We eat a lot of chicken in our house, which I feel like it kind of the norm for most households.  Chicken is like the universal protein; most people like it, you can do about a million things to it, and it’s pretty affordable for any budget.

The problem is; it has almost zero flavor on it’s own, so you really have to infuse the meat and add flavor and sauces/gravy to get it absolutely succulent and delicious.  Since we make chicken, usually, at least once per week here, I’m always looking for new ways to impart flavor to make it even better.

Don’t get me wrong, we do love chicken here that’s served simply with lemon butter, but sometimes we want something bolder, and this Pesto Chicken definitely fits the bill.

This chicken is my spin on a recipe/EZ Meal I found at Wegmans (because I’m sure you’re all surprised given my immense love of Wegmans).  While their original recipe looked delicious on it’s own, I knew a couple of changes were going to need to be made for how we eat chicken here.

For one, we live in an apartment and don’t have a grill, so we had to improvise and roast the chicken in the oven.  So, while you don’t get the smokiness of the grill, you still get a really good flavor from searing it in a cast-iron pan then finishing it off in the oven.

Also, we’re not big chicken breast people (as the original recipe called for); we usually prefer thighs.  They have more flavor than the breasts and are usually juicier.  I also added some chicken stock to give a bit more sauce to the chicken, especially since it was being roasted in the oven.  We love when there is a good sauce to chicken that we can spoon over top as it’s being served.  I also played around with the ingredient amounts and added a couple of things that are sort of our pre-requisite’s for chicken.

The end result was a beautiful plate of chicken, that I served simply with roasted baby potatoes.  You could also easily serve this with pasta or quinoa.  It’s also perfect on it’s own, especially if you are trying to lower your carb-intake like I am.

Did I also mention that this chicken is super easy and ready in under an hour? Because if I didn’t….it’s super easy and ready in well under an hour.

The first thing, always for me, when I roast chicken, is I want to get it seasoned and searing in a nice hot cast-iron pan with a little olive oil.  So, I seasoned it up with salt, pepper, a small sprinkle of seasoned salt (it adds that little extra something that regular salt doesn’t do for me), poultry seasoning, and cajun seasoning and then seared each side for about 4 minutes until each side was nicely browned.

Once all sides seared, I pulled the chicken out and put it on a plate, so I could roast the peppers and onions.  I threw all the peppers and onions into the hot pan with garlic and let them soften for about 5 minutes.

Then I added in the cocktail tomatoes and let them roast for about 3 more minutes; just until they were slightly bursting.  I also added about 1/2 cup of chicken stock to give a little more depth of flavor and to make a nice sauce at the bottom to keep the chicken moist during roasting.

The chicken thighs were added back to the pot and I topped them each with a good tablespoon of basil pesto and a nice sprinkle of asiago cheese before putting them in a 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes (or until the thighs reached an internal temp of 165.)  Once they came out of the oven, I let it all rest for about five minutes and topped it off with parsley and a bit more cheese to add some freshness.

The end result was super flavorful, moist, and delicious.  This is definitely going to be a new staple in our house.

Enjoy!

*Please note: This post is not sponsored.  All opinions are my own.