I’ve been craving the salty, briny flavor of kalamata olives lately, so I bought a handful of olives off the olive/salad bar at the grocery store, combined them with a can of diced tomatoes, a few herbs, and made a wonderful sauce for this One Skillet Chicken with Orzo and Olives. The orzo and chicken cook right in the same skillet as the tomato and olive sauce, maximizing the flavor and making sure not a drop of goodness is lost. Plus, my favorite bonus of having everything cook in one skillet: fewer dishes to clean. Woot!
Can I Use Chicken Breast?
This recipe is written specifically for skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs. The dark meat of chicken thighs together with the bones and skin help keep the chicken moist and tender through the slightly longer cooking time. While you technically can use a boneless, skinless chicken breast, you’ll miss some of the flavor provided from the chicken skin and bones, and the chicken may be slightly on the drier side.
Can I Substitute the Olives?
If you don’t like or can’t find kalamata olives, you can achieve the same briny flavor with either capers or artichoke hearts. Both would pair beautifully with the other flavors in this dish.
Love briny flavors? Check out my Pasta Puttanesca or Chicken Piccata recipes!
What is Orzo?
Orzo is just a very small shaped pasta. It’s shaped a little bit like grains of rice, but slightly larger. It’s great for making pilafs, serving as a side dish, or adding to soup. You can find it in most major grocery stores either in the pasta aisle, or near other specialty Italian or Mediterranean ingredients.
What Else Can I Add to This Chicken and Orzo?
If you have a few extra dollars, a little crumbled feta would be amazing on this. Or, if you’re lucky enough to have a basil plant, try thinly slicing some fresh basil to sprinkle over top after cooking.
What Do You Serve with Chicken and Orzo?
I would consider this a “one pot meal” or “one bowl meal” because it has everything I’d want in one dish–meat, grain, and vegetables. If you want to add a side, you could do a simple green salad with a light vinaigrette, and maybe some homemade garlic bread.
One Pot Chicken with Orzo and Olives
Servings 4Ingredients
- 4 chicken thighs (bone-in, skin on) ($5.66)
- 1 pinch salt and pepper ($0.05)
- 1 Tbsp olive oil ($0.12)
- 4 cloves garlic, minced ($0.24)
- 1 15oz. can diced tomatoes* ($0.89)
- 1/3 cup pitted kalamata olives ($1.62)
- 1/2 tsp dried oregano ($0.05)
- 2 cups chicken broth** ($0.26)
- 1.5 cups orzo (uncooked) ($0.89)
- 1/4 bunch parsley (optional) ($0.25)
Instructions
- Pat the chicken thighs dry with a paper towel, then sprinkle both sides with a pinch of salt and pepper. Heat the olive oil in a large, deep skillet over medium heat. Once the oil is hot and shimmering, add the chicken thighs with the skin side down. Cook the chicken thighs on each side until golden brown (about 5-7 minutes each side), then remove to a clean plate.
- Pour off the excess fat from the skillet, leaving just enough to sauté the garlic. Turn the heat down to medium-low, add the minced garlic, and sauté for about one minute, or just until the garlic is soft and very fragrant.
- Add the diced tomatoes (with juices), oregano, olives, and some freshly cracked pepper. Stir the tomatoes, herbs, and olives to combine and allow the juices from the tomatoes to dissolve any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Roughly chop the kalamata olives, and add them to the skillet.
- Add the chicken broth and orzo to the skillet, and stir to combine. Nestle the browned chicken thighs down into the skillet, place a lid on the skillet and turn the heat up to medium-high. Allow the skillet to come to a boil, then turn the heat down to low, or the lowest temperature needed to maintain a gentle simmer. Let the skillet simmer for 15 minutes with the lid in place.
- Turn the heat off and let the skillet rest for 5 minutes. The tomatoes and olives will have risen to the top, so use a fork to gently stir or fluff the orzo, tomatoes, and olives back together. The orzo should be tender and slightly saucy. Pull the parsley leaves from the stems, roughly chop them, and sprinkle over top.
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Notes
Nutrition
Scroll down for the step by step photos!
How to Make Chicken with Orzo and Olives – Step by Step Photos
Start with four bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs. Pat them dry with a paper towel (this helps facilitate browning and reduce splatter), then season on both sides with a pinch of salt and pepper.
Heat 1 Tbsp olive oil in a deep skillet over medium heat. Once the oil is hot and shimmering, add the chicken thighs, skin side down.
Cook the chicken thighs on each side until golden brown (about 5-7 minutes each side), then remove them to a clean plate. The chicken will only be partially cooked at this point, but it will continue to cook through while it simmers with the orzo. The chicken will let off quite a bit of fat as they cook, so pour off the excess oil, leaving just a small amount to cook the garlic.
Turn the heat down to medium-low. Add four cloves of minced garlic to the skillet and sauté in the leftover fat for about one minute, or just until the garlic has softened a bit and is very fragrant.
Add one 15oz. can of diced tomatoes and stir to help the tomato juices dissolve the browned bits from the bottom of the skillet. I used a garlic and onion-flavored diced tomato because they were on sale, but you can use plain diced tomatoes as well.
Roughly chop about 1/3 cup of kalamata olives. I grabbed this handful of olives off the olive bar at my local grocery store so that I could avoid purchasing an entire jar. They are already pitted, so I just cut them into smaller pieces so they would distribute throughout the dish better.
Add the chopped olives, 1/2 tsp dried oregano, and a little more freshly cracked pepper.
Add two cups of chicken broth. I use Better Than Bouillon because it’s very flavorful, less expensive than boxed or canned broths, stays good in the refrigerator for just about forever, and allows you to mix up the exact quantity of broth that you need.
Finally, add 1.5 cups of uncooked orzo. Stir to combine the tomatoes, broth, and orzo.
Nestle the chicken thighs down into the liquid in the skillet.
Place a lid on the skillet, turn the heat up to medium-high, and let it come up to a boil. Once it reaches a boil, turn the heat down to low, or the lowest temperature that maintains a gentle simmer. Let the skillet simmer for 15 minutes, then turn the heat off and let it rest for 5 minutes (with the lid in place).
The tomatoes and olives will rise to the top as it simmers. The orzo should be tender at this point, but also quite saucy. Use a fork to fluff the orzo and mix the tomatoes and olives back into the orzo.
Roughly chop a handful of fresh parsley and sprinkle over top just before serving (optional). Serve hot!
One skillet, one meal. Perfect.
Skillet Chicken with Orzo and Olives all in pretty little portioned containers. :) Cuz that’s how I roll.
Made this last night. It was delicious, Even my 7 year old whose a picky eater liked it. I’ll definitely be making this again.
I love your one dish grain/pasta dishes – so approachable! What kind of skillet are you using here?
It’s a tri-ply stainless steel 3qt deep skillet made by Oxo. It’s like this one, but a 3qt version that comes in their 13 piece set (which I got on sale for about $300).
Yummy!
When adding the broth do you just add the water and better than boullion directly into the pan or do you make the broth separately and then add?
For this one I just made sure to add really hot water (so the BTB will dissolve fast) and the BTB separately, then I stirred everything in the skillet until I was sure the BTB was dissolved. Sometimes I mix the water and BTB together before adding to a recipe when it’s a recipe that shouldn’t be stirred too much.
Would you have a vegetarian suggestion for this? Love the olive/tomato/orzo combination but can’t decide what would be a good substitute for the chicken.
Thanks in advance, and just LOVE your blog!
I’m not Beth (obviously!), but I feel like thick tofu slices or portabella mushrooms would be a nice sub!
Ooh, good call on the portobello mushrooms, perfect pairing!
I have a question about the Better than Bouillon you use. My problem with bouillon cubes or concentrate has always been timing and getting another pot dirty. I find I can never get the timing of the water right so that it’s boiling and the bouillon is mixed by the time I need to add it to my dish. It’s also slightly annoying to get another pot dirty – especially when doing a one skillet/pot dish! ;)
With the Better than Bouillon, do you need to bring the water to a boil like the others before mixing in the concentrate? Or could you possibly add the water and the concentrate to your skillet in one go and let it mix it together while cooking?
Yeah, you totally don’t need to boil any water to use BTB. You can either just use your hottest tap water and mix them together right in a measuring cup, or if it’s a recipe where it doesn’t matter if it’s stirred a lot (like soup, or recipes like this), you can just add the hot water and BTB separately, then just make sure to stir enough to dissolve the BTB. Because it’s a paste rather than a dry cube, it dissolves a lot easier than cubes. The water just needs to be hot. :)
This was very good! Made it got dinner tonight and it was a hit with the family. I made no changes to this recipe.
I LOOOOVE your lemon pepper orzo and was hoping you made another similar dish!!! will deff be trying this next week!
Long-time lurker here – I’ve made lots of your recipes, but never commented before. Made this tonight, and it was AMAZING! Love the blog – thanks for all the creative and delicious recipes!
This looks amazing! Do you think it’d work in the skillet with the quinoa?
I meant just quinoa not “the” quinoa :).
You could probably do that, but the broth to quinoa ratio may be different. It might take some experimentation to get it right. :)
Beth this looks amazing!! I’m somewhat of a novice here, but is there anything you would sub for olives? I’m allergic, and could just do without, but was curious if you had any suggestions what to substitute, if anything.
I’d just do it without the olives and then add feta at the end. Feta has a similarly salty/briny flavor.
Thank you so much!! I love feta, and all cheeses as a general category of food. Appreciate the response so much, I’ve been using your recipes for a long time, and it’s really built my confidence!
Katie, you can try to use capers instead of olives.
Great suggestion! So obvious, yet I woildve never thought of it. Great to have options.
I’m a big fan of all your chicken skillet recipes (Yellow Chicken Rice, Lemon Pepper Chicken with Orzo etc.” so I can’t wait to try this!
Will this work with boneless chicken as well?
Yes, it should work just fine. It will probably cook a little faster in the browning step, too.
Glad this was already asked and answered! I have made several of your recipes, and keep coming back for more. I always have to use boneless, skinless chicken breasts though. My family (kids all grown now) has always freaked out if I tried to feed them any other chicken lol
This looks convenient and delicious. I love the idea of buying a small portion of olives from the salad bar. It’s like a bulk bin for vegetables.
Looks incredible. Would you store the portions in the refrigerator or in the fridge if you plan to eat them over the next few days?
Yep, that’s exactly what I did. :) I just microwave to reheat and then eat.
So.. in the fridge if you plan to eat one portion every day? (So three days in fridge). Wont that spoil it?
Nope. Cooked chicken is good for 3-4 days. http://www.foodsafety.gov/keep/charts/
Thanks! ;)