Chicken with Mushrooms, Bacon, Garlic & Spinach

Chicken with Mushrooms, Bacon, Garlic & Spinach makes an easy, flavour-packed dinner.

Moist, tender chicken thighs with a crispy skin, plus spinach, in a garlicky, buttery broth flavoured with smoky bacon and earthy mushrooms.

All it needs is some potatoes, grains or, to increase the veg content, cauliflower ‘rice’.

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Chicken with Mushrooms, Bacon, Garlic & Spinach contains some classic flavour combinations.

Who doesn’t like chicken and mushroom? Chicken and bacon? Garlic with chicken, bacon and/or mushrooms?

But I actually came up with this great tasting dinner, which contains all those combos plus spinach, only about five minutes before I started making it.

Chicken with Mushrooms, Bacon, Garlic & Spinach

It was a Thursday night, which is almost always chicken night in our house. I’d got some skin-on chicken thighs out of the freezer that morning, but really had no idea what to do with them. ‘I’ll think about it later’, I told myself.

However, before I knew it, the time for starting dinner prep was upon me. So I found myself standing in front of the fridge, peering inside, and wondering just what to make.

Mushrooms were an obvious choice to go with chicken. But what about the remains of that bag of spinach that needed using up?

Slowly, an idea began to form. Chicken and mushrooms in a savoury broth. With the spinach added right at the end to keep it enticingly bright green and its nutrients intact.

To add the robust flavour I was craving, I turned to two staples: garlic and smoked bacon.

I always like to have loads of garlic in the house. There’s hardly a day that I don’t eat some. In fact if we’re down to the last bulb I start to panic.

It’s the same with smoked bacon. I buy about a kilo at a time: half streaky, half back bacon. It’s usually from Denstone Hall Farm Shop where it’s made with Packington Free Range pork and has a lovely depth of smokiness.

Here’s a tip for storing bacon: freeze on a tray with cling film between each layer of rashers. Once frozen, transfer the rashers to a bag. You can then take out as many individual rashers as needed, without even defrosting before cooking.

The only other things I required were chicken stock plus butter.

I’m an absolute fiend when it comes to butter, so always have lots in the fridge. For the stock, I used a low salt chicken stock cube. I did have some homemade chicken stock in the freezer, but knew I wouldn’t need it all so went for a cube this time.

MAKING CHICKEN WITH MUSHROOMS, BACON, GARLIC & SPINACH

Full instructions are given in the recipe card at the end of this post. But here’s the basics of getting a wonderfully rich flavoured dish.

You start by cooking chopped bacon so that it releases its fat, followed by the browning of the chicken and the mushrooms.

The garlic is gently softened in butter before the stock is added plus the browned chicken. After simmering until nearly done, the bacon and mushrooms are returned to the pan.

Spinach is added right near the end.

TIPS & VARIATIONS

Here’s a few tips to help you get the absolutely best tasting Chicken with Mushrooms, Bacon, Garlic & Spinach, as well as a few ideas for variations.

• If your chicken thighs are particularly large or are bone-in, you might want to pop them in a moderate oven after browning them. They will be simmered in the stock anyway, but roasting a little will speed things up.
• If the chicken skin has lost some of its crispiness after cooking in the stock, just pop the pan under a hot grill to re-crisp it.
• I haven’t used anything to thicken the cooking liquor, so expect more of a broth than a sauce.
• If you do want a thickened sauce, mix 2 tsp of cornflour with a little cold water and stir into the liquor just before adding the spinach. Cook for a few minutes to thicken, add the spinach, and proceed as per the recipe.
• To make a creamy sauce: add 2 or more tablespoons of double cream when you return the bacon and mushrooms to the pan.

You could eat Chicken with Mushrooms, Bacon, Garlic & Spinach with potatoes, rice or another grain. But to up the veg content of the meal, and because there was a cauliflower that also needed using, I made cauliflower ‘rice’.

I grated the cauli (you can do it in a food processor, but it’s more washing up), seasoned it with salt and pepper, a few chives and a knob of butter. I like cauliflower rice soft so microwaved for 5 minutes, But you could cook it less if you prefer.

By using a few easily available staples, we had a knockout, flavour-packed dinner.

Have you made Chicken with Mushrooms, Bacon, Garlic & Spinach?

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Chicken with Mushrooms, Bacon, Garlic & Spinach

A flavour-packed, easy dinner of chicken thighs in a garlicky, buttery broth flavoured with smoky bacon and earthy mushrooms plus spinach.

Serve with potatoes, grains or try cauliflower 'rice'.

Course Main Course

Cuisine World

Keyword chicken

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 1 hour

Total Time 1 hour 10 minutes

Servings 2

Author Moorlands Eater

Ingredients

• 1 tsp olive oil
• 3 rashers smoked streaky bacon, rind removed cut into small strips
• 4 chicken thighs, skin on bone-in or boneless
• salt & black pepper
• 200 g mushrooms cut into bite sized pieces
• 20 g butter
• 5 cloves garlic finely chopped
• 350 ml chicken stock low salt if possible as you'll be reducing it
• 2 large handfuls spinach any tough stems removed

Instructions

1. Put 1 tsp of olive oil in a large, non-stick frying pan and heat to moderate.

   Add the smoked bacon pieces and cook until browned and starting to crisp (5-10 min).

   Use a slotted spoon to remove the bacon to a plate, leaving the melted fat in the pan.

2. Season the chicken thighs with salt and pepper.

   Place skin side down in the pan and cook, turning as necessary, until browned all over and most of the fat has rendered out of the skin so it's golden and crispy. (10-12 min)

   Remove the chicken and put it on the plate with the bacon. Leave the cooking fat in the pan.

   The thighs will be cooked further in the pan later, but if your chicken thighs are particularly large or thick, you may wish to put them on a baking tray in a moderate oven at this point so that they cook a little more while you carry out the next steps.

3. Add the mushrooms to the pan and cook until nicely browned. (5-8 min)

   Remove and put on the plate with the bacon and chicken.

4. Turn the heat to low and add the butter to the pan.

   When it has melted, add the garlic and gently cook until all raw garlic flavour has gone. (5 min)

5. Add the chicken stock to the garlic, making sure you scrape up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Bring to a boil.

6. Return the chicken thighs to the pan and turn the heat to a gentle simmer.

   Continue cooking until the chicken is cooked all the way through with no pink juices running out when a skewer is inserted. (10-15 min)

7. Return the bacon and mushrooms to the pan and simmer for another 5 minutes. Turn up the heat a little if you wish to reduce the sauce further.

   Taste and add more salt and pepper if needed.

   If the chicken skin has lost some of its crispness, put the pan under a hot grill for a few minutes to re-crisp it.

8. Stir in the spinach and cook for a minute or two until just wilted or done to your liking.

9. Serve with potatoes, grains or cauliflower 'rice'.