Baked Chicken with Caramelized Onions and Sautéed Mushrooms

   As I mentioned last week in my Things I love Post we ate this meal in some form every night last week. We loved it, we did it for a couple reasons one being trying to have healthier foods and control portions, and the other is it is relatively inexpensive or a weeks worth of food.

   We used bone in skin on thighs and they were so moist and paired greatly with the sweetness of the onions and the richness of the mushrooms.  Serve with various different vegetables or a side salad.

Baked Chicken with Caramelized Onions and Sautéed Mushrooms

Serves 2 People

Ingredients:

• 2 chicken thighs bone in skin on, excess skin trimmed off
• Garlic Powder
• Salt
• Pepper
• Greek Seasoning
•  1 onion, thinly sliced
• Vegetable oil
• 4 mushrooms, sliced
• Olive oil
• Red Cooking Wine

Directions:

Caramelized onions take a while to make but are so worth it. Start by cutting your onion in half then slice thinly long ways. You want them to be strips. Heat about half a tablespoon of oil in a stick skillet (one that does not have non stick coating on it). Put them in the pan over LOW heat and cover with a lid and set a timer for 30 minutes. DO NOT TOUCH them until that timer goes off, unless you hear lots of sizzling then you need to stir them.

Raw in the Pan

   Towards the end of the onions time season your meat and turn your oven on to 400°F. I start with salt and pepper, then garlic powder, then last the Greek seasoning adding a lot and pushing it into the skin. When the oven is ready put them in and set a timer for 30 minutes.

   When the timer for the onions go off, stir them around and see if they are at a texture that you are good with eating them on their own. You want them to be soft but not mushy, but you want to make sure the crunch is out of them. If they need to go longer put the lid back on and start with 5 minutes and check them again, continue until they are where you want them. Once they are tender, take the lid off  you can raise your heat just a bit to make this process faster. Make sure they are in a layer across the pan and let sit for about 5 minutes until you see some browning around the edge. Stir them and try to get the brown off the bottom with the onions. Do another 5 minutes letting them sit and keep an eye out for any burning. Once you’ve done this a couple times and they all are starting to get a nice brown color give them a taste and see if you want to make any adjustments. Sometimes they need a bit of salt, sometimes I added a bit of paprika to them for a different flavor. Note: if they are not getting brown fast enough for you, you can add about a teaspoon of sugar to help it along but you have to keep stirring until they are dark enough to keep the sugar from scorching, this also helps them be a bit sweeter if your onion wasn’t very sweet.

softened and starting to get a bit of color

Done, and all the brown from the pan is scraped off and on the onions.

   The mushrooms take about 20 or so minutes so while you are watching your onions during one of the 5 minute browning stages, place a tablespoon of olive oil into a pan. Once it is hot add the mushrooms and stir so they are evenly coated. Place a lid on them for about 10 minutes until they have sweated out their moisture and it is out of the pan. Then add about a ¼ cup of cooking wine to them and let them simmer in that until it is all gone. Then they are done.

You want your slices fairly thin.

   Your chicken should be done now pull it out and temp it. Each should be 165°F at the bone and the juices should run clear.

Now all you need to do is plate it up and enjoy.

Served up with a side salad.

   I hope you try this recipe and enjoy it as much as we did. If you do try it or have any tips on any of these I would love to hear from you in the comments! Have a great Wednesday.