Healthy week night eating is made easy with this delicious recipe for Greek Chicken Sheet Pan Dinner! Featuring juicy chicken thighs surrounded by tender vegetables, this all-in-one dinner is a true week night wonder. Tomatoes, green beans, potatoes, and bell peppers all cook together on one big sheet pan along with juicy, marinated chicken for a dinner that is simple enough for a Tuesday night. Dotted with feta cheese, briny olives and loads of fresh herbs, this easy supper bursts with so much colour and delicious flavour that you’ll also want to make it for company.
Last week, our cooktop at the mountain house abruptly and rather mysteriously stopped working right in the middle of a very busy week. While we waited for parts to be ordered and the repair person to make the trip up from the city, I wracked my brain for simple but delicious dinner ideas that wouldn’t rely on stovetop standbys like pastas, sauces and rice dishes. With seemingly endless rainy, windy days in the forecast, I didn’t love the idea of manning (womaning!) the outdoor grill night after night, so all my dinner hopes for the week came to rest on the shoulders of the thankfully-still-working oven. It had been a while since I’d made a sheet pan dinner, and wow – I’d really forgotten how great they are! Typically, sheet pan dinners (also known as tray bakes) are simple to assemble, fairly hands-off and a total breeze to clean up – all great reasons to love them. But do you know what makes THIS sheet pan dinner particularly great? The chicken, vegetables and delicious dressing mix and mingle in the oven to make the most delicious pan sauce that gets soaked up into every bite. Oh my goodness, those green beans. Green beans aren’t typically something I get super excited about but the ones in this dinner are tender, juicy and bursting with the delicious pan sauce. It’s all amazing, but those beans might be my favourite part. No, it’s the juicy, marinated chicken. No, it is the beans. I can’t really decide, so try it for yourself and let me know which part you can’t stop eating!
What is in Greek Chicken and Vegetable Sheet Pan Dinner?
There’s nothing complicated about this dinner that delivers major flavour with minimal effort. To make this dinner you will need:
- Bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs: Nutritious, economical and easy to find chicken thighs form the back bone of this recipe. Roasting chicken on the bone adds a lot of flavour and the crispy, golden skin adds visual appeal.
- Homemade Zesty Greek Salad Dressing: This delicious homemade dressing is made from pantry staples and burst with fresh delicious flavour. It’s quick and easy to prepare, but sometimes we need any shortcut we can find on those extra busy nights. Feel free to sub in a good quality, bottled Greek dressing if you’d like. Back in our old neighbourhood in Toronto, our local Greek restaurant sold bottles of their homemade Greek dressing, and I can think of more than one fine foods shop that make their own delicious dressings, so if it makes a week night easier and delicious bottled Greek dressing is available to you, I say go for it! Or make your own, Both are great options!
- Yukon Gold Potatoes: The creamy texture of Yukon Gold, or yellow fleshed, potatoes offer the perfect contrast to the other vegetables in this meal. Cut the potatoes into small 1 inch dice so the potato pieces cook through at the same time as the other vegetables.
- Cherry or Grape Tomatoes: These little wonders burst in the high heat of the oven, adding so much delicious flavour to the pan sauce.
- Red Onion: Cut in wedges, the red onion in this recipe becomes sweet and tender as it roasts.
- Yellow or Orange Bell Peppers: Cut the vegetables into similar sized pieces so they cook through evenly. Yellow or orange bell peppers offer a nice mix of colour to the dish, but a red bell pepper would work just as well.
- Green Beans: Look for thin, fresh green beans for this recipe and cut them into bite size pieces. You’re going to love them!
- Feta Cheese: After the oven has done most of the work of roasting this dinner to perfection, sprinkle the top generously with crumbled feta and return the pan to the oven to warm the cheese.
- Olives: Which olives you choose is up to you, but I like a mix of deep purple/black Kalamata olives and bright green Castelvetrano olives.
- Fresh Herbs: A shower of chopped fresh herbs takes this delicious dinner to the next level. I use a mix of flat leaf parsley, oregano and basil, but if you don’t have all 3, just use parsley.
You can meal prep Greek Chicken and Vegetable Sheet Pan Dinner to make it even easier!
This dinner comes together quickly enough, but for those nights when every minute matters, this sheet pan dinner is a breeze to meal prep.
- Make the Homemade Zesty Greek Salad Dressing the day (or a few days) before. It keeps well in the fridge for up to a week. If you store it in a jar with a tight fitting lid all you have to do is grab it out of the fridge, give it a good shake, then put it to work.
- Marinate the chicken in advance: The recipe suggests at least 15-20 minutes of marinating time, and that’s great if that’s all the time you have. The longer the chicken sits in the marinade though, the more flavour it absorbs. If you have the time, toss the chicken with the dressing up to 24 hours in advance and let it marinate happily in the fridge.
- Chop some of the vegetables: The red onion, bell peppers ad green beans can all be chopped up to a day ahead and stored in a covered container in the fridge. I prefer to chop the potatoes just before roasting though, since the cut edges of potatoes tend to brown when exposed to air. The tomatoes don’t need much prep other than a quick wash, and tomatoes lose both flavour and texture when refrigerated, so I prefer to leave them out of the meal prep as well and just toss them in at the last minute.
With those steps out of the way, dinner will be ready in a flash. All you’ll have to do is chop the potatoes, add the tomatoes and fire the pan in the oven. While the Greek Chicken and vegetables roast away, crumble the feta, chop your herbs and set out some wine glasses. Now that’s an easy dinner!
SERVING SUGGESTIONS
The beauty of this Greek Chicken Sheet Pan Dinner is that it’s a whole dinner – including protein, vegetables and a starch – all on one sheet pan! If you did want anything extra, wedges of warmed pita served with hummus or tzatziki compliment this meal nicely.
DRINK PAIRINGS
If you can find it, my first choice to pair with this dish would be Assyrtiko, which is a dry white wine from Greece. For a more readily available option, a Sauvignon Blanc with lemon notes and high acidity would pair beautifully with this dish. For a red wine, look for a light to medium body Grenache or Pinot Noir, which will compliment this dinner without overpowering it.
Recipe for Zesty Greek Dressing
This popular Style and Grace recipe for a homemade zippy Greek Salad Dressing is a quick and easy to shake up. Use it as the foundation for this Greek Chicken Sheet Pan Dinner or for dressing salads, pasta salads and steamed vegetables.
Greek Chicken and Vegetable Sheet Pan Dinner
Ingredients
- 1 batch of Homemade Zesty Greek Salad Dressing - see above for recipe link (or about 1/2 cup of quality store bought Greek Salad Dressing)
- 8 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
- 1 1/2 lbs/680 gr Yukon Gold potatoes (about 3 medium potatoes)
- 1 small red onion
- 2 orange or yellow bell peppers
- 10 oz/283 gr cherry or grape tomatoes
- 1/2 lb/225 gr thin green beans
- 1/2 cup feta cheese, crumbled
- 1/2 cup good quality olives
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh herbs (mix of parsley, basil and oregano)
- kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
- Add the chicken thighs to a large bowl and season with 1 tsp of kosher salt and several cracks of black pepper. Add half of the Greek salad dressing (about a scant 1/4 cup) and toss the chicken thighs to coat evenly. Set aside to marinate for at least 15-20 minutes while you prepare the vegetables. (Can be made ahead and placed in the fridge to marinate for up to 24 hours.)
- Preheat the oven to 425F. Scrub the potatoes, cut into 1 inch pieces and place on a large rimmed baking sheet. Cut the red onion in half through the root end and remove the papery skins. Cut each half into 6 wedges and add the onion pieces to the sheet pan with the potatoes. Sprinkle the potatoes and onions with 1/2 tsp of kosher salt and a few cracks of pepper, then drizzle with 2 Tbsp of the remaining Greek dressing. Toss to coat evenly in the dressing then spread the potatoes and onions out on the sheet pan. Remove the chicken from the marinade and add the thighs to the pan, nestling them in amongst the vegetables. Place the pan in the oven and roast for 20 minutes.
- Meanwhile, cut the bell peppers into 1 inch pieces and add them to a large bowl with the cherry tomatoes. Trim the green beans, cut in half and add them to the bowl with the peppers and tomatoes. Sprinkle the vegetables with 1/2 tsp kosher salt and a few cracks of black pepper, drizzle with the remaining dressing and toss the vegetables to coat evenly. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and add the peppers, tomatoes and beans to the pan, spreading them out amongst the chicken pieces and other vegetables. Return the pan to the oven and continue roasting for another 15 minutes.
- Sprinkle the chicken and vegetables with the crumbled feta cheese and the olives and return the pan to the oven for another 5 minutes, or until the chicken is fully cooked (reads 165F on a meat thermometer) and vegetables are tender when pierced with a fork. Serve in shallow bowls, spooning pan juices over top. Sprinkle each serving with a generous amount of the chopped fresh herbs.
