The Lazy Genius Podcast - #100 - Change Your Life Chicken

Episode Date: March 18, 2019

You guys, we’ve hit 100 episodes! How fun is that?! And the only appropriate way to celebrate, in my opinion, is to deep dive into Change Your Life Chicken! I never thought a chicken recipe would be my legacy, but here we are. This recipe is a staple in my meal plan, and I talk about every step in great detail in this episode. If you’ve never made it before, this episode will make it a regular in your rotation. I’m absolutely sure of it. Stuff Mentioned Follow me on Instagram where I spent most of my Internet time. You can always find me there for Meal Plan Mondays and my Instagram Lives on Thursdays. Find the original post on Change Your Life Chicken with all the pictures and steps included. My Instagram highlight of your CYLC experiences. My interview with The Kitchn where I talk about Change Your Life Chicken. Download a transcript of this episode! This podcast is hosted by Kendra Adachi and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, everyone. I'm Kendra and you're listening to The Lazy Genius Podcast. I am here to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. You guys, today is episode 100. Oh my gosh. It's the 100 episode. That feels like a really fun thing. So we are going to celebrate in the best way that I know how. We're going to deep dive change your life chicken. I know. You're so excited. This chicken recipe is legit going to be my legacy. Like I'm, I, I, I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure is what I'm known for the most. And I do kind of want to give it a little spotlight today so that you can have the best change your life chicken every time you make it. I feel like that's a good way to celebrate 100 episodes. And if you've never made it before, this episode is going to make it like a regular in your rotation. I am sure of this. Okay. Before we get going, I want to make sure you are following me on Instagram at the lazy genius. I am there very often. especially on Mondays, which is the day this episode is coming out as they all do. Every Monday, I share my meal plan on what I creatively call meal plan Monday.

And you guys are starting to share your meal plans too, which is so fun to read and share with everyone. We are helping each other feel a little less crazy around dinner time, which is always a plus. There are also a lot of great resources in the posts themselves on my Instagram account, since you guys are like super smart and you leave such great comments for each other. The point is that it's really the only social network I hang out on. So if you want more lazy genius than just these episodes, head to Instagram, where I hang out almost daily. And my handle there, again, is super easy, the lazy genius.

And as we talk about Change Your Life Chicken today, you might have questions that you want answered. The best way to do that is to join me live every week on Instagram. I hang out for about half an hour every Thursday, around 12, 15 Eastern. a lot of times my two-year-old daughter, Annie, makes an appearance. And I love answering your questions. So follow me on Instagram. Yay, amen. Okay, let's talk about chicken. If you have not heard of my change your life chicken, you might think I'm really full of myself to claim a recipe can change your life, but it can. And it probably will, based on the feedback I get pretty much every day on this recipe. So let's start by explaining what it is. And then we will for sure have a link in the

show notes to the recipe itself with like photos and all that. Okay, so change your life chicken is basically chicken and vegetables roasted on a sheet pan in a super hot oven. So hot, you'll think it is a mistake, but we'll get to that. In fact, we'll get to a lot of the intricacies of this super simple recipe, which seems counterintuitive, but we're going to make it the best it can be. But first, let's talk about why it's such a life-changing recipe. First, it's stupid easy. You put some vegetables on a pan, you put some chicken on top of that and you stick it in the oven. Like seriously, that's pretty much it. Second, it is incredibly versatile. You can use a couple of cuts of chicken, like different ones, which we'll get to in a second. But you can also use a variety of vegetables to

switch it up. You can also add herbs and spices or whatever else to change up the flavor. So the method is the same, but the flavors are super versatile. Third thing, it is a complete meal. Like every, everything exists on the sheet pan. And unless you want to bake some rolls or like, toss together a quick salad or something, you really don't need anything else. We never eat anything else except for what's on the pan. Four, there's zero cleanup. Seriously, if, if you are comfortable using foil or parchment paper to line your pan, I use both actually, which I'll explain in a second. You, like, you throw it away once the food is gone. Like, you literally have no dirty dishes. It's amazing. Five, it is easy to scale up or down for the number of people you have.

We'll talk about the particulars of how to decide what pan to use, like what size, but you can make this for one person or 12 without a lot of extra effort beyond just cutting more vegetables. Sixth thing, in case you're not convinced, there's still more reasons. Kids love it. I'm serious. Or at the very least, kids tolerated. I've never heard of a kid who didn't at least tolerate it. Maybe yours doesn't like it, and you just haven't told me, but most kids really like it. My favorite thing is the number of moms who tell me that their kids like it, but say, but it didn't change my life, though. My darling children, it is not meant to change your lives.

It is meant to change your mom and dad's lives. But most kids really find it, like, decent. And a lot of kids even love it. That crispy chicken skin is a big selling point in our house, and probably will be yours two. Okay, seventh reason that this is life-changing. I know. There's more reasons. It is Whole 30, paleo, gluten-free, dairy-free, all the other frees you can think of because it's just chicken, vegetables, oil, and salt. Truly. So if you are in a need of a meal that hits like a lot of dietary restrictions, this is it for sure. Eight. It is make-a-head, if you can believe it. Then you

You can't freeze it. It's not a freezer meal. But you can make it that morning or even the night before, maybe, but I would not risk that too much. But you can make it in the morning, set it all up on the sheet pan, put some plastic on it, and then put it in the oven at dinner. Like you put it in the refrigerator all day and then put it in the oven at dinner. I really don't think, I'm going to recant what I said.

I don't think you should go more than like 10 hours or so, so like morning to evening, because the salt, it's fine for the chicken. It's actually great for the chicken. but it starts to like extract too much liquid from the vegetables. And depending on what vegetables you use, it could be a little unruly. So I would just, I would say morning tonight, if you want to risk it and try the night before, I mean, it's not going to like kill anyone. It'll just affect texture.

That's all it'll do. And you might find that the way, that it's not, that the tradeoff, the textural tradeoff is totally fine for you to be able to make it the night before and not think about it until dinner time. Okay. So that's eight reasons. It's life changing. I've got nine, actually 10, but here's the ninth.

And I'm surprised at how many reasons there are too. When I started to write them out, like, this is a really life-changing recipe. There's so many compelling reasons. So nine, once it's in the oven, it is hands off for almost an hour. The prep time, it varies a bit based on the vegetables you use, which we'll talk about in a second. But ultimately, you have like pretty much a stress-free hour before dinner hits the table because you literally do nothing.

Like when it's in the oven, you're done until it's done. And then 10, because we might as well round it out with 10, it's delicious. I haven't mentioned that yet. It's so tasty. And isn't that what we want the most anyway in a recipe? When you learn how to use salt and fat and heat to your advantage, you can take the simplest ingredients and turn them into like a delicious masterpiece, which this recipe, is. I am a firm believer in there not being a perfect recipe for everyone except maybe this.

Like, it truly will change your life. This recipe is just so stellar and dependable and tasty. Okay. I'm going to assume you're convinced now. So we're going to start talking about the particulars of how to make it. And again, this is in the blog post that had the recipe from, you know, months ago when I posted it. But there have been some questions. about different nuances of the recipe and we'll troubleshoot some things. So we're just going to walk through the best way to do it. Okay. So we're going to start with the method. A pan of vegetables and chicken are cooked at. Okay, now hold on. 500 degrees. Yes, I said 500 degrees. No, you are not going to burn your house down. We are going to troubleshoot the temperature in this episode. So you don't

feel like you're going to burn your house down or actually burn the food. But the temperature does matter. The reason we cook it at 500 degrees is to get crispy skin, which is as close to fried chicken as you're going to get without actually frying it. It is so good. We're doing it that high to make sure the chicken is cooked through, which freaks everybody out. And to get the vegetables cooked with like a combination of a little bit of char, but also be nice and soft. Now, if you have heard my episode on roasting stuff, you heard me talk about spreading the food out in the pan. in order to get crispy texture on the vegetables. And this is very true. But not for change your live chicken. It's different. If you spread out your vegetables too much in a 500 degree oven, everything will burn.

I have seen photos. Some of you have sent me of your change your life chicken and I have seen the burn. And I know how frustrating it is to make dinner that doesn't turn out the way you hoped. But change your leaf chicken is different in that you want your vegetables to be super cozy and mostly covered by pieces of chicken. Since the vegetables are so close together, they protect each other in that very hot oven. And then the chicken itself kind of insulates the vegetables and keeps them from burning. But because everything is so cozy, you need a hot oven to make sure everything cooks. Now, if you were to turn the oven down to say 425 and keep everything the same, the vegetables and the chicken, they wouldn't be done at the same time. Some vegetables might be a little

soggy because there's not enough heat to get some char on the exposed edges, and you definitely would not get crispy skin. So essentially, the 500 degree oven, it gets everything cooked and crispy, and then the coziness of the stuff in the pan is kind of the other side of the scale, right? It keeps everything from burning to a crisp. Does that make sense? So that is why we cook it at 500. It's a balancing act. Now we're going to talk about the chicken and why it's risky to make this recipe with anything but chicken with skin and bone, particularly my preferred cut, which is the chicken thigh. Okay, chicken on a bone is more forgiving than chicken off the bone. The bone acts as kind of a protector for dry chicken, as does the skin. It's like you get protection from the inside and the

outside of the chicken. Now, if you were to put a boneless, skinless chicken breast on a bed of vegetables and roasted at 500 degrees, you would end up with something resembling like rubber or jerky, burned jerky. The chicken would cook, it would be done like long before the vegetables are done. And it just wouldn't, it doesn't turn out the same. Now, if you want to cook, if you want to cook boneless, skinless chicken on a sheet pan with vegetables, everything needs to be spread out. The vegetables need to be cut smaller and it needs to be cooked at a lower temperature. And I've made that recipe, but it doesn't change your life. The magic that happens with that chicken skin especially makes change your life chicken one of a

kind. Now, that doesn't mean that you can't roast vegetables and boneless, skinless chicken on a sheet pan. You absolutely can. It just doesn't have quite the same delicious results as change of life chicken does. But it's still totally worth doing. Okay. Now, my personal favorite cut of chicken and the one that is in this recipe is the thigh. I love a chicken thigh.

Oh my goodness. It has more fat in the meat itself, which keeps it from getting dry. And it takes a little longer to cook than chicken breasts, which leaves more time for the vegetables to develop flavor and get a better texture because they're in the oven a little bit longer. Now, this recipe, it does work with chicken legs and chicken breasts, too. They both, even like with skin and bone, they both just take a little less time than the chicken thigh, which means you'll probably want to cut your vegetables a hair smaller.

than you would if you were using thighs. Again, it's that balancing act. It's like balancing the scale. So if your chicken takes a few minutes less, then you want to kind of give your vegetables a heads up and cut them a hair smaller. Okay, now let's talk about the vegetables. You can use just about anything,

but you have to think about the end result. Potatoes, they take way longer to get crispy and cooked than say green means do, right? And we want everything to kind of be crispy and cooked. We don't want, like, really sad vegetables. Now, big chunks of carrot, they take longer than big chunks of mushrooms, right? Because that mushroom, it'll cook real fast compared to that very fibrous big chunk of carrot. So because vegetables cook at different rates, pay attention to their size so that everything on the pan is done

at roughly the same time. Okay? My personal favorite combination that we pretty much use exclusively for change your light chicken is potatoes, carrots, onion, and green beans. Aw isn't something we need to travel for. It's something waiting for us in everyday life, whether in a city street or a moment with a work of art. I'm Dr. Keltner, host of the Science of Happiness podcast. Join me for Cities of Aw, a special series on how our public spaces can spark awe, wonder, and enhance the quality of public life. You can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts. I'll leave off the green beans sometimes.

and I will talk through that combination specifically, just so you can see how the sizes of your vegetables kind of need to play together. Okay. Now, if I were to cut all four of those vegetables to be the same size as each other, okay, by the time the potatoes were done, the onions and the green beans would be a black mess, and the carrots wouldn't be far behind. So whatever vegetable takes the longest to cook should be cut the smallest. Size up as you add other vegetables to the pan. Okay? So potatoes will be cut into like one inch cubes, maybe a tiny bit smaller since I'm always surprised by what an inch actually is when I pull out a ruler. The carrot would be cut into like thick coins, maybe a bit bigger than the thickness of the potatoes, right? Because

potatoes cook longer, but not by much. And then the onions are cut even bigger than the carrots, kind of even in bigger chunks where you keep the layers of the onion together, even in a Like you can break up a few of them, but you can keep some of those chunks together. And then the green peans, they're not cut at all, right? They're just kind of dumped in there and definitely tucked up under the chicken and not left out on the edges because they're so small and thin. And we don't want them to be exposed too much. You see how that works? So the vegetable that takes the longest to cook should be the smallest size on the pan.

And that is how you avoid black vegetables. Okay, now let's talk about the benefits of lining your pan and how you do it for the best. results. I line a big sheet pan, like massive. It's the biggest one that fits in my oven, and I use it for, I'm a baker. And so I use it all the time for like cookies and all that kind of stuff. But we have a big family and we make a lot and we always make leftovers. So I make this in my biggest pan. I line a big sheet pan with heavy duty foil first. And you can use regular foil. It just tears easier. That's all. So I tend to use the heavy duty. And then I put a layer of parchment paper on top of that of the foil. I have made this with both individually, like with

just foil and with just parchment. And I prefer using both, although individually is fine. And so is using nothing at all. You'll just have to wash the pan, obviously, but that's fine. Now, here's why. I like using the foil because it's sturdy. It can curl up over the edges of the pan, which keeps any like leakage from getting on the pan. And then plus the foil, it helps conduct the heat, which is always really helpful. But the problem I have with only using foil is that sometimes vegetables get stuck.

And then when you use a spatula or something to like pry them off the foil, the foil tears. And then you have a dirty pan. It's so annoying. So I use foil for pan protection and heat conduction, and then a layer of parchment to keep the food from sticking. And it still gets brown. Like it still kind of gets seared from where it's touching the heat of the pan directly,

but it doesn't stick to the parchment, which is so great. Okay, so we have talked about the temperature, the chicken, the vegetables. Now let's talk about oil and seasoning. Once your vegetables are cut and you put them on the lined pan, drizzle on just like the tiniest bit of oil. I tend to use avocado oil or just some clear oil, and that's the clear oil that we tend to use. And I don't use extra virgin olive oil. Just because, for two main reasons, I want the oil to have a pretty high smoke point, which means it's not going to smoke up my kitchen, which olive oil will do, because olive oil smokes

little lower temperature than say avocado oil does. And then I don't necessarily need the flavor of olive oil since the fat from the chicken skin itself, that's got the flavor. That's the flavor I want. So I drizzle on just enough oil to make the salt stick to the vegetables. That's kind of all. Some of you have sent me messages saying that your vegetables were really oily and greasy at the end, which was tasty, it was tasty, but it wasn't crispy, and it was just, it was greasy. It just wasn't quite what you were hoping for. Your solution to that is you use less oil on the vegetables themselves because the fat from that chicken skin, it does so much of the work for you. So if your change early of chicken is greasy, cut back on the oil you drizzle on the vegetables themselves and

definitely don't oil your chicken. There's just no need. I know it seems, I know it seems counterintuitive to have so much to say about such a simple recipe. But the more you see why it's put together, the way it is, the more you can adjust it and troubleshoot it based on what you're using. Okay. Let's talk about salt. You need more than you think you need. And I know I say that a lot.

A friend recently told me that I should name my future bakery salt. Because I'm such a proponent of salt and foods, even in dessert, which is, I just, definitely am. Salt makes everything sing. It doesn't make food taste salty. I mean, unless you use like a ton. It just makes food taste like itself. There is such a thing as using too much salt, of course. But I think most of you are definitely skewing on the end of like under-seasoning way more than you are on over-seasoning. You want to see the salt. Every piece of vegetable should have several grains of salt on it. So like a little pinch for an entire sheet pan, it's just not going to cut it.

My rule of thumb for the average cook, because I used to teach cooking classes and I watched people salt food. So here's what I say for the average person. Salt the food, the amount that you would normally salt it, and then do that two more times. I swear you're not using enough. And guess what? If you make it and it is too salty, you'll have a better understanding of your own

salting tendencies for next time. Okay? Maybe you're not as far off center as I'm telling you as the average person. But almost certainly you need to use more than you think you do. Okay, now let's talk about actually salting the chicken. You need to add more than you think here too. The beauty of salting chicken is that the longer it's salted, the better it tastes and the juicier it is.

I am talking you can salt it up to 48 hours before you cook it. And it is a delight. Now, it would change your like chicken and you want to get that crispy chicken skin, right? You don't actually want to salt the skin. you want to salt the meat underneath the skin for two reasons. One, you want the salt to penetrate the meat itself, which it can't really do if it's sort of fighting through the skin. And then two, when the skin is salted, it doesn't get as crispy, which is such a bummer

because that chicken skin, it's one of the treats of this recipe. So salt the chicken more than you think you should, just like the vegetables. You need to see it. But don't salt the skin itself. Okay, so now that you've gotten a breakdown of all the components, let's walk through the actual process. And we're going to assume that you're not salting your chicken way ahead of time, even though you totally can and will get a huge payoff if you do, but you don't have to. Also remember that the recipe is on the website, so you don't need to take notes unless you just want to. But here's

the rundown. Okay, so first you preheat your oven to 500 degrees. I know, but do it anyway. And make it so that you're putting the pan in the lower third of your oven. That ensures that most of the browning happens on the protected bottoms of the vegetables, and they get super delicious. And then the top of your pan isn't so close to the top of your oven. Okay. So do it in the, set your rack in the lower third. Next, you're going to line your pan with foil and then parchment, so it's ready. I want you to make sure, too, that the foil is curled up over the edges of the pan. Okay. And when I say a sheet pan, I mean like a cookie sheet. You could make this in a, like a casserole dish or a ceramic baking dish or something,

but the higher the sides on your pan, the less crispy the food gets. The shallower, the better. You want lots and lots of air circulation around that food. So preheat your oven, line your pan, now season your chicken, pull it all out of the package, and you can go ahead and put it on the prepared sheet pan to save a dirty dish if you want. since you're going to be touching raw chicken and you're going to be using salt over and over again because you're pulling the skin back and all that

I like to put a little pile of salt on the sheet pan or like in a tiny bowl or something so that I can double dip in the salt with dirty chicken hands and I'll just toss what salt is left over that way I don't have to wash my hands a million times between all the chicken salting. It's so annoying. So pull out your salt, make yourself a little pile of salt and then first salt the bottoms of the chicken

flip them all over, pull back all the skin, and then salt underneath all the skin, and then put the skin back. And then just leave the chicken piled to one side of the sheet pan while you cut the vegetables. And obviously, I mean, now you have to wash your hands, but you only have to do it one time. Isn't that nice? Now cut up your vegetables, remembering to make the vegetables that cook the longest be the smallest size, right? Pile all of those onto your sheet pan. Now barely oil the vegetables and salt them generously. Toss them all together so everything is evenly distributed. Hands are the best tool for this if you're comfortable with that. Now spread out the vegetables and start putting the chicken on top of the layers of vegetables. I realize like in your pan, half has chicken, half has vegetables, but you know,

you just kind of put the chicken on the vegetables, move them over as you make more room. And I say this, not because you're dumb and you don't know how to put things together, but this is what saves you having to have a lot of extra dirty dishes. Like I've been known, like Change Life chicken, well, it doesn't make any dirty dishes. Like if you do it this way, there are literally no dirty dishes, except your knife that you use to cut your vegetables with. It's such a delight. Okay. Okay, so now you want to, before you put the pan in the oven, I want you to grab a couple of paper towels and you're going to blot the chicken skin dry. And that ensures that you get that change your life chicken crispiness, okay? Okay. Now, one more thing, before you put the paint,

in the oven. And this is important. I want you to check the edges of the pan. If the vegetables on the edges, if they're not super clumped together, like if you can see the bottom of the pan between the pieces on the edge, or even the pieces on your pan altogether, you need to push the vegetables closer together. Ideally, the only part of the pan you should see is the actual edge, like the rim of the pan. Make sure those vegetables, they're not like super piled on top of each other, but they need to be even in one layer, but they're all touching. They're all cozy. There's no space. Make sure you can't see the bottom of your pan. Cannot. If you just can't get the vegetables close enough, like you just have too much pan. Okay. Nestle the chicken closer to the pan,

like move the chicken closer to the pan and move like to the bottom. And that pushes out some of the vegetables from underneath the chicken. Okay? It is less important for the vegetables under the chicken to be super far apart since they're totally protected by the chicken itself. But the vegetables that are completely exposed, they need to be super cozy. Okay. Now, put it in the oven in the lower third at 500 degrees for 50 minutes, 5-0. I love that it's easy to remember since both numbers have the 5 and the 0 in them.

Everybody seems to remember the 500 degrees because it seems so insane. And then it helps you more easily remember that the cooking time is 50, 50 minutes. And I promise you, I promise you that your chicken will be cooked. I pinky swear. No one has ever had problems with underdone chicken. The only problems have been greasy vegetables, which we already talked about, and then super burnt ones, which we also talked about. The more you make it, the more you'll understand how everything works together

to be perfectly cooked even in that super, super, super hot oven. and that is it. Fifty minutes, and you have a pan with a complete meal. My kids love the potatoes and carrots the most. I could eat those onions until I am sick. And if you have never had roasted green beans, you are in for a treat. Okay, so if you head to my Instagram account, there is a highlight you can always look through. It's the picture of a chicken, and it says CYLC for Change Your Life Chicken. And you can see what other people have used and how it's all worked to get ideas. I have like just a bunch of photos that people have posted of Change Your Life Chicken. And if you have more questions about this magical life-changing recipe, I will be live this Thursday on Instagram around 1215 to answer

your questions. I'm at the lazy genius. I love that we just spent that long talking about a single chicken recipe. But when you have something this close to perfect, you take the time to get it right. It's like the perfect 100th episode. It's so fun. Okay. So we're done for today. I'm so glad that you listen. Thank you for being here. I'm just really grateful for all of you, whether this is your first episode or you've heard all 100. And if you have heard all 100, that kind of makes me want to cry. Like, that's amazing. So thank you guys for being lazy geniuses. I just, I heart you big time. And that is it for today. I am Kendra. Until next time, be a genius about the things that matter. I'm lazy about the things that don't. I'll see you next week.

like you are living just a B or B plus life, it's so dangerous to live that. More dangerous than a B minus or a C plus life, because when you're living a B or B plus life, you don't change it. You think it's good enough. Is it? I'm Susie Welch. I host a podcast called Becoming You. People think, okay, an A plus life is not available to me, but there is a way. We are all in the process of becoming ourselves. Listen to Becoming You wherever you get your podcasts.