After a busy day, coming home and making dinner can sometimes be a real chore, and to make matters worse, you’re still left with the dishes afterwards. Now your evening is taken up entirely by dinner when all you wanted was to enjoy a good meal and relax after a long day. That’s where this week’s chicken and asparagus recipe comes in, it provides a fantastically flavorful dinner made at home, has minimal prep, and is cooked to perfection from one pan, saving you so much of the headache that can sometimes come with cooking.
Starting with the prep, you’ll be happy to know that there isn’t much required before you start cooking. The garlic needs to be diced, and the woody ends of the asparagus will need to be removed and the stalks cut in half to fit the pan, but most of this quick prep time will be spent on the chicken. We used Halal chicken breast and opted to slice them in half then flatten them further into thin cutlets. This helps save so much time while cooking and still leaves chicken portions that are large enough to be satisfying. After flattening the chicken, we used salt, pepper, paprika, and Italian seasoning on both sides, keeping the seasoning simple but still provides plenty of flavor. Then the chicken gets a quick dredge in flour to give a nice even coating, and this gives the chicken a beautiful golden-brown color when it cooks and a slightly crispy texture that goes well with the tenderness of the asparagus. With that simple prep done, you’re ready to get cooking and all you’ll need from here forward is one large pot or pan.
Start cooking the asparagus in just a little bit of olive oil, but it doesn’t need to be cooked entirely just yet, just enough for the asparagus to begin to soften before removing it and cooking the chicken. You can cook the chicken almost entirely through here, it shouldn’t take long with how thin each cutlet is before removing that too and setting it aside. Add the ingredients for the sauce and bring it to a simmer, this is also a great way to deglaze any chicken from the bottom of the pan and make the sauce that much more flavorful. Once it’s simmering, add the asparagus back to the pan and nestle the chicken in between. Everything is set to cook together to completion now, just cover the pan and let it simmer for a few minutes. By the time the chicken is cooked through entirely, it should still be moist and tender without being overcooked, and the asparagus should be tender but still a little crisp with a satisfying crunch. If your sauce is still too thin by the end, whisking in a slurry of cornstarch and water will help thicken it enough to stick to the chicken, and this sauce ties the whole recipe together with all the flavors from the pan.
And that’s it, there isn’t much to this recipe, but it provides just what you need for a no-fuss homecooked dinner that does it all. And when you’re done, doing the dishes should be a breeze, a simple one pan recipe was the goal here after all. As always, we hope you enjoy this recipe, tell everyone you know that might also enjoy it, spread the wealth of a delicious dinner with friends and family and we hope to see you again next week.
