Chicken with White Beans & Tomatoes

Here’s an easy, weeknight chicken recipe for you to try.   This recipe came from Real Simple, with a few slight modifications to save you some calories and $$!  The recipe calls for bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs – I substituted boneless, skinless chicken breasts to help reduce the points plus (Weight Watchers) value.  My favorite chicken is Smart Chicken – it’s an organic brand sold in MN at Byerly’s and Lund’s grocers.  What I love about this recipe is that it combines your protein and side all in one dish!

Servings: 6
Size: 5 oz of chicken, 1/2 cup bean and tomato mixture
Points Plus: 10 pts
Level of Difficulty: Easy
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 50 minutes

Rating: 3 stars - Good

Ingredient List:

2 15.5 oz cans of cannellini beans, rinsed

1 pint grape tomatoes

4 sprigs of fresh thyme

4 sprigs of fresh oregano

1 garlic clove, smashed

¼ tsp crushed red pepper

1 Tbsp olive oil

Kosher salt

Black pepper

2 lbs of skinless, boneless chicken breast

Directions:

Preheat oven to 450°. In a 9x13 inch baking dish, toss beans and tomatoes with thyme, oregano, garlic, crushed red pepper, olive oil and ½ tsp each of salt and pepper. Season the chicken breasts with ½ tsp of salt and ½ tsp of pepper.  Roast until the chicken is cooked through, about 35 to 45 minutes. 

Note: If you want to speed up the cooking time, you could start the chicken sautéing on the stove before you transfer it to the baking dish for roasting.  Also, the bean/tomato mixture may produce some liquid while roasting – use this as a sauce to spoon over your chicken when serving!

Tip:

One way to save some $$ is to use dried herbs instead of fresh.  I used dried thyme and oregano (from Penzey’s) for this recipe and it turned out great!  Sometimes the fresh herbs are definitely worth the splurge (think fresh Mexican), but there are many recipes that you can get by with the dried variety without sacrificing taste.

XOXO Megan