Even though I love the process of cooking and will happily embark on a recipe that I will know will take hours, there are some days where I just don’t want to. I want to come home and have dinner ready for me, or at the very least ready for me to pop in the oven with very little prep work. And although rewarding in other ways, I have found Paleo cooking rarely meets that criteria. There are so many ingredients to prep and various stages of a recipe to make up for the lack of gluten, dairy, etc.
That is exactly what inspired this Mediterranean Chicken Bake. It’s low maintenance with little prep work and can be made ahead of time if needed. It basically consists of lots of delicious veggies, chicken breast, and a mixture of herbs and spices. All I had to do was chop up the veggies and chicken and toss them together in a baking dish then bake until everything is nice and roasted.
I used a combination of artichoke hearts (I used frozen), onion, broccoli, tomato, bell pepper, and mushrooms. And for the spices I mixed lots of garlic with basil, oregano, paprika, crushed red pepper, salt, and pepper with some olive oil and lemon juice. I also topped it all with some pine nuts, but for those who want some extra flavor and are not afraid of a little dairy, some feta cheese would be amazing with this!
Of course you could bake your chicken and veggies separately, but then you would have another dish to clean, and nobody wants that. I love cooking everything together because then all the flavors meld together and chicken stays nice and moist.
This would also be a great dish to make ahead of time. I would mix everything together in the dish and the stick it in the fridge until it’s ready to be baked. That was I could immediately come home and toss this in the oven. Which is exactly what I need after a long day at work!
I would also recommend serving this over rice or quinoa if that’s on your diet. Since I made thing while I was on the Whole 30, I couldn’t, but I will be making this again soon and adding some quinoa on the side to soak up all the delicious flavors!
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