Apologies for the recent radio silence but life got very stupidly busy all at once, as Hubby started a new job (in the Scottish food industry, no less!) and my gorgeous scrumptious beautiful nephew arrived into the world!  So yes, much distraction has abounded of late, but hopefully this is me back in the blogging swing of things 🙂

And to ease me gently back in, a mind-boggling easy recipe that a work chum shared with me years ago and became an instant favourite with Hubby .  Bear with the randomness of the ingredients, because thrown together they are quite simply, if somewhat surprisingly, delicious – the sweetness of the apricots go really well with the saltiness of the onion soup mix.  And the ingredients really are literally thrown together and then thrown into the oven!  Seriously.  The most work you’ll have to do on the night is the washing up…

Serve it up with some lovely fluffy boiled rice for the best ever lazy (but no less tasty for it!) dinner.

Apricot Chicken
Serves 2
Tender chicken in a lush, savoury onion-cream sauce with sweet bites of apricot keeping things interesting.
Write a review
Print
Prep Time
5 min
Cook Time
45 min
Total Time
50 min
Prep Time
5 min
Cook Time
45 min
Total Time
50 min
You’ll need
  1. 2 chicken breasts (skinless)
  2. 1 can of apricots in juice or light syrup (only get full on syrup if that’s all there is)
  3. 1 packet of Knorr Onion Soup powder or Lipton’s Onion Soup & Dip Mix
  4. 300ml single cream
  5. Boiled rice
Instructions
  1. Throw together!: (I’m too embarrassed to use my usual “Cook!” for this!)
  2. First things first, get the oven on and preheat to 200 C.
  3. While you’re waiting for the oven to warm up, grab the oven dish and in it strain the apricot juice (keep the fruit in the can for now) before adding the single cream and then the onion soup powder (fifi’s top tip – this order is much less messy than if you put the soup powder in first, trust me…).
  4. Whisk it together with a small fork or small whisk until the powder isn’t lumpy anymore.
  5. Gently place the chicken breasts into the mixture, and either spoon the mixture over them or give them a quick roll over in the mixture, before adding the pieces of apricot. I generally use the apricot to fill in any gaps, giving them a gentle poke to submerge them.
  6. Put in the oven and cook for 40-45 minutes.
  7. The chicken should be lovely and tender at this point. I usually pluck them out (shoogle all the sauce off because you don’t want to waste a delicious drop!) and slice them into bite sized pieces, then put them back into the sauce, give everything a good stir, and then serve the lot over rice.
fifigoesnom https://www.fifigoesnom.com/

Sadly, our local supermarkets have all stopped stocking packet onion soup powder, but there are substitutes.  I’ve been assured that Ainsley’s Onion Cup Of Soup mix works just as well – use a whole box worth and be sure to pick the croutons out first – but I haven’t tried it myself as we found Lipton’s Onion Soup & Dip Mix that is a perfect match.  We get ours from Lupe Pinto’s, a local Mexican deli that also imports lots of tasty things from the USA including the.  Luckily for us they are local, but they also deliver if you’re not.