Lemon Chicken and Gnocchi Sheet Pan Dinner

I haven't had a freezer for the past few months, so I've been exploring other quick and easy, but still tasty, meals.  Sheet pan dinners have been really popular online lately.  I admit that I have been skeptical of them. Generally sheet pan meals have potatoes, vegetables and meat all cooked together on one tray, and some of the ones I see seem like the meat would be way overcooked before the potatoes are tender.  However, I do love this sheet pan chicken tikka, and it convinced me to take a look at more sheet pan dinners for quick non-freezer meals.

Previously for the chicken tikka I have put the chicken in the marinade and frozen it to simplify the process and make it a freezer meal.  Lately I have been just making the marinade and putting the chicken in it a day in advance since I didn't have a large freezer to do bulk freezer cooking.  In this way it works as an easy meal when you don't have freezer meals, or as a freezer meal where marinading  and portioning a bunch of meat in advance does simplify things.  Really any meat in a marinade in the freezer is an easy and common way to do food prep in advance.  Look at your favorite marinaded meat dishes see what you could prep and freeze to simplify your life.



This sheet pan chicken and gnocchi is the inspiration for today's recipe.  I absolutely love the roasted gnocchi in this dish.  It's crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside.  I was really skeptical of the idea of roasting instead of boiling gnocchi,.  The author said she was as well, but her description of the roast gnocchi won me over.  I'm so glad it did.  That said I did want to tinker with the flavor profile a bit.  I didn't care for the crushed red pepper and liked the lemon on the chicken but found it overpowering on the gnocchi.  I also swapped out the veggies because try as I might I can't manage to enjoy roast broccoli.  All in all this is a very variable meal.  Feel free to play with it to make it yours.

Sheet Pan Chicken and Gnocchi

Serves 4

Marinade

1 lemon
15 cloves garlic, minced (I used minced from a jar to make it easy and added 3 large spoonfuls)
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dry thyme leaves
a few grinds of fresh black pepper
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp olive oil
1.5 lbs chicken breasts

Vegetables

1 lb package gnocchi
12 oz trimmed green beans
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp lemon juice
salt, pepper and thyme to taste

1. Dice the lemon, peel and all.  You can remove the seeds, but the roasted, diced lemon peel is delicious.  Trust me.
2. Combine the diced lemon and the other marinade ingredients besides the chicken in a container or bag.  Add the chicken and toss to coat.  Let the chicken sit in the marinade at least 30 minutes and up to 24 hours.
3. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.  Spray or coat a rimmed baking sheet with oil.
4. Gently separate the gnocchi and place on the sheet tray with the green beans.  Drizzle with olive oil and lemon juice.  Sprinkle with salt, pepper and thyme.  Toss to combine.
5. Spread the green beans and gnocchi evenly on the tray.  Clear some spots for the chicken and place the chicken breasts in them.
6. Bake for 15 minutes then stir the gnocchi and green beans to cook them evenly.  Cook for 10 to 15 more minutes until the chicken reaches 165 degrees.