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.
A winner! I made this with my husband for dinner. I accidentally got skinless thighs, but I still made it work. I cooked it in my Dutch oven on the stove. I added feta cheese on top once plated, but like another commenter, felt that something was missing. I added a splash of lemon juice and that made it perfect! Will gladly make again and will increase the amount of olives.
Just made this tonight with boneless skinless thighs. Delicious! Definitely a keeper.
I like how it’s an easy way to make a perfectly cooked and moist chicken, but there is something missing with the overall taste. I can’t quite put my finger on it. I tried kalamata and black olives and both times it felt like it was one ingredient shy of greatness. Any suggestions?
Cheese
Lemon
Yum! Humble ingredients elevated to special occasion status. I had to make some small changes–boneless, skinless chicken thighs, a couple of tablespoons of diced onions added at the beginning, whole-wheat orzo. No matter–it was delicious. My husband asked why I didn’t cut-up the chicken, so I may do that next time if I have to use boneless, skinless thighs. We’re both looking forward to leftovers for lunch.
I love this recipe – it is one of my weekly go-tos. However, I’ve found that the orzo-to-chicken ratio is WAY high. If I wanted to reduce the amount of orzo, would it be a 1:1 reduction of orzo and broth?
Yep, if you reduce the orzo by half, reduce the broth by half as well. :)
This dish is screaming for dried rosemary! Next time I will use that instead of or in addition to the oregano.
I made this dish tonight and it was delicious. I did make a few changes to it though, first I used some fresh Rosemary & fresh Thyme along with the oregano. I also added about 1/2 cup of white cooking wine, Can never have enough cooking wine with chicken. Other than that I stayed with the receipe and it will be on my list of favorite chicken receipes from now on. Thanks so much for sharing it.
How do you suggest tweaking this for boneless skinless breasts?
I’d need to do some testing to say for sure, unfortunately. Boneless breasts cook much faster than these bone-in thighs, so they might over cook while everything is simmering.
Went out on a limb with this one (not huge on olives), and it was pretty good!
I didn’t have diced tomatoes so I subbed with a 14oz can of Italian stewed tomatoes that I diced up, and I was worried the chicken wouldn’t cook but it did!
It felt like it was missing something to me (seasoning maybe?), but it was definitely an easy and good recipe :) plus only one pan, yayy for minimal dishes!!
I made this last night and it was so tasty!!! I used oil cured black olives instead of kalamata because that’s what I had in my fridge.
No
Wow, this was so good! I usually shy away from bone-in chicken because it can be hard to cook through and I don’t really like picking around bones, but this was so easy! The flavor was so good, especially with feta. Definitely will make again!
Made this the other night and really loved it, can’t wait to make it again.
I made some changes based on what I had on-hand.
Used 2 thin-sliced chicken breasts, marinated about 1 hour in McCormick’s garlic herb & wine mix (awesome stuff), then grill on a charcoal grill.
Used a can of fire roasted diced tomatoes.
Everything else was as written, except I added my cooked chicken along with the juices at about the 5 minute remaining mark.
This was so delicious! I didn’t have orzo so I substituted Israeli couscous and it was fabulous.
I’ve made a lot of recipes, but I think this may be one of my favorites! My boyfriend and I both loved it. Like another reviewer, I added canned artichoke hearts for an additional vegetable source, and the saltiness of the artichokes perfected complimented the olives and worked perfectly in this recipe. It was easy and not too time-consuming, and for whatever reason, I found the orzo easier to cook than rice in similar one-pot recipes. Thanks for another winner!
So tasty! I added a can of artichoke hearts, chopped, and a sprinkle of feta on top. We had skinless, boneless chicken thighs in the freezer. Thanks for a great dish!