Roast Chicken and White Bean Panzanella

Crisp, golden chicken thighs with chicken-fat croutons and a delicious tomato, basil, and white bean salad

Could this be the ultimate easy weeknight dinner of the summer? Quite possibly. It’s utterly delicious and so easy to throw together. Exactly my kind of cooking!

The real game-changer here? The chicken-fat croutons. Simply tear your sourdough into little hunks (no knife required), scatter them in your roasting tray, and nestle in the chicken thighs with olive oil, salt and pepper. As the chicken roasts, the fat renders down into the bread, making it unbelievably flavourful. Give everything a quick shuffle halfway through so you get a mix of super-crunchy edges and softer, juice-soaked middles. (You can always pop the croutons back in for a few minutes at the end to get them extra golden if you prefer.)

One of the simplest ways to up your cooking game with no effort is to use gorgeous, seasonal produce. The tomatoes are brilliant at the moment, meaning they need very little doing to them to taste amazing.

I love the technique used here: salting them over a colander first. It intensifies their flavour and leaves you with a gorgeous tomato juice to use as the base for a very simple dressing.

So so good. Give it a go!

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Serves 2-3. Adjust the number of chicken thighs, depending on whether you’re one or two-chicken-thigh kind of people.

You will need:

For the roast chicken & croutons:

4–6 chicken thighs (skin-on, bone-in for maximum flavour)
2–3 thick slices sourdough bread
olive oil, for drizzling
salt and pepper