Saucy Mediterranean baked chicken with feta and olives

And an herby lil' side salad. A perfect low-effort weeknight tray bake.

Hello! Welcome back! Skip all the rambling and scroll right to the bottom of this post for a printer-friendly PDF of the recipe only.

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As a mom, I can totally see why tray bakes were a weekly occurrence in my household growing up. Dump everything into a casserole dish, spice it up a bit, bake, and serve — maybe with a side salad, maybe not. Honestly, what’s not to love?

My mom had a few tried-and-true tray bakes that were on constant rotation, and I remember eating them happily and heartily.

And like all good meals, these have stuck with me through the years. I now make a few of my own versions, especially on nights when I don’t really feel much like cooking.

Today’s recipe is probably my favorite of the ones I have on rotation — chicken thighs, tomatoes, potatoes, and onions, along with red bell pepper, olives, and feta. It’s all cooked in a sun dried tomato and oregano sauce that comes together in a blender and adds so. much. flavor!! The herby side salad is a zippy counterpart to the meat and veggies, and all together it’s a low-effort meal that will have you feeling comforted, nourished, and very proud of yourself for not ordering take out.

Tell me more

This is almost a one-pan meal, except we are going to par-boil the potatoes to make sure they’re cooked through with a nice, velvety texture. If I have one complaint about the tray bakes of my youth, it was the potatoes were always a lil’ on the crunchy side.

While those boil away for a few, we’re going to blend up a quick sauce using oregano, sun dried tomatoes, and a few other things. This will flavor both the chicken and veggies and is honestly so good it could be a salad dressing or dipping sauce on its own.

After those two things are done, it’s pretty much just dump, mix, and cook.

Before we start

• I’m using boneless, skinless chicken thighs here for a couple reasons. Number one, my husband hates bone-in, skin-on (yes, seriously). Number two, unless I’m doing a sear, I don’t like to do skin-on (I just don’t like the texture of the skin unless it’s got a nice crisp to it), and I wanted to keep this as simple as possible.

• I like the combo of veggies here but really the beauty of this kind of dish is that you can use up what you have on hand. If you have another veggie or herb sitting in the back of the fridge waiting to be used, my motto is the more, the merrier.

• A casserole dish is key here. A sheet pan won’t work because of the amount of liquid. I used a 9x13 casserole dish, but the exact size isn’t as important as the fact that you want something with sides.

• For the sun dried tomato and oregano sauce, I like to use my Nutribullet to quickly blend everything up, but you could use a food processor, an immersion blender, or even just chop everything up very finely and mix it all together. No wrong answers.

• The side salad here is really a great complement to the main. BUT, I’m always a fan of a bagged salad kit or some pre-washed/chopped greens and a store-bought dressing when I’m short on time.

The recipe

Serves: 4

Cook time: 1 hour