep.

Recently, this easy chicken dinner has been a lifesaver: Juicy chicken thighs, crispy croutons, and tender, broiled asparagus are all cooked on a single baking sheet, then served over a bed of hearty frisée. A sweet, tangy salad dressing made with mustard, honey, vinegar, garlic, and oil serves double duty as a flavorful marinade, brushed on the chicken partway through cooking for extra flavor and a shiny finish.

Get More From Your Sheet Pan

While it's tempting to throw everything on a sheet pan and hope for the best, there's a more thoughtful approach to take. As Serious Eats editorial director, Daniel, wrote in his 10 Essential Rules for the Best Sheet Pan Dinners, "the act of orchestrating a more complex recipe on a single sheet pan requires a good deal of cooking intuition and technique." Because different foods cook at different rates, preparing and assembling a delicious meal on a single sheet pan benefits from "a much greater degree of coordination, space management, and understanding of how different ingredients cook."

With a bit of planning, you can have chicken that's well-browned and juicy, croutons that are toasted but not burned, and tender asparagus that's tender but not mushy. The key is to cook the meal in two different phases: I bake the chicken and croutons in a 450°F (230°C) oven until the bread is crisp and the chicken is cooked, then I swap the croutons out for fresh stalks of asparagus. The pan goes under the broiler, which provides just enough heat to brown the chicken and cook the asparagus until it's sweet and tender.

Because the hottest areas of a sheet pan are around the edges, I arrange the chicken around the perimeter of the pan. Likewise, placing the cubed bread in the center prevents it from browning too quickly, though you'll still need to flip the bread once to encourage even cooking. The same goes for the asparagus: Placing it in the center of the pan means it won't overcook or burn before the chicken is done.

Getting the Chicken Right

In the first phase of cooking, the chicken is cooked to a safe internal temperature (165°F/74°C), and the croutons become golden and toasty, a process that takes approximately 15 minutes. The chicken is technically cooked at this stage, but for maximum flavor and browning, I flip the chicken thighs, glaze them, then place them under the broiler to continue cooking. As Serious Eats senior culinary editor Leah has noted, cooking your chicken thighs to 185 to 195°F (85 to 90°C) is actually "the key to peak tenderness." The higher temperature breaks down collagen into gelatin, resulting in tender, juicy meat.

Reach for Hardy Greens

Frisée is hardy and slightly bitter, which allows it to stand up to the sweet, punchy dressing and won't easily wilt under the heat of the cooked chicken. If you can't find frisée, you can substitute other greens; a blend of hearty chicories, such as radicchio or endive, would work well. Though mixed greens are far more delicate than frisée or radicchio, they'll work in a pinch, but keep in mind they're far more delicate and likely to wilt. To avoid this, you can always place your chicken to the side of the salad, rather than on top.

Schmaltzy Croutons, Please

After the chicken and asparagus have been removed from the sheet pan, I like to briefly return the croutons to the pan and stir them around in the chicken juices—which gives them a nice savory flavor—before putting them on top of the salad.