My Baked Lemon & Herb Chicken is right up there with one of our families favourite meals, because the sauce… oh the sauce!! The original inspiration for this dish must be attributed to Shutterbean, their Lemon Chicken was a recipe introduced to me long ago, but over the years I began to do my own thing with it (read: too lazy to find their recipe every time I cooked it) and it morphed in to this.
Apart from being completely delicious, it’s also a dish I’ll bring out when anyone in the house is feeling poorly because it packs a powerful antibacterial, antioxidant, vitamin, mineral and gut loving punch to help give our immune systems a little boost.
Onions and garlic are both plants from the Allium family and have been used since ancient times to fight bacterial and viral infections, thanks to their potent antimicrobial properties – think of garlic as nature’s antibiotic if you will. They contain plenty of prebiotics too – the nondigestible types of fibre that our beneficial gut bacteria love to feed on – which are necessary for optimal gut health (remember, much of our immune system is house in our gut!). The thyme and oregano in there are antimicrobial and antibacterial too.
I like to serve this dish with rice cooked in bone broth – this gives the rice flavour and also provides even more immune boosting nutrients. Bone broth contains all essential amino acids, as well as other healing nutrients in a highly absorbable form, that quite literally nourish, restore and fortify every system in the body. Oh and serve alongside some steamed greens too, broccoli is my favourite – the sauce is so delicious poured over it and cruciferous vegetables like broccoli are full of phytonutrients to help fight inflammation, and glucosinolates that are antiviral and antibacterial and protect cells from DNA damage.
Baked Lemon & Herb Chicken
Serves: 4 – Prep time: 10-mins – Cook time: 45-mins
Ingredients:
- 1kg organic or free-range boneless skinless chicken thighs
- ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
- Juice of 2-3 lemons (approx ½ cup)
- 1 medium red onion, finely diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- ½ tsp sea salt
- Freshly cracked pepper
- Fresh parsley to garnish *optional
Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 180’C.
- Lay chicken thighs out in a ceramic or enamel baking dish and set aside.
- In a large measuring cup or bowl (I use a Pyrex measuring jug), measure out olive oil and lemon juice, then add thyme, oregano, garlic, salt and onions. Stir to combine.
- Pour onion mixture over chicken thighs and toss to coat. Season with pepper.
- Place chicken into the oven and bake for 45-minutes (depending on the thickness of the chicken), or until chicken is thoroughly cooked and starting to brown, and the juice is bubbling. Cover the pan and let chicken sit for 5 minutes then sprinkle with fresh parsley.
- Serve on top of broth cooked rice and steamed broccoli, making sure to spoon the juices over everything… oh the juice, it’s so good!
