Chicken In Lemon Chive Sauce

Simple and delicious chicken in a creamy chive sauce.

Another One-Pot Wonder

This chicken dinner proves once again that you don’t need every pot and pan in your cupboard to make a great-tasting meal!

I’ve gotten lazy in my old age. The last thing I want to face now is a sink full of dirty pots and pans. However, I still want great tasting food and if I can do it all in one pan, I’m sold.

This is one of those meals. The chicken combines so well with the tangy sauce, it’ll be a recipe that you’ll come back to again and again.

Subtle Flavors

Lemon is one of my favorite things to pair with chicken. It really brings out the flavor and adds bright and tangy notes to something that’s rather bland.

Have you noticed that fresh lemons are rather pricy lately? That has not escaped me either, but I’ve found a rather good solution. When lemons go on sale or you can find them reduced for quick sale–buy lots of them. Then juice and zest them all and freeze it. Of course freeze the zest and the juice separately. I usually put all the zest in a freezer bag and take out what I need for a recipe. With the juice it gets a little more complicated. What I do there is freeze it in two tablespoon amounts in a freezer bag and some with 1/4 cup amounts because those are the amounts I will generally use. That way I don’t have to thaw and then re-freeze a larger amount.

Chives also add a lovely delicate flavor to the sauce. If you grow them on a windowsill garden, you’re all set. However, I would only advise using dehydrated ones in a pinch. Fresh chives always taste better so use them if you can. I’ve never had success at growing them for some reason, so I will bite the bullet and buy them in the store when I need them.

A Touch Of Creaminess

The sauce has a touch of creaminess to it as well.

The original recipe called for creme fraiche. I can get that in my local market, but it’s quite pricy. A great substitute is sour cream, although that might make the sauce a bit more tangy. There are recipes for making your own creme fraiche, but I find the taste of it somewhere in between sour cream and cream cheese. It’s not as tangy as sour cream, even though sour cream is the most convenient substitute. If you want more of the authentic taste minus the cost, just beat 4 ounces of softened cream cheese with 2 tablespoons of sour cream until it’s very smooth.

The Recipe

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Chicken In Lemon Chive Sauce

The chicken combines so well with the tangy lemon sauce, it’ll be a recipe that you’ll come back to again and again.

Prep Time10 mins

Cook Time45 mins

Total Time55 mins

Course: Main

Cuisine: American

Keyword: chicken, chicken thighs

Servings: 4

Calories: 556kcal

Author: Judith Hannemann

Ingredients

• 2 tbs butter
• 8 each bone-in chicken thighs skin removed
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 large onion roughly chopped
• 1 tbs flour
• 10 oz hot chicken stock
• 2 lemons, zest and juice
• 4 tbsp full-fat sour cream OR creme fraiche
• 3 tbsp snipped fresh chives

Instructions

• Melt the butter in a large frying pan over a high heat, add the thighs and brown all over until golden. Season with salt and pepper and then remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.
• Add the onion to the pan and fry for 3 minutes. Sprinkle in the flour, add the hot stock and bring to the boil, stirring all the time.
• Add the rind and juice of the lemons, and return the thighs to the pan. Season again and bring to the boil. Cover and simmer over a low heat for about 35-45 minutes, or until the thighs are tender.
• Stir in the sour cream and nearly all the chives.

Nutrition

Serving: 1g | Calories: 556kcal | Carbohydrates: 15g | Protein: 55g | Fat: 31g | Saturated Fat: 11g | Cholesterol: 214mg | Sodium: 340mg | Potassium: 221mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 4g | Vitamin A: 7% | Vitamin C: 39.6% | Calcium: 3.6% | Iron: 3.5%

Adapted from Mary Berry