Dinner
Sheet-pan chicken + sweet potato + green beans
Training night when nobody wants to cook. One pan in, one pan out, one pan washed.
- Servings
- 4
- Total
- 35 min
- Skill
- Easy
What you need
Ingredients
Making for
4 servings
- Chicken breast0.5 lb
- Sweet potato0.5 each
- Green beans0.5 cup
- Olive oil0.25 tbsp
- Lemons0.25 each
Quantities scale linearly with servings. Round to the nearest practical amount when shopping.
Steps
- 1
Cut the sweet potato small and give it a head start
Two sweet potatoes into half-inch cubes, tossed with 1 tbsp olive oil and salt, into a 425F oven for 15 minutes on their own. Sweet potato takes about twice as long as chicken breast, and this one gap is why sheet-pan dinners usually come out with either raw potato or dry chicken.
15:00
- 2
Hot pan, and leave room between everything
Pull the pan out, push the potato to one side, add 1.5 lb of chicken breast cut into large chunks and 2 cups of green beans. Spread everything into a single layer with gaps. Crowded food steams in its own moisture instead of roasting, which is the difference between browned and grey.
- 3
Back in for 15 minutes
Everything together at 425F for 15 more minutes. The chicken is done at 165F in the middle. Green beans will have blistered in spots, which is what you want.
15:00
- 4
Lemon at the end, not the start
Squeeze half a lemon over the whole pan out of the oven. Acid added before roasting just evaporates. Added after, it lifts everything and stops it tasting flat.
Coach's notes
- Parchment on the pan means the washing up is throwing the paper away, which is most of why this gets cooked on a Tuesday.
- 425F is not negotiable. Lower and the vegetables release water and stew instead of roasting.
- Sweet potato brings a slower carbohydrate than white potato and a lot of vitamin A, and roasted in cubes most kids eat it without argument.
- Doubles cleanly onto two pans, swapping shelves halfway. That is Sunday covered as well as Tuesday.