Mexican Chicken Tray Bake with homemade Arrabbiata Sauce

This Mexican Chicken Traybake is now at the top of my list of delicious chicken traybakes, and I've cooked a lot of them. Full of authentic tasty Mexican flavours, a homemade Arrabbiata Sauce, colourful vegetables and succulent chicken, this meal is a real winner. It's Mexican Fiesta time.

Mr. HRK enjoys most of the food I cook, and certainly has his favourites, but doesn't  always wax lyrical about them. He did with this one. He loved it, and said it was a keeper. We don't eat a lot of Mexican food now, which is strange really as when the kids lived at home we used to love eating tacos, nachos, and enchiladas, but where we live there isn't a Mexican restaurant now that I would call authentic.  So I'm cooking my own from scratch and loving it.

The Arrabbiata sauce can be quickly cooked the day before baking this dish and kept refrigerated, and it is a cinch to make. If however you are time poor, a bottle of Arrabbiata sauce should be available at most supermarkets, although I couldn't find it. You could also make a double batch of the sauce, and serve it up with pasta a few nights later with all the trimmings, what a time saver. 

I've included photos throughout to highlight the cooking and method. Please note that if you scroll to the end of the page, the recipe is included without photos to make printing of the recipe easier and you can also read it without the distraction of my photos, if you wish.

Let's cook Mexican:

Ingredients:

Serves 4, cooking time: 1 hour 5 minutes

750 g chicken thighs (5), bone removed, or chicken lovely legs (I used thighs) Increase the number of meat portions if you have hungry guests

2 teaspoons smoked paprika

2 teaspoons ground coriander

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

400 g arrabbiata pasta sauce (I made my own, recipe below, or you can purchase it ready made)

2 cups (500 ml) chicken stock

1/2 cup (100g) brown basmati rice

400 g red kidney beans, drained and rinsed

2 medium (400 g) red capsicums, quartered, stems intact

1 medium (170 g) red onion, cut into thin wedges

1 cup coriander leaves

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 deg. C. (160 deg. C fan-forced)

Coat the chicken in the combined paprika and coriander. Heat the olive oil in a large, flameproof roasting pan or casserole dish with a lid. Brown the chicken for 3 minutes each side or until lightly golden.

Add the pasta sauce, stock, rice, beans, capsicum and onion to the pan. 

Season with salt and pepper to taste and bring the dish to a simmer.

Lift into the oven, preheated to 180 deg. C. (160 deg. C fan-forced) and bake covered for 30 minutes. Remove the lid, and cook uncovered for another 10 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. By this time it really should be cooked. The rice should also be tender.

Leave to rest for 5 minutes, and serve topped with coriander leaves.

This dish is suitable to freeze.

Arrabbiata Sauce Recipe

If making this from scratch, the sauce almost needs a post just devoted to it alone. However because it is integral to this recipe, I'll give you enough detail so that you can make it yourself. By making it from scratch, you can control the heat factor in this sauce. Anything homemade is much better than commercially made. Arrabbiata means "angry" in Italian, and is a sauce that Italians love to eat with pasta. So by doubling the batch here for the Mexican recipe, you can then freeze enough sauce to make Pasta all'Arrabbiata (spicy tomato pasta) another time.

I'll give you the exact measurements for the Arrabbiata Sauce that I used for this traybake, and you can double them if you wish. Thanks to Nagi for the recipe basics of this sauce.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

2 garlic cloves, finely minced (optional)

!/2 -1 red cayenne pepper chilli, depending on how hot you like your Mexican meals

400 g/14 oz canned crushed tomato

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/'4 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 teaspoon white sugar

Instructions for making the sauce:

Heat the olive oil in a medium sized saucepan over a medium heat. Add the garlic and stir for 10 seconds. Add the finely chopped cayenne pepper chilli. Cook for 1 minute, and the garlic should be golden in colour.

Add the crushed tomato from the tin, the salt, sugar and the ground black pepper. 

Turn up the dial to a high heat, stir, then when it comes to a simmer, turn back down to a medium heat and simmer for 15 minutes. 

Have a taste, and if it is still a bit acidic or sour, add a little more sugar. This is hard to judge as all tomatoes are different. I added a bit more to suit my taste.

Set aside until you need to add it to your Traybake.

Cook's Notes:

• SPICINESS: Cayenne peppers are large red chilies. We are very fortunate to be able to grow them in our garden here in the tropics. They shouldn't be overly spicy, the smaller they are, the spicier they are. Remove the seeds to reduce the spiciness. (Most of the heat is in the seeds.) This will reduce the heat factor to medium. You can omit the cayenne pepper entirely if you wish. However, if you love it spicy, you could gradually add chilli flakes (red pepper flakes) to your sauce. Start with a small amount, and simmer your sauce. Gradually add more chilli flakes, until you reach your threshold.
• Garlic - If you can't tolerate garlic, leave it out.
• I used Chicken thighs for this recipe, as I thought it would be easier to be sure that the chicken was cooked than using Lovely legs, which have a bone in the middle, although Lovely legs are really nice to use and eat, but can be expensive. Next time I will try Lovely legs, I think that after browning them first, they should cook well in the oven.
• You can take a few shortcuts with this dish, by buying the stock already to pour, and by buying the Arrabbiata sauce in a jar. I actually couldn't find the sauce, but wanted to make it from scratch anyway, which I think was the secret ingredient for this dish. There needs to be at least a hint of spiciness, after all it is a Mexican dish.

Serve this dish with lime wedges or light sour cream if you wish, or a crisp salad, and add some corn chips, some guacamole, and you have a Mexican fiesta to be proud of.

If left in the oven for very long to keep warm, the rice will continue to soak up all the delicious juices in this dish. If this does happen, it is still delicious.

Thanks to the Australian Women's Weekly for their recipe that this one is based on. They have taken a few shortcuts to make it more appealing for busy people, but you know me, I like to cook from scratch.

PRINTING COPY BELOW:

Copy of Mexican Chicken Tray Bake with Arrabbiata Sauce recipe without photos for printing below (This might look like a link but it's not active):

 Ingredients:

750 g chicken thighs (5), bone removed, or chicken lovely legs (I used thighs)

2 teaspoons smoked paprika

2 teaspoons ground coriander

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

400 g Arrabbiata pasta sauce (I made my own, recipe below, or you can purchase it ready made)

2 cups (500 ml) chicken stock

1/2 cup (100g) brown basmati rice

400 g red kidney beans, drained and rinsed

2 medium (400 g) red capsicums, quartered, stems intact

1 medium (170 g) red onion, cut into thin wedges

1 cup coriander leaves

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 deg. C. (160 deg. C fan-forced)

Coat the chicken in the combine paprika and coriander. Heat the olive oil in a large, flameproof roasting pan or casserole dish. Brown the chicken for 3 minutes each side or until lightly golden.

Add the pasta sauce, stock, rice, beans, capsicum and onion to the pan. 

Season with salt and pepper to taste and bring the dish to a simmer.

Lift into the oven, and bake covered for 30 minutes. Remove the lid, and cook uncovered for another 10 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. By this time it really should be cooked. The rice should also be tender.

Leave to rest for 5 minutes, and serve topped with coriander leaves.

This dish is suitable to freeze.

Arrabbiata Sauce Recipe

If making this from scratch this sauce almost needs a post just devoted to it alone. However because it is integral to this recipe, I'll try and give you enough detail so that you can make it yourself. By making it yourself you can control the heat factor in this sauce. Anything homemade is much better than commercially made. Arrabbiata means "angry" in Italian, and is a sauce that Italian love to eat with pasta. So by doubling the batch here, for the Mexican recipe, you can then freeze enough sauce to make Pasta all'Arrabbiata (spicy tomato pasta) another time.

I'll give you the exact measurements for the Arrabbiata Sauce that I used for this traybake, and you can double the quantities if you wish.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

2 garlic cloves, finely minced (optional)

!/2 -1 red cayenne pepper chilli, depending on how hot you like your Mexican meals

400 g/14 oz canned crushed tomato

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/'4 teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon white sugar

Instructions for making the sauce:

Heat the olive oil in a medium sized saucepan over a medium heat. Add the garlic and stir for 10 seconds. Add the cayenne pepper chilli. Cook for 1 minute, and the garlic should be golden in colour.

Add the tomato from the tin, the salt, sugar, and the black pepper. 

Turn up the dial to a high heat, stir, then when it comes to a simmer, turn back down to a medium heat and simmer for 15 minutes. 

Have a taste, and if it is still a bit acidic or sour, add a little more sugar. This is hard to judge as all tomatoes are different. 

Set aside until you need to add it to your Traybake.

Cook's Notes:

• SPICINESS: Cayenne peppers are large red chilies. We are very fortunate to be able to grow them in our garden here in the tropics. They shouldn't be overly spicy, the smaller they are, the spicier they are. Remove the seeds to reduce the spiciness. (Most of the heat is in the seeds.) This will reduce the heat factor to medium. You can omit the cayenne pepper entirely if you wish. However, if you love it spicy, you could gradually add chilli flakes (red pepper flakes) to your sauce. Start with a small amount, and simmer your sauce. Gradually add more chilli flakes, until you reach your threshold.
• Garlic - If you can't tolerate garlic, leave it out.
• You can take a few shortcuts with this dish, by buying the stock already to pour, and by buying the Arrabbiata sauce in a jar. I actually couldn't find the sauce, but wanted to make it from scratch anyway, which I think was the secret ingredient for this dish. There needs to be at least a hint of spiciness, after all it is a Mexican dish.
• I used Chicken thighs for this recipe, as I thought it would be easier to be sure that the chicken was cooked than using Lovely legs, which have a bone in the middle, although Lovely legs are really nice to use and eat, but can be expensive. Next time I will try Lovely legs, I think that after browning them first, they should cook well in the oven.

Warm wishes, 

Pauline