Onions are one of the most magical ingredients that I’m appreciating even more now my Irishman is on a low FODMAP plan which excludes alliums.
In fact most of the time when someone walks into the kitchen and says ‘that smells amazing’, it’s just onions cooking.
They’re also a brilliant source of inulin, a type of fibre called a ‘pre-biotic’ which is great for feeding your gut bacteria (unless you have IBS of course!).
There are 7 ingredients listed here but I don’t count olive oil in my 6-ingredient limit.
Spiced Chicken & Onions with Hummus
Ingredients
- 4 medium onion
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 teaspoon ground coriander
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 4 chicken thigh fillets
- 1 cup almond hummus or regular hummus, to serve
- 1 bag salad baby kale or baby spinach leaves
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 250C (480F). Peel onion and chop in half lengthwise. Then slice each half finely into 1/2 moon shapes. Place onion in an oven proof casserole or cast iron pot. Drizzle with a little oil and cook covered for 10 minutes.
- Meanwhile, combine olive oil, cumin, coriander and a little salt in a small bowl. Toss in chicken thighs to coat in the spicy oil.
- After the onions have been cooking for 10 minutes, add chicken and oil to the pot and return to the oven covered for another 10 minutes.
- Remove lid and cook for another 5 minutes or until chicken is well browned and cooked through (no longer pink when you cut into it).
- To serve, divide hummus between two plates. Top with spiced chicken and onions and serve salad leaves on the side.
WINE MATCH: A buttery chardonnay or crisp riesling.
Variations & Substitutions
short on time / no oven – cook onions in a large frying pan until soft and golden. Remove from the pan and keep warm while you pan fry the spiced chicken on a medium high heat until well browned and cooked through (about 4-5 minutes on each side).
5-ingredients / über simple – skip the spices or replace with 1-2 teaspoons of a spice blend like ras el hanout, baharat or curry powder.
vegetarian – replace chicken with cooked chickpeas, mushrooms, eggplant or or cauliflower.
more substantial (carb lovers) – warm pita bread, steamed brown rice or quinoa or roast sweet potato.
more substantial (low carb) – add roast nuts like hazelnuts, almonds or pine nuts. Or add some low carb veg like cauliflower or beautiful broccoli or zucchini to cook with the chicken. Add some feta.
paleo (grain, legume & dairy-free) – use almond hummus.
keto / ultra low carb – skip the onions.
Low FODMAP – replace onions with 2 sliced red capsicum (bell peppers). Make a low FODMAP hummus by replacing the garlic in this hummus with 1 teaspoon ground cumin. You may want to reduce the serving size of the hummus.
Waste Avoidance Strategy
onion – will keep in the pantry for months. Best if in a dark corner in a brown paper bag.
olive oil / ground coriander / ground cumin – keep them in the pantry.
chicken thigh fillets – freeze them.
hummus – will keep in the fridge for a few weeks. Can be frozen.
salad, baby kale or baby spinach leaves – are highly perishable. My first path would be to use them for another meal (salad for breakfast!) but if that isn’t possible you can pop them in the freezer. They will wilt down but can then be used anywhere you’d use wilted greens. At least this way they won’t go slimy.
Prepare Ahead
You can but I prefer not to reheat chicken! If you do want to, just cook as per the recipe but keep the hummus and salad separately. Leftovers will keep in the fridge for 1 week or can be frozen. To serve, warm chicken and onions in a pan with a little oil.
Add to my Old Favourite Recipes
I couldn’t come at such a large quantity of onion in one dish, so substituted a carrot and a capsicum for 2 of them. I also added 2 potatoes, and 4 flat mushrooms because I only had 3 fillets, not 4. As usual, the dish took a lot longer to cook and was rather wet (I don’t think that my oven gets to 250°C), but having it in a pot made it easy to reduce on the stove top. I had it with about 50/50 normal hummus and broccoli hummus from last week. Quite good.
To be honest, I think that this will work better as leftovers now that I’ve brought the vegetables together into a sauce.
I’m going to make this with less onion this week as well Mark,
If it was wet it sounds like the baking tray was crowded so the steam couldn’t escape (could also be your oven temp). When you’re adding extra veg like this try it using the largest tray you have so that the hot air can circulate around each piece of food – it makes a massive difference.
And maybe try cranking your oven as high as it will go.
But glad you were able to reduce on the stove top – good thinking!
The recipe specifies keeping the mixture covered for 4/5 of the cooking time anyway (20 minutes out of 25), and the only larger pot I have with a lid is a La Creuset one that weighs a ton.
Right! Then that’s easy – just leave it uncovered for longer 🙂
Thanks Jules 🙂