Lemon Chicken Skillet Madness

If you need someone to blame for today’s Lemon Chicken Skillet Madness recipe, go ahead and blame the open jar of artichokes in my fridge! I’d used just a couple of them earlier on this Greek style naan pizza — but in my defense: You really shouldn’t let an open jar of artichokes go to waste, right?

Further investigation of the contents of my fridge turned up the remnants of a bag of red onions, a couple of lemons, the last of a big pack of mushrooms I impulse bought at Costco last week, and a pack of clearance chicken thighs. Bam! From these humble beginnings, Lemon Chicken Skillet Madness was born. (And, how lovely and lemony it turned out to be…)

Lemon Chicken Skillet Madness

Ingredients

– for the chicken

1 Tbsp butter
1 Tbsp olive oil
3 lbs bone-in chicken thighs
Sea salt, to taste
Black pepper, to taste

– for the sauce

1 cup chicken broth
Juice of half of a medium lemon (about 1 Tbsp)
2 Tbsp Dijon mustard
1 Tbsp minced garlic (about six cloves)
1/2 tsp tarragon
1 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp basil
Black pepper, to taste

– for the veggies

10-12 oz artichoke heart quarters, drained
1 medium red onion, cut in eighths
8 oz whole white or baby bella mushrooms
1 medium lemon, sliced

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and heat olive oil and butter in a 12″ cast iron skillet over medium-high heat until bubbling. Trim chicken thighs (if necessary), season both sides with sea salt and pepper, and brown over medium-high heat for four minutes a side (skin side down first).

Meanwhile, make your sauce by mixing together the chicken broth, lemon juice, mustard, garlic, and spices.

Turn off the heat under your pan and arrange the artichokes, mushrooms and onion in the skillet around the browned chicken thighs. Pour your sauce evenly over the chicken and veggies, then arrange lemon slices on top.

Move the skillet to the oven and bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. Remove pan from oven, stir the veggies around a bit (making sure that they all get coated with the pan juices), and spoon some of the pan juices over the chicken. Return the skillet to the oven and continue baking for another 20 minutes, or until chicken thighs are to temperature.

Note: A couple of the chicken thighs I had here were fairly large, so I gave them a full 40 minutes in the oven to cook through. If the thighs you are using are smaller, you may need to reduce the total cooking time slightly.

So much flavor in this low carb chicken skillet!

This lemon chicken skillet was darn tasty, if I do say so myself! Just tangy enough and garlicky good, while the broth-y sauce also helps keep the thighs nice and juicy. Lemon Chicken Skillet Madness is naturally low carb and gluten free.

Not low carb? Here’s a serving suggestion…

Although this lemon chicken skillet itself is gluten free, in all honesty the non-low-carb contingent here (AKA: everyone in the house except for MashupDad…) did enjoy theirs with some decidedly carbalicious baby potatoes.

If you want potatoes with your chicken, too, I based mine roughly on this Instant Pot Syracuse Salt Potatoes recipe, but: Threw in the rest of the leftover can of chicken broth from the chicken, plus just enough water to cover 24 oz of bite size medley potatoes. I also cut down on the salt quite a bit, and just poured the garlicky-lemony sauce from the chicken over the finished potatoes, rather than using melted butter. (No IP? There are stove top directions in there, too.)

Lemon Chicken Skillet Madness, printable recipe

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