Skillet Chicken With Peppers and Tomatoes
Updated Oct. 11, 2023

- Total Time
- 40 minutes
- Prep Time
- 10 minutes
- Cook Time
- 30 minutes
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
- 2pounds skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs (4 to 8 thighs)
- Salt
- 2tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
- 1small onion, diced
- 2medium bell peppers (any color or a mix of colors), diced
- 5garlic cloves, smashed and peeled
- ½ to ¾teaspoon red-pepper flakes
- ¼cup sherry vinegar
- 1tablespoon honey
- 1pint cherry tomatoes
- ¼ cup chopped fresh basil or parsley (optional)
Preparation
- Step 1
Pat the chicken dry and season generously with salt.
- Step 2
Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large skillet over medium. Add the onions and cook, stirring frequently until just starting to soften, 2 minutes. Add the peppers and cook until just beginning to soften, 1 minute. Add the garlic and red-pepper flakes and season lightly with salt. Cook, stirring, until the garlic is fragrant and the onions are beginning to brown slightly, 2 minutes. Move the cooked vegetables to a plate.
- Step 3
Add 1 tablespoon oil to the skillet. Place the chicken skin-side down and sear without moving until the skin is golden brown, 6 to 10 minutes. Turn and cook the other side until lightly browned, about 3 minutes. Pour out all but 1 tablespoon fat from the pan.
- Step 4
Add ½ cup water to the skillet and stir and scrape to loosen any stuck bits. Stir in the sherry vinegar and honey. Cover with a lid or foil, turn the heat down to medium-low and cook until the meat is cooked through, about 8 minutes. Uncover, raise the heat to medium-high and cook until the sauce is thickened, 2 to 3 minutes.
- Step 5
Add the cherry tomatoes and cook until they begin to soften and burst, 3 to 4 minutes, smashing open if needed. Return the onion-pepper mixture to the skillet, stir to coat in the pan sauce and cook, uncovered, until warmed through. Taste and add more salt if needed and remove from heat. Drizzle more olive oil over the top and garnish with a shower of basil or parsley, if using.
Private Notes
Comments
i always double the prep time. i don't have a staff to help me prepare my meals. And i'm not a professional chef, so i am slower. The recipes work; the prep time is always off.
To Brenda in Montana: I'm a displaced Texan - I live in Paris. Here, they use a "cocotte" - what we would call a "Dutch oven" - for everything. They are unbearably heavy (and fairly pricey, however they do last forever: "buy better, buy less" as they say), BUT - fairly mess-free: the sides are high, reducing much of the splatter. Any time I see "skillet" in a recipe, that's what I use.
Prepared exactly as written, except with boneless, skinless thighs, and it was delicious. Bright and fresh, but warm. I would have used maybe 1/4 cup of water to deglaze instead of a half cup, just to cut down reducing time. Nice surprise.
Fabulous. Invert steps 2 and 3 — it’s much easier to take out the thighs and then cook the veg. Otherwise followed the recipe. Used Santa Fe Grande peppers (güeros) from the garden. Added two cans of cannellini beans, then a bunch of cauliflower florets while we had a green salad starter. And fresh basil from the garden to serve. Yum!
This was a very tasty recipe. I rearranged the order during cooking process. I browned the chicken first and removed it from the pan. Then added onion and peppers and garlic. I left the vegetables in the pan as I deglazed it with a little less water than called for. Then added sherry vinegar and honey. Returned chicken to pan, and braised it for maybe 10 minutes. Then added tomatoes for another maybe 10 mins until they were soft and burst. Returned vegetables to pan and tossed in liquid. This worked for me and result was very good. Will look forward to trying it again.
During peak tomato season in your local farmers market, buy all the cherry tomatoes you can afford. Freeze them on a cookie sheet (no prep) and seal them in a ziplock bag. You can have this amazing taste all winter! Perfect for this kind of dish. No need to thaw before cooking.