I’ve made this comment before and I will make it again. There are SO MANY version of chicken and rice throughout the world. There are a lot of common elements, but every so often you come across one that has a slightly different take and in the case of this Costa Rican version, it used up a bag of frozen vegetables that was biding its time in our freezer.

One of the other reasons (besides clearing out a freezer) that brought me to this recipe was that friends of ours had brought back annatto paste from a recent trip to Belize. They had invited us over for dinner where they cooked a Belize chicken recipe that I had posted about a few months back and presented us with this paste, which is very similar to achiote (some may say it is the same thing). When I found this recipe, I was happy to see that I could use some of this paste AND I had just about everything I needed in the pantry or fridge. So easy for a weeknight and the leftovers served us well throughout the week.

This is the recipe I used: https://www.recipesfromcostarica.com/recipes/arroz-con-pollo.

Overall Level of Effort: 1

Skill Level: Beginner

Would Make It Again? Yes

Additional Notes: This recipe is a little confusing, but I found it the most simple for accessible ingredients (I wasn’t really up for looking for some random ingredient I would need a very little amount for). Also I elected to use chicken breasts for this and it was great.