What is summer cooking, to you? For me, it means keeping things as simple as possible. In the summertime, I want meals that come together in one big pot, easy to cook and easy to reheat later. I want meals that taste like the garden, fragrant with herbs and bright flavors. I want hands-off meals, so I can retire to the back porch with a cucumber gimlet while my supper cooks.
Well, this braised chicken dish fits all those requirements beautifully.
It's a simple dish — it needs just a few ingredients and one big pot. White beans and chicken cook together in the oven with shavings of lemon, which infuses them both with a summery lemon scent. At the end I stir in handfuls of chopped dill and add a swirl of mint pesto — garlicky and minty.
Yes, you'll have to turn on your oven. But I promise it will be worth it. It will yield you herbed, creamy beans and tender chicken, with that garden-fresh taste of mint and garlic at the end.
The best part? This one-pot dish makes plenty of leftovers; you won't have to turn on your oven, your stove, or your grill for at least two more nights. And that, my friends, is summer cooking at its finest.
serves 6 to 8
1 pound dried small white beans, such as flageolet
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 small white onion, diced
2 lemons
2 pounds boneless skinless chicken thighs
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 sprigs fresh thyme
2/3 cup finely chopped dill fronds
Place the dried beans in a large bowl and cover them with water. Soak for 24 hours, or at least overnight — topping up the water as the beans soak it up. Drain the beans and set aside.
Heat the oven to 350°F. In a 4-quart (or larger) Dutch oven or heavy ovenproof pot, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and onion and cook for 5 to 7 minutes, stirring frequently, until they are tender and the onion is nearly translucent. Add the drained beans and stir to coat the beans with the garlic, onion, and oil. Turn off the heat.
Take a sharp vegetable peeler and carefully peel one of the lemons. Peel it in wide strips, taking care that you remove only the top yellow layer of peel — you do not want any of the bitter white pith. Add all of this shaved lemon peel to the beans and stir. Juice the lemon and add the juice to the beans. (Reserve the second lemon for later.)
Pat the chicken dry, and lightly salt and pepper it. Lay it on top of the beans in the Dutch oven. Add water until it covers the beans and comes up to just below the chicken. Lay the thyme sprigs on top. Turn the heat to high and bring the water to a simmer. Cover the pot and put it in the oven.
Bake for 1 1/2 hours, or until the beans are very tender and creamy.
Slow Cooker Variation: Cook the garlic and onion as directed above, and stir in the soaked and drained beans. Transfer to a slow cooker insert. Pat the chicken dry, and lightly salt and pepper it. Lay it on top of the beans in the slow cooker. Add boiling water until it covers the beans and comes up to just below the chicken. Lay the thyme sprigs on top. Cook on LOW for 8 hours or until beans are tender, then proceed with the remaining steps in recipe.
Remove the lid from the pot, and take out the chicken and put it to the side on a plate. Remove the thyme stalks. Zest and juice the second lemon, and stir the zest and juice, along with the chopped dill fronds, into the beans. Shred or chop the chicken and place it back on top of the beans. Top with the mint pesto (recipe follows) and serve.
To serve, scoop up a spoon of beans, and top with chicken. Make sure each serving has a dollop of pesto as well. Serve with a green salad, and good bread to soak up the sauce.
Mint Pesto
makes 2/3 cup
4 packed cups mint leaves
1/3 cup blanched almonds
2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
1/4 cup olive oil, plus more if necessary
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Blend all the ingredients in a small food processor or chopper until finely chopped. If not using immediately, store in the refrigerator with plastic wrap completely covering and touching the surface of the pesto to prevent oxidization.
Related: Recipe: Chicken Stewed with Tomatoes, Cinnamon, and Preserved Lemon
(Images: Faith Durand)
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Comments (36)
This sounds amazing! Any way to adapt this recipe for the slow cooker, for those of us resistant to firing up the oven?
@Cooklyn, I haven't tested this in the slow cooker, so I'm a little hesitant to offer specific instructions.
But yes, I think that this would work beautifully in the slow cooker. Check out these instructions for cooking beans in the slow cooker. I would probably start by following those, with the chicken laid on top as I have here.
What a lovely dish! With so many of my favorite things: lemons, herbs, beans, and lean protein. I bet this one-pot wonder would taste great spooned over a few ounces of quinoa or couscous. Mmm!
Oh my gosh, this makes me wish I wasn't vegetarian... looks so tasty!
This immediately caught my eye when it appeared in my email inbox. It looks so good and I love one pot meals.
You've done a wonderful job with this article. The pictures are so nice, the layout is very appealing and the text enjoyable to read.
Thank you!
@SweetOzarksGirl, thanks so much! How kind of you!
@pleiovn I am sure the beans and the pesto would be great without the chicken as well; just follow the recipe but leave the chicken out. You could also add cubed paneer or another firm cheese to the pot.
Love it, just for a rainy and chilli like today in England. Is very important in summer have as well some food with plenty protein and carbohydrates
Do you think it would be ok to cut this in half? I'm cooking for one and could have leftovers, but that might be a lotta leftovers!!
I'll have to try it once it cools down here in LA a little bit. Just the idea of turning on my oven makes me sweat. :/ Looks yummy though! Great idea!
This sounds amazing! I love beans but tend to cook them only in the fall / winter as they are so rich. The lemon and mint wold really "perk" them up though and make a lovely summer meal.
I'm with @jennaelbow...sounds quite tasty, but with our outdoor temps 95+ and my AC-free indoor temps at 85+ there's NO WAY I'm turning on an oven. Would love to know if anyone gives it a test run in the crockpot.
Would work on a primal blueprint or gluten-free diet as well!
Don't even have to advertise it as such, but hey. No processed sugars or grains.
This recipe looks delicious. I have tons of peppermint going berserk in my garden right now and I like the idea of using it in a pesto. Thank you for sharing!
This looks amazing, I want to make it tonight. Would canned beans work in a pinch? Any idea how many cans that would take? Thanks!
Yum. This looks like a keeper!
This is definitely one of the most mouth-watering recipes I've seen on thekitchn.
Is there some way to print these recipes other than cutting/pasting them? Or am I simply overlooking the print option?
tx.K
Mint pesto! Genius.
I'm going to try this with chicken breasts and I will definitely do it in the crock pot with the summer temps. However, adding any salt to the cooking liquid until the beans are done is a HUGE mistake as the beans will not get tender. I added half a teaspoon of salt to a baked bean recipe for the crock pot and 13 hours later(on high!), the beans were still too firm. So I will be skipping the salting of the meat till the beans are done to my liking. I'll let you know how it all turns out!
@CastleCook I used to think that too, but then I read several authors who said it's actually not true, and that adding salt earlier will make them more tender. I've done it both ways and it doesn't seem to make a difference, hence the addition here. Perhaps it depends on the type of bean?
But it's not a big deal - you can certainly add it at the end - no problem!
Hmmm, how can I tweak this to make it all veg?
This delicious looking meal is definitely a candidate for the slow cooker or the pressure cooker. (No AC here, so that oven is staying off!)
Faith, you truly excel at the one-pot meal. I've enjoyed your casserole cookbook immensely. Thanks for sharing this.
this looks amazing.. can't wait to try it!
The chicken and beans look fabulous...but I'm not a fan of mint. Should I just try it because that's how the recipe goes together?
Can I do a mix of chicken breasts and chicken thighs, or do the cooking times vary?
Tx!
Can't wait to try this ... this made my five to try post this week!
Trying this tonight but ditching the dill since my husband hates it, and adding fresh peas because it sounds kind of yummy with the mint. Also I'm cheating and using canned beans - sorry - I'm just not that organized to soak the day before :)
This looks fabulous, and I'm going to try it. But....am I missing it, or is there no way to get a printer-friendly version?
You could do this using indirect heat on a grill as well. That will keep your house cooler. Sounds great - we'll be trying this in the near future.
I made it! My kitchen got stupid hot, but it is delicious as expected, with all that lemon, dill and mint and the creaminess of the beans. I didn't use almonds in the pesto and I mixed the pesto right in. I hope it freezes well because there are probably 10 servings - it's a very dense dish with tons of protein.
Thanks for the recipe!
I made this in my slow cooker yesterday and it turned out well. I followed the method of the recipe, but cooked it on low for 8 hours. An amazing hot meal without overheating the kitchen during our NYC heatwave!
As pandora1975 noted, this recipe does make a huge amount of food; I halved everything, and still ended up with a good 5 servings.
made this exactly as directed today - it was really good. The chicken was very succulent and all my kids loved it - the littlest two kept piling on the mint pesto. Definitely a keeper.
are blanched almonds raw or roasted?
I made this last night in my pressure cooker, and something must have gone wrong. Used small white beans (the dried kind) from Goya and followed the recipe and adjusted the cooking time for a pressure cooker. I also added some white wine to the cooking broth. I didn't like how mine came out; the beans tasted muddy or had a very "murky" flavor and the dish tasted very heavy for a summer dish. Maybe having pressure cooked the meal changed the flavor but this seemed like something to eat in winter.
Sigh. I tried this for the first time last night, cooking on the stove top rather than in the oven, and the beans just never softened up. I'm not sure if the problem was my technique or the beans, but it was sad to have something that you start prepping fro the day in advance not turn out.
That said, the chicken and the mint pesto were delicious. I will happily make this again with canned beans, just adding them to the onion/garlic/thyme/lemon broth when I take the chicken out to shred it. The chicken and the pesto was heavenly.
HIGHLY disappointed.
I am a pretty good recipe-cook. I read though several times. I modify based on the comments or suggestions. I taste as I go. Etc Etc
I did that with this recipe. I was really looking forward to it. I chose the crock-pot method as it is a hot day here and I didn't want the stove on for long. I 24-hour soak my beans. I always use this method.
I then proceeded as the author stated under the crock-pot method. She left out a couple of very simple words.
after adding the beans to the crock-pot, add salt and enough fresh water so the beans are covered by an inch or two .
check out this link. recipe basics
I checked out the stuff at 8 hours. I kept in another hour. I then took out chicken and added a container of stock. I cooked another hour. Finally at 10 hours I shut off the crockpot and finished cooking on the stove for another hour. The beans were just barely finished.
I've made this recipe in the slow cooker several times since it was originally posted, and it's awesome. I soak dried Great Northern white beans overnight- usually about 18 hours by the time I remember- and cook it on the low setting for 10 hours while I'm at work and my husband is home to poke at it every now and then and make sure there the beans haven't absorbed all the liquid. I add salt at the beginning. I've never, ever had an issue with beans not softening up. It's definitely become a go-to in my house. Thank you for the recipe and the gorgeous photos!