Matt and I sometimes joke about Chicken Dinner #1 and Chicken Dinner #2. As much as I love making new dishes and elaborate meals, each week we regularly turn to these each chicken dinners for a number of reasons. 1) I’m tired. 2) We’re trying to be economical. 3) We’re busy. 4) See #1. These are simply chicken with a seasoning blend, baked or grilled with a side of mixed vegetables of whatever I happen to have, usually includes potatoes. Or sometimes I opt for pasta or rice with a vegetable medley but the bottom line is that it’s crazy simple and I don’t have to focus too hard. This chicken dish, which I’m attributing to Mali (but many African countries call it their own), may just become Chicken Dinner #3. The only caveat is that in order to get a great marinade on the chicken, you need to marinade for several hours or overnight, so some planning will be necessary.

You start off my marinating the chicken (I used skin-on, bone-in thighs) for at least 8 hours in garlic, onion, chicken boullion, salt and pepper. I believe you may want to add some sliced lemon to the marinade as well and that may have been an oversight in the recipe I used but I ended up adding the lemon slices to the chicken when cooking. After browning the thighs, cook them in the remainder of the ingredients (which includes grain mustard which is a favorite in this house). I served this over brown rice and the sauce was divine…a little bit spicy thanks to the use of cayenne and a little tart from the other ingredients.

Recipe I used: https://www.africanbites.com/yassa-chickenpoulet-au-yassa/

Overall Level of Effort: 1

Skill Level: Beginner

Would Make it Again? Yes

Additional Notes: With the exception of the long marinade time, this isn’t an overly time-consuming dish and even what little prep is needed for that is pretty minimal. I had everything I needed for this dish without too much thought and think you might too.