Oven Baked Chicken and Rice is a family friendly and healthy easy one pot meal made in the oven with just a few ingredients in just an hour.
Baked Chicken is an easy dinner option for us, we have so many on the site including our super popular Baked Chicken Brown Rice Vegetable Casserole which is just like this dish except with brown rice and added vegetables!
OVEN BAKED CHICKEN AND RICE
Baked Chicken and Rice may not sound like the most exciting recipe in your arsenal but this may be one you come back to time and time again (we do).
This recipe takes just a few ingredients and bakes them together to make the perfect dinner in one baking dish (bonus points if you add vegetables like carrots and celery in large chunks), this is a dinner in one shot.
There’s only one important trick to making this recipe. It has to be followed or your dinner will be about an hour late because the cooking time will be significantly increased. You have to add boiling hot chicken broth to the rice.
If you add room temperature broth it will take your oven a long time to heat that broth up. In addition to that everything else will cook along with it and make it much mushier than it should be.
Please use boiling hot chicken broth (or boiling hot water).
How to Make Oven Baked Chicken and Rice:
- Boil your chicken broth (Chicken Stock or Water is fine).
- Add your chicken thighs skin side up.
- Season with salt, pepper, oregano and basil.
- Bake covered for 30 minutes.
- Bake uncovered for 25-30 minutes.
You can use chicken breasts in this rice casserole too, they may not be as moist as the chicken thighs, but if you do, keep the bone in and skin on. I would keep the cook time the same, as your rice needs to cook through and the chicken breasts will be thicker than your chicken thighs.
Can you use boneless chicken?
Yes, you can use boneless chicken in the recipe but if you do, use chicken thighs only. If you use boneless chicken I’d also recommend keeping the skin on if possible (I know most boneless chicken is sold skinless as well). If you only have boneless, skinless chicken thighs then just know the chicken will be done cooking before the rice so it won’t be as moist as it would be if you used the bone-in variety.
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Can you use cooked rice?
No, the cook time for this recipe is calculated using standard long grain rice. This is uncooked rice. If you use cooked rice, instant rice or brown rice your timing will be off and this easy dinner will not taste as delicious as I am promising you it will.
If you want to bake these separately, you can of course bake chicken thighs alone (375 degrees for 30-35 minutes) and add Perfect Brown Rice (Baked Brown Rice) on the side. You can also add Easy Quinoa or Steamed Rice on the side too.
Can I add condensed soup?
You can certainly add a can of condensed soup to make this into a casserole recipe. If you do, the most popular option would be to add 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup (see Homemade Cream of Mushroom Soup Recipe), or 2 cans of cream of chicken soup (see Homemade Cream of Chicken Soup Recipe). I wouldn’t adjust the liquids, I’d just cook for 5-10 minutes longer when uncovered.
More easy dinner recipes:
- Perfect Roast Chicken – This is the ultimate fail-proof crispy roast chicken
- Oven Fried Chicken – Skip the deep fryer, this crispy crust is perfection
- Classic Beef Meatloaf – This recipe is a client favorite
- Ultimate Sloppy Joes – One of the most popular recipes on the site, and in 20 minutes!
- Ultimate Pot Roast – Your whole dinner in the slow cooker, it is PERFECTION.
Oven Baked Chicken and Rice
Ingredients
- 4 cups chicken broth
- 5 chicken thighs skin and bone on
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- 2 cups long grain white rice
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon coarse ground black pepper
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and add the chicken broth to a large pot and bring to a boil.
- In a deep 9x13 baking dish add the chicken skin side up to the pan then add the rice around it.
Season with the garlic, salt, pepper, oregano and basil and pour over the chicken broth.
Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes, then uncover and bake for an additional 25-30 minutes until golden brown and cooked through.
I liked the recipe plenty (i actually followed the method but subbed a teriyaki seasoned chicken broth for the liquid). Everything came out delicious. My only issue is that the rice always comes out undercooked on top. So I removed the chicken, stirred it, and covered, to put it back in another 20 minutes. It wasn’t the best, but the flavor was right and I love the way the rice cooks at the bottom. I need to figure out the issue with the rice at the top, maybe I need a layer of vegetables to add liquid, not sure.
Was skeptical about this dish. Too easy.
Started the way the author had said, but turned oven to 325 degrees when cooking. After a half an hour found to much chicken both still in the dish. Turned temperature up to 350 degrees and watched carefully. Once the broth was almost gone, stirred the rice and chicken, replaced the chicken skin side up and baked for 15 minutes uncovered, turned the chicken to skin side down and baked for 10 more minutes.
My final review. Rice was sticky and crunchy, more or less like noodles. The chicken turned out great.
To ensue the rice is cooked through, make sure that the broth you’re adding is at a full boil and ensure the foil is completely sealed over the dish, keeping all of the heat in. Also, keep it at 350 degrees the entire cook time. Hope this helps for next time.
This shouldn’t even be a recipe. Rice was way under cooked and if you can get past that, it’s just extremely bland. Pass
If your rice was undercooked, it means that the broth wasn’t poured in at a boil or the pan wasn’t covered tightly enough which allowed the heat to release.
My family loves short grain “sticky” rice. How would this change the cooking time and amount of liquid to add? Thank you
Loved the flavor but I followed the recipe exactly and the chicken was fully cooked but I think I would prefer grilling the thighs separately. The rice like I said before great flavor but was not even cooked had to leave in for another 15 min plus and still the rice had lots of pieces that where still uncooked.
When you add the chicken broth, you have to make sure it’s in a boiling state. That will ensure that the rice gets fully cooked for next time. Hope this helps.
Hi. I just made this chicken and rice recipe. Though the flavor is really good on the rice. After I cooked it exactly as explained. The chicken was undercooked. I used bone in skin on thighs and they were so undercooked
I do have a very small oven. It’s like a Barbie oven. Ha! Wonder if that had anything to do with it. Anyway I’ll give it another try I guess. I like easy one pan cooking.
Thank you very much for the recipe. My family found it to result in a very bland flavour. I added a 1/4 cup wild rice precooked for 20min until they began to open, celery, carrots, and broccoli florets. I used homemade stock with a strong flavor.
I’d really like to make this, but I’m cooking for one person. Can you recommend how to pair this down, so I don’t have a ton of leftovers? Thanks!
You can easily adjust the serving size with the slider tool. Just hover over the serving size and it will automatically pop up. Adjust as needed. Make sure to use a smaller cooking dish when adjusting down as well. Good luck!
Our family loved it. Will add it to our regular recipes.
So glad to hear! Thanks for the 5 stars.