30-Minute Lemon Chicken with Tomatoes & Kale
Use whatever greens you have. Kale, spinach, mustard greens. Anything will work.
Pour the whole pan over a bed of spaghetti and dust with parmesan cheese.
Ingredients
Scale
1 1/2 pounds boneless chicken thighs (about 8)
Zest and juice of one lemon
Salt and pepper
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon dried herbs (thyme, basil, oregano or Italian blend)
3 tablespoons butter
1 lemon, thinly sliced
1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes
4 garlic cloves (diced or smashed)
1/2 cup white wine
4 cups greens cut into big pieces (spinach, baby spinach, kale or mustard greens with stems removed)
Instructions
- Start the spaghetti: Put a large pot of water on high heat to boil. If you do this now, the timing will be perfect. Carry on with the chicken in the meantime. When your water comes to a boil, cook spaghetti according to package directions, in between working with the chicken.
- Start the chicken: Squeeze lemon juice over the top of chicken breasts. Then grate the zest over that. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
- Heat a large saute pan with olive oil on medium-high heat. Allow the oil to get quite hot (enough that it sizzles if you add a drop of water) so your chicken doesn’t stick to the bottom. Add herbs to the pan. Place chicken in pan and cook about 5 minutes on each side. It should be seared on the edges plus the herbs will give it lots of color. (Skinless chicken isn’t always easy to make look good so this is a trick!)
- Remove chicken from pan. Place it on a big platter. You’ll use this platter later to serve the whole dish.
- Add lemons and fry about 1 minute on each side. Remove lemons and place with chicken.
- Turn heat to medium-low. Add butter.
- Cook tomatoes and garlic in the butter, stirring until the tomatoes start to wilt. About 2 minutes.
- Add wine and greens. Scrape the bottom of the pan to remove all the juicy brown bits.
- Add chicken back to pan and allow to cook together about 10 more minutes.
- Serve over spaghetti with a sprinkle of parmesan.