One-Skillet Sun-Dried Tomato Chicken and Orzo Is the Creamy Meal Worth Making for Tonight’s Dinner

One of the last things I want to have following an incredible meal is a sink full of dishes. So when a recipe boasts that it uses only one pan, I’m all in.

Food blogger Tieghan Gerard is obviously a fellow disliker of kitchen mess aftermath. She recently shared an incredible one-pot dinner with her 4 million Instagram followers: one skillet creamy sun-dried tomato chicken and orzo. With 188,000-plus people liking the recipe, some even noting it’s on weekly rotation at their house, this dish is clearly one for the [recipe] books (she actually has two — Half Baked Harvest Cookbook and Half Baked Harvest Super Simple).

“Quick and simple dinners that everyone at the dinner table will eat are what I strive to create,” she writes on her blog Half-Baked Harvest, where she offers up a hearty mix of savory, sweet, healthy, and indulgent recipes. “Enter this one-skillet creamy sun-dried tomato chicken and orzo.”

This dish simmers pan-seared Italian seasoned chicken breasts or small thighs and orzo in a zesty bath of mustard, garlic, spices, heavy cream, and dry white wine (what’s your pleasure — a Pinot Grigio or Sauvignon Blanc?). While Gerard uses a cast iron skillet, any oven-safe skillet or even Dutch oven would work just fine. 

One trick for the tastiest pasta — taking the extra step to toast the dry orzo pasta in butter for additional flavor. To finish it all off with a little texture, she adds in fresh baby spinach and sun-dried tomatoes, and tops it with a squeeze of lemon juice. Once the spinach is wilted, just pop the skillet into the oven until the chicken is golden-brown and cooked through. Then you’ve got a dinner that’s truly all-in-one — protein, carbs, and even veggies.

“I know simple skillet dinners can get a bad rap for being boring, but this is anything but boring,” she writes. If you want to try more one-skillet dishes, try this one-skillet chicken thigh recipe. 

Get Gerard’s full recipe here.