This oven-baked chicken and chorizo rice recipe is absolutely tasty and easy to make. The chicken, chorizo, and rice are baked together in one pot and perfectly seasoned with aromatic spices. It’s a good chicken recipe that you will cook over, and over, and over again!
If you are looking for easy one-pot chicken recipes or don't know what to cook with Spanish chorizo, try this recipe! This chicken and chorizo rice dish is so flavorful and filling. It has all the components of a perfect meal in one pan! The chicken is so tender and the Spanish rice is so fluffy and not mushy!
This oven-baked chicken and rice recipe tastes similar to Arroz con pollo and paella! Simply delicious!
Why You’ll Love This Chicken and Chorizo Rice Recipe:
- It's a simple dish that cooks all in one pot. Cooking meals in one pot saves lots of time! You will also have fewer pots to wash for after dinner!
- It's an affordable meal. This dish uses inexpensive bone-in chicken thighs and rice.
- It's loaded with Mediterranean and Latin American flavors!
Easy Ingredients:
This dish is made with basic ingredients and seasonings that you can easily find in your pantry!
To make this Chicken and Chorizo rice dish, you will need; bone-in and skin-on chicken thighs, Spanish chorizo, long-grain white rice, Trader's Joe fire-roasted red bell pepper, tomato sauce, onion, chicken broth, garlic powder, smoked paprika, thyme, black pepper, and salt.
Smoked paprika, also known as pimenton, the secret spice of Spain and a popular ingredient in many Mediterranean recipes. Pimenton is made from peppers that are smoked, dried, and ground into powder. It's a powerful condiment to add intense red color, aroma, earthy complexity, and smoky flavor to any dish.
Smoked paprika is a widely used condiment in many traditional Spanish dishes, including paella, all types of stews, and as an essential ingredient to make Spanish sausages.
Bone-in and skin-on chicken thighs. They are an incredibly versatile, cheap, fattiest, juiciest, and most flavorful part of the chicken. Bone-in and skin-on chicken thighs crispy up perfectly and cook at the same time as rice which makes them the perfect protein choice for this recipe.
Spanish Chorizo. It is a dry-cured sausage made from coarsely chopped pork and pork fat. The sausage is seasoned with garlic, pimentón (smoked paprika), and salt. It also has a deep brick-red color and smoky flavor. The dry-cured sausage can be sliced and eaten without cooking.
Now, let's talk about the preparation and cooking process.
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How to Make This Spanish Rice with Chicken and Chorizo:
The preparation is pretty simple. You only need to pat the chicken dry with paper towels, chop an onion and mix all dried spices; garlic powder, smoked paprika, thyme, black pepper, and salt together in a small bowl.
The cooking process takes about an hour but the result is phenomenal, and it’s worth it!
So here are some important cooking steps to follow:
- First, season the chicken with 1 tablespoon of dried spices mixture. Cook chicken thighs, skin side down, until fat renders and skin starts to brown for about 5 minutes then flip over and cook for 3 minutes.
- Second, keep about 3 tablespoons of rendered fat in a small bowl and discard the remaining. Clean the skillet to remove any unwanted residue to prevent burning if necessary. Add the reserved render fat back into the skillet, cook the onion until translucent for about 3 minutes.
- Third, add chorizo and fire-roasted red bell pepper. Stir for about 1-2 minutes.
- Fourth, add rice and the remaining dried spices mixture to the skillet and stir for about 2 minutes or until it smells fragrant, nutty, and looks slightly toasted.
- After that, add the tomato sauce then put the chicken on top of the rice, and pour the chicken broth around the chicken.
- Now, it's time to bake the chicken and chorizo rice dish in the oven, covered for about 30 minutes then uncovered for about 20-25 minutes or until the rice is fully cooked.
Check Out These Side Dish Recipes:
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I hope you’ll enjoy this Oven-Baked Chicken and Chorizo rice recipe! If you try it out, please don’t forget to come back and rate the recipe card!
Chicken and Chorizo Rice
Equipment
- A Dutch oven or braiser or oven-safe deep skillet
Ingredients
- 5 bone-in and skin-on chicken thighs
- 3 tablespoon vegetable oil , (divided)
- 1 large onion, (diced)
- 4 oz dry cured Spanish chorizo, (fully cooked, dice into ½ inch pieces)
- 4 oz fire-roasted red bell pepper, (slice into thin strips)
- 1½ cups uncooked long-grain white rice
- 1½ cups tomato sauce, (heated)
- 1¼ cups chicken broth, (heated)
Spices:
- 1½ teaspoon garlic powder
- 1½ teaspoon dried thyme
- 1¼ teaspoon salt, (use more according to your liking)
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 tablespoon smoked paprika, (+ ¼ tsp)
Instructions
Preparation:
- Pat the chicken thighs dry with paper towels and transfer to a bowl. Set aside.
- In a small bowl, stir together the smoked paprika, garlic powder, dried thyme, salt, and pepper until evenly blended. Set aside.
- Rinse the rice under cold running water until the water runs clear; drain well.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F.
Brown the Chicken:
- Season the chicken thighs with 1 tablespoon of the dried spices mixture and 1 tablespoon of oil. Set aside.
- Heat 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil in an oven-safe skillet, braiser or dutch oven over high heat until hot but not smoking. Place the chicken thighs in the skillet, skin side down, and cook 2 minutes. Reduce heat to medium-high; continue cooking skin side down, occasionally rotating the chicken to evenly distribute heat, until fat renders and skin starts to brown for about 3 minutes. Flip over the chicken thighs and cook for an additional 3 minutes.
- Remove the chicken from the pot and pour the rendered fat into a bowl.Reserve about 3 tablespoons of the fat to cook the onion, chorizo, and rice. Discard the remaining rendered fat and clean/wash the oven dutch/skillet to remove any unwanted residue to prevent burning.
Sauté the Onion, Chorizo, and Rice:
- In the same dutch oven or braiser or oven-safe skillet, heat 3 tablespoons of rendered fat over medium heat. Add the diced onions and stir for about 2-3 minutes or until translucent.
- Add the chorizo and stir for about 45 seconds. Add the fire-roasted red bell pepper and stir for 45 seconds.
- Add the remaining dried spices mixture and stir for 30 seconds. Add the rice and stir for about 1-1½ minutes or until it smells fragrant, nutty, and looks slightly toasted. Turn off the heat.
- Add tomato sauce into the skillet and spread it all over the rice.
- Add the chicken thighs back into the pan, skin-side up then pour the hot chicken broth around the chicken.
Oven-Baked:
- Cover the dutch oven and bake for 30 minutes then uncovered for 20-25 minutes or until the rice is fully cooked and liquid is fully absorbed.
- Remove from the heat, wait for about 5 minutes then stir the rice.
- Serve and enjoy!
Video
Notes
- Spanish Chorizo from Vons/Safeway - it's fully cooked and dry-cured.
- Trader's Joe Fire-Roasted Red Bell Pepper
- Kirkland Organic Chicken Stock
- Hunts Tomato Sauce
Farah Maizar
Absolutely gorgeous! The skin on that chicken looks like crispy heaven. I can't wait to try this!
Jess
I LOVE Chorizo! And I LOVE that you can do this in the dutch oven. This is such a great recipe!
Tisha
Chorizo makes such a nice addition to so many dishes! This chicken dish is absolutely perfect for a weeknight dinner!
Angela
The spice mixture is so flavorful and the Spanish chorizo is wonderful!!
Pam Wattenbarger
This looks like an amazing dinner for fall. It's been a while since I've had chicken and chorizo together, but I love the combo!
Amber Myers
This looks incredible! I've always liked rice, so this is a perfect meal for me.
melissa chapman
Chorizo has a flavor everyone will love. Putting it together in this chicken dish is such a smart and tasty idea.
Robin rue
Oh Yum. This sounds super delicious. I just know that my whole family would love it.
heather
This is such a delicious meal! Our family really enjoyed the chicken with the chorizo!
Chichi
This rice dish looks so good. Reminds me of my Nigerian Jollof rice. I bet I will love it. Yum!
Tasheena
This looks so yummy. I can’t wait to meet this for my family.
Chef Dennis
I will definitely go and make this Chicken and Chorizo Rice! It makes me really hungry. Looks really delicious!
Jennifer Van Haitsma
This sounds amazing! Adding this to my menu for next week. I love chorizo.
Paula Schuck
Drool. We make chicken so often that my kids sometimes roll their eyes still and are like OH boy chicken again. So we are always looking for some new ideas for chicken recipes. This chicken and chorizo rice sounds amazing. I am all in. Pinning it for later. Thanks!
Joline
That looks super flavourful! And we're big fans of one pot meals.
Lynndee
That looks amazing! My son is huge fan of chicken so I'm always on the lookout for new chicken recipes to try. Thanks for the recipe!
Kathy
Wow this recipe sure does look amazing. I definitely need to try this soon. I can't wait to see how it tastes. I think my family is going to love it.
Kita Bryant
I love a good chicken and rice recipe.
Debra Schroeder
This looks delicious. I’m always looking for new ways to cook chicken.
Lois
That is a very spicey and tasty looking dish. I love spicey.
Marysa
Sounds like a great combination of flavors. I love spicy chorizo and will have to give your recipe a try.
Swathi
Chicken Chorizo rice looks delicous love to try this for dinner. perfect recipe.
Nathalie Porbes
I love chicken and I'm so happy to found some new recipes for me to cook.
Catalina
Oh my goodness! I am drooling over this chicken rice! It's so flavorful and delicious!
Margarita Ibbott ~ DownshiftingPRO
This sounds absolutely amazing. It looks pretty straightforward also. I'll be passing this recipe on to my daughter. She's the chef in this house.
Nyxie
I love chorizo so, so much! This honestly looks like heaven in a bowl to me. Defintly something I'm going to have to try and make!
Ruth I
Oh how delicious this looks! Now I need to find the ingredients and try this!
katrina Kroeplin
chorizo is one of my fav. i seriously need to make this, it looks amazing.
Nyxie
It looks and sound delicious! I'd love to try making this.
Rika Livingston
Let me know how it goes, Margarita!
Rika Livingston
Thanks for sharing your feedback, Catalina!
Rika Livingston
It uses a lot of spices but actually doesn't taste that spicy 🙂 try it out!
Rika Livingston
Awesome. Let me know what you think about it!
Rika Livingston
A great combo 🙂
Rika Livingston
Let me know what you think about it!
Rika Livingston
You're welcome, Lynndee!
Rika Livingston
I ama big fan of one-pot meals too, Joline!
Rika Livingston
I hope you can find the Spanish chorizo in your area and give this recipe a try!
Rika Livingston
Thanks for sharing your feedback, Angela!
Rika Livingston
Thanks, Tisha!
Rika Livingston
Thanks for sharing your feedback, Jess!
Rika Livingston
Thank you, Farah!
Rika Livingston
I am a big fan of Dutch Oven recipes 🙂
Rika Livingston
Thanks for sharing your feedback, Heather!
Rika Livingston
Thanks, Melissa!
Rika Livingston
I am glad to hear that, Amber!
Best,
Rika
Rika Livingston
I have to try the Nigerian Jollof rice! It sounds really good!
Rika Livingston
Thanks for pinning, Paula!