One-Pan Crispy Braised Chicken and Fennel Pasta

This crispy braised chicken thigh and fennel dish is a one-pot dinner recipe I’ve been fiddling with over the years, a continual effort to align equal levels of richness, satisfaction, health, wholesomeness, and ease. Something that’s definitely pasta and butter, but is rich with fiber and protein. Something that’s both bright and crisp on its surface, contrasted against its more saucy and savory underbelly. Something that’s on the table in less than an hour with flavors that tasted like they took all day, yada yada yada, I’m running out of cookbook jargon. Really, you can look at this dish as an opportunity to exercise all your basic cooking skills—chopping, crushing, mincing, slicing, searing, deglazing, braising, emulsifying, seasoning, finishing—virtually everything you need to succeed in the kitchen is on display here. It is to the kitchen as the rowing machine is to the gym: a low-impact, full-body, aware and engaged process that grows easier with time and yields visible, demonstrable results. But I’m not selling you rowing machines—I’m buying you dinner. Not like, literally.

This recipe was excerpted from ‘Basics with Babish' by Andrew Rea. Buy the full book on Amazon. Get more chicken thigh recipes →