Scallion Chicken and Rice for Two: A 45-Minute One-Pan Dinner

Chef and cookbook author Nargisse Benkabbou's recipe strips a chicken dinner down to its essentials — scallions, chicken thighs, and basmati rice — and lets each ingredient do serious work. The result is a deeply savory one-pan meal that comes together in 45 minutes and serves one to two people, built around a technique that extracts maximum flavor from minimal components.

The method is deliberately layered. Bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs go into a hot 8-inch skillet skin-side down and cook undisturbed until the skin turns deeply golden and releases naturally, about five minutes. That rendered chicken fat stays in the pan and becomes the cooking medium for a quick sofrito of sliced yellow onion, minced garlic, and half the sliced scallions — building a sweet, savory aromatic base before the rice ever enters the picture.

Half a cup of rinsed basmati rice goes in dry, getting coated in that fat before a cup of chicken broth is added. The seared thighs are nestled back on top skin-side up, and the whole pan simmers covered on low heat for 20 to 25 minutes. The rice absorbs the broth along with all the drippings from the chicken above it, while the steam keeps the meat juicy. The remaining raw scallions are scattered over everything at the finish, adding a fresh, sharp contrast to the richly coated grains underneath.