Recipes

Lemon-Garlic Chicken & Avocado Power Bowl

A burrito bowl of chicken, rice, black beans and avocado with a green sauce

The bowl I make on a Sunday so that Monday and Tuesday take care of themselves. Everything in it holds up in the fridge except the avocado sauce, and that takes two minutes to blitz fresh.

Thighs, and it is not close

This marinade is acidic and it wants a hot pan, and chicken breast survives neither well. Thighs carry enough fat and connective tissue to sit in lemon juice for a few hours and then take a hard sear without turning stringy. Breast in the same conditions goes tight and woolly, and no amount of sauce rescues the texture once it has.

Twenty minutes in the marinade is enough on a weeknight. Overnight is better, but the difference is smaller than the difference between resting the chicken and not.

Rest it, then slice it

Five minutes on a board before the knife goes in. Cut it straight out of the pan and a puddle forms on the board — that puddle was going to be in the meat. It costs nothing but patience, and it is the single largest difference between chicken that seems dry and chicken that does not.

Do not wash the pan yet

Whatever is stuck to the bottom of the pan after the chicken comes out is the best-seasoned thing in the kitchen. Tip the drained black beans straight in off the heat and stir them around, and they pick all of it up. It is a ten-second step that makes a tin of beans taste like part of the dish rather than a thing sitting next to it.

On the sauce

Thin it further than looks right. In the blender it should ribbon off the spoon rather than mound on it — a sauce that holds its shape sits on top of the bowl in a lump, and one that pours actually finds its way down between the rice and the beans, which is where you want it.

Prep20 min
Cook20 min
Total40 min
Makes4 bowls

Ingredients

For the chicken

  • 600 g chicken thighs, boneless and skinless
  • 3 garlic cloves, grated
  • Zest and juice of 1 lemon
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tsp dried oregano
  • Salt and black pepper

For the bowls

  • 300 g long-grain rice, cooked
  • 1 tin (400 g) black beans, drained and rinsed
  • 200 g cherry tomatoes, halved
  • 1 small red onion, thinly sliced
  • 1 lime, cut into wedges

For the cilantro-avocado sauce

  • 1 ripe avocado
  • 30 g coriander, leaves and tender stems
  • 1 small garlic clove
  • Juice of 1 lime
  • 3 tbsp Greek yoghurt
  • 3–4 tbsp water
  • Salt to taste

Method

  1. Marinate. Mix the garlic, lemon zest and juice, olive oil, cumin, oregano, salt and pepper. Turn the chicken thighs through it and leave for at least 20 minutes, or overnight in the fridge.
  2. Cook the chicken. Heat a heavy pan over a medium-high heat. Cook the thighs for 6–7 minutes a side until deeply browned and cooked through. Move them to a board and let them rest for 5 minutes before slicing — cutting straight away loses the juice onto the board.
  3. Warm the beans. Tip the drained beans into the same pan off the heat and stir them through the browned bits left behind. That fond is the best-seasoned thing in the kitchen and it costs nothing to use it.
  4. Blend the sauce. Blitz the avocado, coriander, garlic, lime juice and yoghurt with a pinch of salt, adding water until it pours off the spoon in a ribbon.
  5. Assemble. Divide the rice between four bowls. Add the beans, tomatoes, red onion and sliced chicken, spoon the sauce generously over the top and tuck a lime wedge into the side of each.

Cook's notes

  • Thighs over breasts here. They tolerate the high heat this marinade wants without drying, and the lemon does not turn them woolly.
  • The sauce browns after a day. Press cling film directly onto the surface to slow it, or simply make it fresh — it takes two minutes.
  • Cooked rice, chilled and reheated, behaves better in a packed lunch than rice used warm.