Lazy Chicken Dinner.

[Originally posted here on March 13, 2014.]

Confession: This is a lazy post.

Lazy Chicken Dinner: Arrange two chicken breasts, two largish quartered new potatoes, and a can of green beans in an 8x8 baking dish; top with a packet of Italian dressing mix and half a stick of melted butter; cover with foil and bake 45 minutes at 350.

Not only is this a super easy dinner idea, but it isn't even mine.

If you're on Pinterest, you've undoubtedly seen this pin:

Look familiar?

It's usually accompanied by something along the lines of:

"4-6 raw chicken breasts, new potatoes, green beans (fresh or canned-really any green veggie would work. Broccoli is good, too). Arrange in 9x13 dish. Sprinkle with a packet of Italian dressing mix and then top with a melted stick of butter. Cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour."

Every pin I've seen of this image either leads to a broken link or to a page that, like mine, cites "Pinterest" as the recipe source; I got more of the same when I tried to Google-search the image. Honestly, I feel kind of bad for whoever first pinned this, because their blog traffic should have been outrageous due to the popularity of the pin. But no one seems to know where it came from!

Anyhow, I decided to give it a try last week. And it's a winner. (Made it again already.)

I'm an incredibly picky eater (unless it's chocolate, I mostly like only white and yellow foods--pasta, bread, cheese pizza, corn, popcorn, etc.--and I don't like the taste of meat), but this dish is surprisingly good. I can eat all elements of it, and that's rare for me. Add to that that it's a one-dish wonder, with maybe five minutes of prep? SCORE.

All you need are five ingredients:

Ingredients.

• Chicken breasts
• Green beans
• New potatoes
• Italian dressing mix (we use Zesty Italian)
• Butter

These are staples in my fridge and pantry, so there's no shopping involved. So easy.

Arrange chicken, new potatoes, and green beans in baking dish.

I don't eat much meat, and my almost-three-year-old is a light eater as well, so I use only two chicken breasts, two largish quartered red potatoes, and as many green beans as I can fit (we looooove green beans in this house--hence the five-pound can), arranged in an 8" x 8" baking dish.

Sprinkle with Italian dressing mix packet.

Although I basically halve the other quantities suggested, I still use the entire Italian dressing mix packet (I tried about 3/4 of the packet the first time, and the hubby suggested it could have used more seasoning; full packet was perfect!).

Top with melted butter.

I top with half a stick of melted butter.

Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 45-60 minutes.

With my smaller portions, we found that the chicken was too dry after baking for an hour, so I went with 45 minutes this time, and it came out perfectly juicy.

Done!

And that's it.

Delicious full dinner--meat, veggies, and carbs--from items I keep stocked anyway and with almost no work?  Yes, please!

This lazy chicken dinner is now in my regular rotation. Love it! (Thank you, anonymous person on the internet, for this wonderfully simple recipe!)