Chicken and Potatoes with Garlic Parmesan Cream Sauce
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Crisp-tender chicken baked to absolute perfection with potatoes and spinach. A complete meal in one!
Au revoir, Paris! It’s been an amazing week, but it’s time to get home so that I can burn off all these macarons, baguettes, hot chocolate, and falafels. Not to mention that massive Nutella-banana street crepe I had in the middle of the night.
But before I head to the airport for a 12-hour flight back home, I really need to share this with you: my newest chicken recipe yet with a garlic Parmesan cream sauce that will blow. your. mind.
You also have your potatoes and spinach baked right in for a complete meal in one. See, aren’t you happy that I’m coming back? This just means I’m making more chicken recipes the minute I hit LA.
Chicken and Potatoes with Garlic Parmesan Cream Sauce: Frequently Asked Questions
Absolutely! But because dried herbs are often more potent/concentrated than fresh herbs, you need less when using dry. The correct ratio is 1 tablespoon fresh herbs to 1 teaspoon dried herbs.
Half and half is equal parts of whole milk and cream. For 1 cup half and half, you can substitute 3/4 cup whole milk + 1/4 cup heavy cream or 2/3 cup skim or low-fat milk + 1/3 cup heavy cream.
Kale, cabbage, swiss chard and collard greens are all great subs.
Chicken and Potatoes with Garlic Parmesan Cream Sauce
Ingredients
- 6 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
- 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
- 3 cups baby spinach, roughly chopped
- 16 ounces baby Dutch potatoes, halved*
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves
For the garlic parmesan cream sauce
- ¼ cup unsalted butter
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 cup chicken broth, or more, as needed
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- ½ teaspoon dried basil
- ½ cup half and half*
- ½ cup freshly grated Parmesan
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Lightly oil a 9 x 13 baking dish or coat with nonstick spray.
- Season chicken with Italian seasoning, salt and pepper, to taste.
- Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a large cast iron skillet over medium high heat. Add chicken, skin-side down, and sear both sides until golden brown, about 2-3 minutes per side; set aside.
- Melt remaining 1 tablespoon butter in the skillet. Stir in spinach and cook, stirring occasionally, until it begins to wilt, about 2 minutes; set aside.
- Place chicken in a single layer into the prepared baking dish. Top with potatoes, spinach and garlic Parmesan cream sauce.
- Place into oven and roast until completely cooked through, reaching an internal temperature of 165 degrees F, about 25-30 minutes.
- Serve immediately, garnished with parsley, if desired.
For the garlic parmesan cream sauce
- Melt butter in the skillet over medium heat. Add garlic, and cook, stirring frequently, until fragrant, about 1-2 minutes. Whisk in flour until lightly browned, about 1 minute.
- Gradually whisk in chicken broth, thyme and basil. Cook, whisking constantly, until incorporated, about 1-2 minutes.
- Stir in half and half and Parmesan until slightly thickened, about 1-2 minutes. If the mixture is too thick, add more half and half as needed; season with salt and pepper, to taste.
Video
Notes
Did you make this recipe?
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May I use boneless skinless thighs? This looks sooo good!
Yes, absolutely.
Do you include nutritional information with your recipes?
Nutritional information is provided only for select and new recipes at this time. However, if it is not available for a specific recipe, I recommend using free online resources at your discretion (you can Google “nutritional calculator”) to obtain such information. Hope that helps!
I made this tonight and it was a big hit with my family of five! Even my extremely picky 7-yr-old daughter liked it! I used chicken breast, cut into strips, and only fresh herbs that were available in my garden this time of year: rosemary, thyme, oregano and parsley. (I don’t care for the flavor of dried basil, so will always skip that.) I decreased the butter in the sauce to 3 tablespoons, and did not have a problem with the sauce separating during baking.
My most significant modification was that I added about 1/4 cup white wine (Chardonnay) with the chicken broth, which enriched the flavor with a subtle sweetness. I tried throwing my cut potatoes (thin-skinned yellow potatoes — my favorite for roasting) into the sauté pan with some butter and cooking for a few minutes after removing the chicken, but I still had to cook the recipe about 10 minutes longer (40 minutes) to get the potatoes to the desired softness. I also deglazed the pan with some white wine after removing the potatoes before adding the spinach, which I forgot to chop first. I cooked the whole thing in a 9″ square stoneware baking dish, but will try the 9×13 next time. Mine turned out looking not even remotely like the photo — looked just like a casserole, as everything was drowning in sauce. HOWEVER, the delicious flavor made up for the less-than-stellar appearance. I really loved the flavor and texture of the spinach in there, and of course the added nutrition! This was a really nice change for us. Hopefully it won’t take me an hour to put it all together next time, LOL!
I just made this today and it was really good. I sautéed the spinach with green onions and I added green onions and a little lemon pepper seasoning to the overall dish. I overdid it on the spinach which dominated the flavor of the sauce but was still delicious none the less. I am looking for different recipes to try because I get so tired of the same meals that I cook. I will add this to my recipe index.
This was fantastic! 2 questions, what are baby dutch potatoes and how do you keep the sauce from separating?
1. Baby Dutch potatoes are tiny potatoes that can be found in your local grocery store.
2. It is best to use half and half at room temperature. Fat content will also affect curdling issues.
Hope that helps!
I made this for my family the other night and it turned out great! My only issue was that when everything was cooked through there was a buttery layer sitting on top of the food…as if the sauce separated?? I’m not sure what happened exactly…Any thoughts? I hope to make this again because it still tasted amazing, and when I plated the food it still looked great!
I haven’t made it yet but will be. What I don’t understand is why these recipes always say cook 30 minutes in oven when that is never enough time to cook a dish like this. You may be using an industrialized, fast cooking oven but a regular one doesn’t cook that fast.
Just made this tonight and it was delicious! I cut my potatoes into roughly 1″ pieces and they cooked perfectly. I also added a few splashes more of cream/whole milk because the sauce was a bit too thick for me. My only change for next time would be to use fresh herbs instead of dry. I also made the whole thing in one (oven safe) pan without transferring to a baking dish. Turned out great!
Can this be frozen?
Unfortunately, I cannot answer this with certainty as I have never tried freezing this myself – there were no leftovers left to freeze! Please use your best judgment for freezing and reheating.
Just tried this recipe and it was great!!! I saw comments modifying the original but i love it the way it is. Thanks
Should’ve read the comments…in no way were the potatoes cooked within the 25-30 minutes, so I had to double cooking time which resulted in the cream and oil separating.
So quick and easy, I used much less butter and garlic in the sauce and added some milk to get it to a consistency I liked. I used one fry pan to prepare everything in before layering in the oven dish. I peeled and part cooked the potatoes before layering them on top. Served with crusty breadstick and some steamed beans and carrots. It has fed us for two nights and microwaved up really easy the 2nd night. This dish is such an absolute winner and easily flexible. I can’t wait to impress more people with it. Thank you Thank you 🙂
Is there anyway you can use this recipe with fish instead of chicken?
Yes, of course, but cooking time will have to be adjusted as needed.
Do you cook in the oven uncovered
Yes.
This looks so delicious! I will have to try it out this winter!
I just put it in the oven 15 minutes ago and we cannot wait for it being ready to serve. The sauce is so delicious, however I used a bit more parmesan than indicated (we love it cheesy…).
I will definitely let you know how we liked it.
Greetings from cold Switzerland!
I made this last night and the flavor was really good. The only problem I had was that my sauce separated while baking in the oven. Did anyone else have this problem? Did I do something wrong??
I’m seeing the same thing and it’s annoying as hell! LoL!
This was delicious and quick week night meal. I partially microwaved the potatoes to make sure they cooked through in 30 minutes. Next time I will decrease the butter to 1 tablespoon for the cream sauce. The sauce was a bit more greasey than creamy even though I used skinless thighs.
Really disappointed with this recipe. I did everything by the letter except subbed chicken breast for thighs. Firstly; The cooking time left my potatoes still very hard, I had thought about par-boiling them but decided to do it the way it was written and see what happened… what happened was mostly raw potatoes even though they were in small pieces. I had to add another 20mins or so. Secondly; by the time this was ready the sauce was way more like soup than anything else. When it went into the oven it was creamy and think but for some reason I was left with a chicken and potato soup that had to be eaten out of bowls! The flavor was really nice but the instructions definitely need some tweaking.
What pan are you using and what size is it?
I am using a 9×13 Pyrex baking dish.