One pot chicken with apples & creamy cider sauce

This easy one pot chicken dish is great comfort food. Browned chicken thighs are cooked in a buttery, cider cream sauce, made slightly tart with apples and smoky from good bacon

Potatoes are cooked in the sauce to make a one pot meal, but it would go equally well with mashed potatoes, rice or other grains.

Jump to Recipe

Now the days and, more noticeably, the nights are getting decidedly chillier, I’m starting to move away from some of the lighter, cooler dishes I’ve been enjoying over the summer.

I’m now fancying  proper comfort food. For me, that includes richer, creamy sauces that just don’t feel right when it’s hot and sunny outside. This led me to creating One Pot Chicken with Apples & Creamy Cider Sauce.

THE CHICKEN

I like skin-on, bone-in free-range thighs for One Pot Chicken with Apples & Creamy Cider Sauce. Chicken thighs have a good flavour and cook better on the bone I think.

Properly done, chicken skin is a real treat so I much prefer the thighs skin on. However, the recipe is very forgiving in terms of the cut of chicken you can use. You could easily substitute boneless thighs with or without skin. Whole legs or breasts would work too, just decrease or increase the cooking time accordingly.

Whichever cut of chicken you use, especially for skin-on, make sure you brown it thoroughly for maximum flavour.

Even so, once it’s been cooked in the steam of the sauce, you may find the once-crisp skin has gone a bit flabby. No matter. Pop the whole dish under the grill right at the end and the skin will crisp up again nicely.

ONE POT CHICKEN

As I wanted a one-pot, hearty dish, this version includes sliced potatoes cooked in the sauce.

I think that waxy potatoes which hold their shape are best for this recipe. I used Charlotte with their skins left on. But you can leave out the potatoes altogether if you like. Mashed potatoes, bread, rice or bulgur wheat on the side would be good alternatives if you do want to serve carbs.

The apples in One Pot Chicken with Apples & Creamy Cider Sauce come in two guises. First, I include some peeled and chopped small so that they meld into the dish as it cooks. I add apple slices near the end of cooking so they retain their texture and identity. As English Cox apples, with their balance of sweet and tart, were in season, I used those.

The sauce is made richer and smokier with the addition of strips of good-quality smoked, streaky bacon. A few sprigs of thyme and some sliced garlic add to the deep flavours.

EASY

The method for One Pot Chicken with Apples & Creamy Cider Sauce is pretty simple.

Firstly, the bacon, chicken, diced apples and garlic are each browned in turn. Next, the potatoes, cider and thyme are added. Then you just leave everything to bubble away under a lid for 20-25 minutes until the potatoes and chicken are done.

Cream, butter and the sliced apples are added for a further 10 minutes of simmering without a lid. This reduces and intensifies the creamy, smoky sauce. And that’s it!

As mentioned above, to re-crisp the chicken skin just put under a hot grill for a few minutes.

SERVING & VARIATIONS

The recipe was originally devised as part of a three-course meal, in which case it could serve 4 people. But, if having it as a single course meal, then I would share it between 2.

Some sauteed kale, leeks and thinly sliced broccoli would be nice on the side. A few hazelnuts or chestnuts in the veg would give contrasting texture. To drink, I like a glass or two of good quality cider as that’s most fitting.

One Pot Chicken with Apples & Creamy Cider Sauce is good dish for entertaining as nothing is particularly time critical. Once cooked, it can be held in a warm oven for some time with no problem. It’s a deceptively impressive dish as the smoky, rich taste of the sauce belies it’s relative straightforwardness.

As a change from chicken, try browned sliced pork tenderloin. I’ve also made a tasty vegetarian version, substituting butter beans and mushrooms for the chicken and bacon.

For relatively little effort, I think this is a great dish and superb comfort food.

Print

One pot chicken with apples & creamy cider sauce

This easy one pot chicken dish is great comfort food. Browned chicken thighs are cooked in a buttery, cider cream sauce, made slightly tart with apples and smoky with bacon.

Course Main Course

Cuisine British

Keyword chicken, one pot chicken

Prep Time 20 minutes

Cook Time 55 minutes

Total Time 1 hour 15 minutes

Servings 2

Author Moorlands Eater

Ingredients

• 500 grams free range chicken thighs, bone-in & skin on excess skin trimmed
• 1 tbs plain flour seasoned with salt, pepper & a few thyme leaves
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 75-100 grams good quality smoked streaky bacon derinded, cut into strips
• 200-300 grams firm eating apples half peeled and diced small, half unpeeled, quartered and sliced
• 2 cloves garlic sliced thinly
• 500 ml cider
• 250-350 grams waxy potatoes e.g. Charlotte, Desiree, Anya
• 4 sprigs fresh thyme
• 150 ml double cream
• 20 grams butter

Instructions

1. Lightly coat the chicken in seasoned flour, shake off any excess and set aside.
   

2. Heat the oil in a large frying pan and cook the bacon until crisp. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.

3. Thoroughly brown the chicken in the frying pan (10-12 min), remove and set aside.

4. Remove all but 1 tb of oil from the frying pan, or add more if less than 1 tb left. Lightly brown the diced apple and garlic slices, taking care not to let the garlic burn.
   

5. Pour in the cider and stir to incorporate any residue from the bottom of the pan.
   

6. Add the potatoes, browned chicken, bacon and thyme sprigs. Season with salt and pepper. Put a lid on the pan and bring to a boil.
   

7. Simmer until the potatoes and chicken are cooked (20-25 min).
   

8. Add cream, butter and sliced apples and continue to cook for 10 min with the lid off. Check seasoning before serving.

   Tip: to re-crisp the chicken skin, put the dish under a hot grill for a few minutes.