One-Pot Wonders: Pan-Seared Chicken Thighs With Butternut Squash and Carrots

Winner, winner, chicken dinner. As annoyingly cliché as it is, it has to be one of my favorite phrases of all time. It works out well because I tend to make quite a few one-pot chicken dinners for this column (Read: I can be found singing this to myself A LOT). Like the cast iron crisp-skinned roast chicken Kenji wrote about a couple weeks back, this variation also comes with its own built-in side dish, and because it's made exclusively with store-bought bone-in chicken thighs, you don't have to do any kind of butchering beforehand.

The meat is cooked skin-side down until extra-crisp, then removed so that squash and carrots can go in for a little browning. Finally, the chicken's added back in along with some broth, which helps the vegetables soften and lets the chicken gently braise. It all goes into the oven to finish cooking. Finished with a bright pop of lemon juice and cilantro, the dinner is a true one-pot meal that involves a little prep work and not much else.

There will be a bit of cooked down, intensely flavorful sauce in the pan that I highly suggest spooning over the chicken and vegetables, serving with bread to soak it up or perhaps some couscous tossed with lemon and olive oil.