One Pan Burrata Chicken Orzo Bake
The orzo cooks right in the sauce, so there is no boiling, no draining and no second pot to wash. One dish, about forty minutes, and only five of those minutes are actually yours.
My favorite cheese, doing the heavy lifting
Funny enough, I was at a cheese tasting class recently and we all had to go around and say our favorite cheese, and mine was FOR SURE burrata! I could literally eat it every day, plus yall know I LOVE me a one pan dish. So then, this one pan burrata chicken orzo bake was born!!
Here is the actual problem with weeknight dinner, and it is not the cooking. It is that you walk in the door after a full work day and a daycare pickup and everyone needs something from you at the same time, and the last thing your brain has capacity for is a recipe with eleven steps and three pans.
So this one does the opposite. Everything goes into one baking dish uncooked, the foil goes on, the oven does the entire middle part, and you come back at the end and put a ball of burrata on top like you meant to be fancy about it.
The orzo never touches a pot
The orzo bakes right in the broth and marinara and drinks all of it, which is where the creamy texture comes from. You are not standing at the sink with a colander.
A jar of sauce does the work of a whole spice cabinet. You are not building flavor from scratch at the end of a long day.
It goes in already cooked at the end, so there is no raw chicken to manage, no cutting board to sanitize and nothing to time.
It takes five seconds and makes the dish look like effort. It is the highest ratio of impressive to actual work in my entire rotation.
One Pan Burrata Chicken Orzo Bake
- 1 cupuncooked orzo
- 1 1/2 cupschicken broth
- 1 cupmarinara sauce
- 1 to 2 cupscooked chicken (rotisserie is easiest)
- 2 to 3 clovesgarlic, or about 1 tsp pre-minced per 3 cloves
- 1 tbspolive oil
- to tastesalt and pepper
- 1 ballburrata
- 1/4 cupparmesan cheese
Optional
- handfulspinach or arugula
- pinchred pepper flakes
- drizzlehot honey
- drizzlebalsamic glaze, for finishing
- a few leavesfresh basil, torn
Baking dish: an 8×8 or a small casserole dish holds this at 4 servings.
Three moves, and the oven does two of them
Everything in the dish, uncooked
Preheat the oven to 400°. In a baking dish, add the uncooked orzo, the chicken broth, the marinara, the garlic, the olive oil and a good amount of salt and pepper. Stir it once, just enough to combine, and cover it tightly with foil. Tightly matters here, because the trapped steam is what cooks the orzo.
Go do the other things
This is the part where you are not in the kitchen. Unload the dishwasher, do the lunchbox, sit on the floor for a minute, whatever the twenty five minutes needs to be.
Chicken in, burrata on top
Pull it out and stir. Mix in the cooked chicken, then put the whole ball of burrata right on top and slide it back in uncovered for another five to ten minutes, until the burrata is soft and melty and the orzo is creamy. Break the burrata open, mix it through a little, and top with the parmesan. If you have balsamic glaze, drizzle it over the top and tear some fresh basil over it, which is the version in the photo and the one I keep making.
Full recipe and the rest of the series at keetowellness.com · @kee_to_wellness
Your family will happily eat the same twenty one dinners on rotation forever. You do not need new recipes every week, you need a short list of approved ones and a system that takes the decision away from you.
The things that make it repeatable
Assemble the dish the night before or in the morning, cover it and keep it in the fridge. It goes straight in the oven when you walk in, and it may need an extra five minutes because it is starting cold.
Orzo keeps drinking liquid overnight, so add a splash of broth or water before you reheat it and it comes back creamy instead of dense.
Keep the burrata on one side of the dish and leave that half plain. Nobody has to know there was a plan.
Stir the spinach or arugula in at the very end while it is still hot. It wilts on its own and disappears into the sauce.
Same dish, four directions
Swap the marinara for pesto and keep the broth the same.
Add fresh tomatoes and basil at the end with the burrata.
Chili flakes in at the start, or a drizzle of hot honey over the top at the end.
A big handful of spinach or arugula stirred through after it comes out.
Before you make it
Do I have to use burrata?
No, fresh mozzarella works and melts in a similar way. Burrata is creamier in the middle and that is the part that makes the orzo taste like it took effort, so it is worth it if you can find it.
Can I use a different pasta?
Small shapes like ditalini or acini de pepe are the closest swaps. Bigger shapes need more liquid and more time, so orzo is the one I keep going back to for a weeknight.
What if I do not have rotisserie chicken?
Any cooked chicken works, including leftovers or frozen grilled strips. It goes in already cooked at the end, so it only needs to warm through.
Why is my orzo still firm?
It is almost always the foil. If the dish is not covered tightly the steam escapes and the orzo never fully cooks. Re-cover it, add a splash of broth and give it another five to ten minutes.
Can I make it dairy free?
Skip the burrata and the parmesan and it is still a good baked chicken orzo, just not the same dish. The cheese is the reason this one exists.
The rest of the series
Every dinner in this series is one I actually made on a weeknight, which means the bar is low on purpose. If you want all of them in one place instead of clicking around, they live in the cookbook.
The Dinner Operating System
The system behind the recipes. It builds your family’s approved dinner list and hands you the week, so you are not deciding anything at the end of the day.
Get the system $34The Dinner Bundle
The operating system plus the full Default Dinner Diaries cookbook, which is every dinner from the series in one file. This is the one most people get.
Get the bundleJust want the recipes? The Default Dinner Diaries cookbook is $27 on its own.
The dinner system, not just the recipe
I am Erin, a working mom of two with a full time 9-5, and Default Dinner Diaries is the series where I post the dinner that actually happened, not the one I meant to make. The recipes are the easy part. The hard part is deciding, so I built a system that does the deciding for me.
Come find the rest of the series on Instagram at @kee_to_wellness, and comment DINNER on any post and I will send you the dinner operating system I use plus the Default Dinner Diaries cookbook.
