This marmalade chicken is a wonderful dish of very mixed flavours. You have sweet, bitter and spicy in a single bite. And that’s before you take into account any vegetables you might add to it.
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
Marmalade Chicken Traybake
This recipe came about some years ago, 2015, to be precise.
The house had been sold, we were packing our stuff and clearing our fridge and pantry, for what would have been an epic year of travelling, starting with a family wedding in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Unfortunately, my late husband fell ill, and we had to call it quits in Morocco, after only 4 months. But I suppose 6 countries in 4 months was pretty good going, especially for the kids.
So what happened, was that I found an old jar of marmalade in the back of the fridge. I honestly didn’t even remember buying it, as no one is particularly fond of it on the family. It smelled fine, and it tasted fine too, so I thought I might as well use it for something.
Marmalade chicken is nothing new and a simple search online will reveal countless recipes, combining chicken, marmalade and mustard. So that’s what I thought I’d do, only to realise that I didn’t have any mustard. In any form.
Chipotle Paste in Marmalade Chicken
Thankfully, since my fridge has always been a veritable dispensary of homemade chilli pastes and concoctions, I found half a jar chipotle paste just begging to be used.
I thought the smokiness would go very well with the marmalade, and it certainly did. If you want to stick with this recipe, and fancy it, you can make your own chipotle paste using our recipe here.
Or you can just buy a jar of it. These days, chipotle paste is very easy to come by, it certainly is in the UK. All our large supermarkets stock it in the herbs and spices aisle.
You can always use mustard in this recipe (like everyone else 😉), or perhaps harissa or sweet chilli sauce; it’s a pretty fluid recipe in many ways. The only 2 ingredients that need to be constant are the chicken and the marmalade. Having said that, I make a duck dish with marmalade too – but that’s a recipe for another day!
Marmalade Chicken Recipe
It’s such an easy recipe, and is very fluid, as mentioned above. We throw everything into a baking dish and leave it to cook for 45-60 minutes.
When I do traybakes and pot roasts, I love adding vegetables to them because it saves me having to make another dish of vegetables. I’m so lazy like that. Ask my kids. Our vegetable dish is almost always a salad instead of cooked vegetables. My argument is that it’s better for you. 🙂
What vegetables to use?
You can use pretty much anything you fancy when making this marmalade chicken. In the images, we’ve got small peppers, courgettes (zucchinis) and because I needed to use up our padrón chillies from the garden, quite a few of those too.
In the past, I’ve used carrots, cauliflower, potatoes, parsnips and brussels sprouts. Just be sure to cut your potatoes and parsnips fairly thinly so they’ll cook. Otherwise, just parboil them for 10 minutes, before adding to the baking dish.
In the recipe below, to keep it simple, I’ve listed a pepper, a carrot, a courgette and a red onion.
The Chicken
I am a huge fan of chicken thighs, and that’s what I’m using here, with skin on. You can take the skin off, if you prefer.
You could also use other cuts in this marmalade chicken, whether it’s legs, drumsticks or chicken breasts. Legs will take slightly longer to cook, add 10-15 minutes to the cooking time, depending on the size of the legs.
Chicken breasts will be done in about 30 minutes, again, depending on size.
How to Serve our Chicken Marmalade?
With lots and lots of bread! Whatever bread you fancy. I make focaccia once a week, and always have that if the two coincide.
Before my kids turned vegetarian, they would have this marmalade chicken dish with rice. And I must confess that I kind of enjoy it with rice too. That sweet, bitter and spicy sauce is just perfect with any starch, including couscous.
Super easy, one pot recipe today. Shall we get our aprons on?
If you like the recipe, don’t forget to leave me a comment and that all important, 5-star rating! Thank you!
And if you make the recipe, share it on any platform and tag me @azlinbloor, and hashtag it #linsfood
Lin xx
Marmalade Chicken Traybake with Chipotle Paste
Equipment
- A baking dish about 30 cm x 20 cm (12" x 8")
Ingredients
Marmalade Marinade
- 4 heaped Tbsp marmalade
- 2 Tbsp chipotle paste or less, up to you
- 2 sprigs rosemary, fresh or ¼ tsp dried
- ⅛ tsp salt I find ¼ tsp too salty
- freshly ground black pepper
Everything Else
- 1 bell pepper any colour
- 1 courgette large
- 1 carrot medium
- 1 red onion large
- 1 orange large
- ½ Tbsp EV olive oil
- 4 chicken thighs preferably skin on, but that's up to you
Instructions
The Marinade
- Preheat the oven to 200℃ (400℉/180℃ Fan).Place the marmalade and chipotle paste in a bowl and mix, to combine.
- Strip the rosemary leaves off the stems, by running your fingers along, backwards. Add them to the marmalade bowl above.
- Add the salt and pepper, stir well, and set aside.
Prep the Vegetables
- Halve the bell pepper and cut each half into 5 strips.
- Cut the courgettes and carrots into thick sticks.
- Peel and quarter the red onion. Then peel the strips to separate them.
- If your orange isn't organic and unwaxed, scrub with a vegetable brush under warm water. Then, cut into rings. Don't peel.
Let's get Cooking
- Place all the cut vegetables and fruit (pepper, courgette, carrot, red onion, orange) into your chosen dish and drizzle the ½ Tbsp of olive oil all over. Spoon 1 heaped Tbsp of the marmalade mix over them, and mix thoroughly.
- Place the chicken on the fruit and vegetables, and spoon the marmalade mix onto the chicken pieces. Then, rub the mix all over the chicken, getting under the skin.
- Tuck a piece of onion under each chicken skin, then bake the chicken for 45 – 60 minutes, until the chicken is done. The time will depend on size of your chicken thighs. At the 35 minute mark, baste the chicken thighs and vegetables with some of the juices in the dish and continue cooking. I use a ladle for this.
- Rest for 5 minutes before serving.
Azlin, I have a chicken languishing in my freezer and was thinking it would be yummy stuffed with your veggies or some recently grilled ones to use up the leftovers, basted with your amazing sauce. Whatever works, right?! I LOVE marmalade (blame it on my affinity for English breakfasts, lol) and chipotle, YES! Heat ‘n’ sweet…
Hi Kim, absolutely, whatever works! And I’m sure it was great!
I think this is one yum recipe especially when you want to clean out the fridge. I will, however, sub the chicken with potatoes and cauliflower. Sounds like one awesome dish. Can’t wait to get the ingredients together.
Thank you, yes, a great fridge cleaner!
I think this is one yum recipe especially when you want to clean out the fridge. I will, however, sub the chicken with potatoes and cauliflower. Sounds like one awesome dish.
This sounds like it has everything I want in a recipe; especially the chipotle paste! I could eat chipotle with just about anything!
Me too, Lisa!
This looks like something we would enjoy. I’ll have to see if we can get chipotle paste here in Latvia. If not, mustard it is! Thanks Azlin.
A pleasure, Janis, good luck, and let me know how it goes!
I’m in Waitrose now shopping for this recipe! Just found the chipotle paste in the spices aisle as you said. Thanks Lin, dinner tonight!
Haha, yay! How did it go?