This Middle Eastern Sheet Pan Chicken covers all of your dinner-making bases – it’s an easy, delicious, healthy complete meal that can be thrown together in 20 minutes or less!
Sheet pan dinners make for the best weeknight dinners, and this Middle Eastern Sheet Pan Chicken is a family favorite. If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll know that I make this often. When I say often, I mean it can show up on the dinner table four or five times in a single month.
Why so often? Well, let’s see: One: It’s incredibly easy to make. No advanced prep needed at all. It’s a complete meal cooked in a single pan. Two: It tastes really good; it’s flavorful, spicy, and so savory.
You don’t need a ton of spices to make this easy sheet pan meal, all you need is some ground cumin, coriander, and smoked paprika. You can find all of those spices at pretty much any grocery store. The smoked paprika may be a little more of a specialty item, but it’s always stocked at my local Whole Food Market and Wegmans.
Here’s how you make this Middle Easter Sheet Pan Chicken: mix the spices, cut up some cauliflower and onion, mix half the spices with the veggies and roast them.
While the vegetables are in the oven, mix the chicken thighs with the rest of the spice rub, and let it sit while the vegetables cook a little longer. Then add the chicken to the same sheet pan as the vegetables, roast again, and it’s done!
At the end of the cooking time I like to broil the entire sheet pan on high for 3 minutes. It gives the vegetables a little more caramelization and give some crisp edges to the chicken. And since they’re chicken thighs, there’s no real danger in the chicken drying out.
The original recipe is from Food52, but I’ve altered the cooking time and method a bit so that the chicken and cauliflower are caramelized and golden. Other than that, I’ve kept the recipe as is because it’s that good.
One time a made this, I decided to change things up a little and add some red pepper to the spice rub. I guess I got a little heavy handed, and it was head-sweatingly unpleasant. The Littles were not happy. Big, my older daughter, made me promise to never, ever put red pepper in it again. (Imagine a ten-year-old saying that with the dramatic flair of an early tween.)
Honestly, I had no problems giving in to Big’s declaration about the red pepper because I’m the biggest wimp when it comes to spicy food. You’d never guess that I grew up on Indian/Pakistani food. In my defense, I come from a long line of non-spicy eaters. Even my cousins in Pakistan don’t eat spicy food.
In our house we serve this Middle Eastern Sheet Pan Chicken on pita with lemon wedges, some raw crunchy vegetables (cucumbers are the number one choice for the Littles). And that’s about it. There’s no need for any additional sauce since the chicken thighs stay juicy and moist. Sometimes I make a dairy-free yogurt sauce with it, but the Littles aren’t such a big fan of any additional sauce. Whenever I offer Little some sauce with this Middle Eastern Sheet Pan Chicken, she looks at me like I have seven heads. Not sure why she’s so against sauce, but hey, as long as she eats dinner I’m happy.
For all of you out there with dietary restrictions, like me, here’s the deal with this Middl Eastern Sheet Pan Chicken: It’s gluten-free, dairy-free, keto friendly, and Whole30 compliant. If you’re in the beginning stages of keto, you may want to avoid the onions, but other than that, it’s all good.
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This Middle Eastern Sheet Pan Chicken covers all of your dinner-making bases – it’s an easy, delicious, healthy complete meal that can be thrown together in 20 minutes or less!
Ingredients
1 large head of cauliflower cut into florets of a similar size
1 large yellow onion sliced
6 tbs olive oil divided (1 tbs, 3 tbs, and 5 tbs)
salt and pepper to taste
1 tbs ground cumin seeds
1 tbs ground coriander seeds
2 tsp smoked paprika
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
6 boneless, skinless chicken thighs (about 1.5 lbs) washed and dried
Lemon wedges and pita bread for serving
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 425ºF and place a rack in the center slot of your oven.
Mix the dry spices together in a small bowl.
Spread 1 tbs of olive oil in the bottom of a sheet pan.
Spread the cauliflower and onions on the pan. Drizzle vegetables with 3 tbs of olive oil. Sprinkle about half of the dry spice mixture on top of the vegetables. Sprinkle salt and pepper. Mix the vegetables so the spices and oil are evenly distributed. Place the vegetables in the oven to bake for about 30 min. Mix the vegetables half way through the cooking time.
While the vegetables cook, place the chicken thighs in a large bowl. Add the crushed garlic, remaining 2 tbs of olive oil, and the rest of the dry spice rub. Toss to coat. Allow the chicken to stay at room temperature while the vegetables finish roasting.
Once the vegetables are done with their 30 min in the oven, nestle the chicken thighs among the vegetables. Return to the oven to continue baking for 15 more minutes. Then broil on hight for 3 minutes.
Remove the pan from the oven. Chop the chicken in bite-size pieces. Serve with pita bread and a squeeze of lemon.
Notes
This recipe is adapted from Food52
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