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This One Pot Turmeric Chicken and Rice is a hearty, warm and comforting weeknight dinner option! It’s full of veggies and uses both fresh and dried turmeric. It is dairy-free and gluten-free and is bound to be a new, and easy, family favorite!
One Pot Turmeric Chicken and Rice
We love an easy-to-make and easy-to-love weeknight dinner and this One Pot Turmeric Chicken and Rice is one of them! A warm and comforting spiced chicken and rice dish that consists largely of unattended cooking and is made all in one pot for a simpler clean up! This dish uses both fresh and dried turmeric for an extra punch of flavor and has so many veggies packed in!
Let’s talk turmeric:
We’ve talked quite a bit about turmeric on this site before because turmeric is a trendy food topic these days, but for good reason: it provides significant anti-inflammatory effects that can benefit a wide variety of health concerns! Curcumin, which is a nutrient found within turmeric, is a powerful anti-inflammatory. Chronic inflammation has been linked to a number of larger medical conditions such as diabetes, arthritis and heart disease. A natural and easy way to help keep inflammation down is through the foods you put in your body. This One Pot Turmeric Chicken and Rice uses both fresh turmeric and dried turmeric. Now are we saying if you eat this rice all of your inflammation will go away? Nope! But we are big believers in using a whole and real food approach to healthy living and including as many nutrient dense ingredients in our every day meals is a good start.
Where can you buy fresh turmeric?
Where can you buy fresh turmeric?Almost any major grocery store will sell turmeric. Look for it in the section where they sell fresh ginger, and it looks similar!
What do you do with fresh turmeric
You don’t need to peel the thin skin off of fresh turmeric, but we prefer to especially if it isn’t organic. The easiest way to do this is to take a spoon and gently scrape off the skin. You can grate the turmeric with a microplane or finely mince it. Just be careful about where you prepare the turmeric because it will leave yellow everywhere it touches, including your hands!
If you like this easy weeknight dinner recipes, check out these others:
- How to Make Trader Joe’s Cauliflower Gnocchi
- Creamy Tuscan Chicken
- Sheet Pan Chicken Fajitas
- Sheet Pan Curry Chicken and Vegetables
- One Pan Salsa Verde Chicken and Rice
- Steak Cobb Salad with Cilantro Vinaigrette
- Cauliflower Parmesan
ONE POT TURMERIC CHICKEN AND RICE
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons avocado oil divided
- 1 1/2 lbs. boneless skinless chicken thighs, diced into bite-sized pieces
- 1 onion diced
- 3 garlic cloves minced
- 2-2 inch pieces fresh turmeric about 2 tablespoon
- 2 carrots diced
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 1 teaspoon parsley
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 teaspoon turmeric dried
- 2-½ cups chicken broth
- 1 cup long grain white rice
- 1/2 medium cauliflower cut into florets (about 2 cups)
- ½ cup frozen green peas
- Cilantro and lemon wedges for garnish
Instructions
- Heat a 12” heavy bottomed high-sided pan over medium-high heat. Once hot, add oil and chicken and cook until beginning to brown 5-7 minutes. Remove from pan and set aside.
- Add onions and carrots and cook until soft and translucent, 3-5 minutes.
- Add fresh turmeric, garlic and all spices and toast for 30 seconds.
- Add chicken stock and scrap up any browned bits. Add rice, cauliflower and the chicken and stir to combine. Make sure the mixture is spread evenly in the pan and the veggies and chicken are pushed into the liquid as much as possible.
- Let mixture come up to a boil, then cover with a tight fitting lid, and lower the heat to medium-low.
- Cook for 20 minutes.
- Shut off heat, quickly remove the cover and sprinkle ½ cup peas over the top. Close the lid and let steam for 5 minutes.
- Fluff with a fork garnish with cilantro and a sprinkle of lemon juice
How do you prepare the fresh turmeric, throw in whole 2 inch pieces or grate or….?
Grate it!
Is nutrition for 4 servings or 6?/
This is delicious! Healthy comfort food, so good!! My grocery store didn’t have fresh turmeric, so after seeing the previous comments I doubled all the spices in the recipe. I used instant brown rice and a little extra broth to make sure everything was in liquid- the rice only took about 10 min to cook!
I really liked the flavor of this dish, but the rice did not cook for me in 20 mins. I followed the recipe and have made many of your others without problems, but it needed at least double cooking time! I used basmati rice and the package also said 20 minutes cook time – so not sure! I’ve had this happen with other one pot dishes though where the rice doesn’t cook enough.
Hi Natalie! Sorry to hear your rice took longer to cook! Definitely 40 minutes for white rice isn’t correct, unless it was brown rice! Did you nestle all the ingredients together so the rice and veggies were all touching broth?
I made this last night for dinner. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find fresh turmeric at my local whole foods so how to make due with just the dried turmeric. I think it would’ve had more flavor if I had the fresh turmeric. The recipe also never noted when to put the chicken back into the pan, so I add it in with the rice and cauliflower. Even without the turmeric, the dish was still really good! It wasn’t as flavorful and took more time for me to make than the estimate but it was a hearty meal and still tasted great!