Family Chicken Traybake

Chicken thighs roasted on one tray with potatoes, peppers and red onion until golden and crisp-skinned. It's a proper hands-off family dinner — throw it together, put it in the oven, and let it do its thing.

A traybake is the ultimate family dinner: minimal effort, one tray to wash, and everyone gets golden chicken and crispy potatoes. This one leans on cheap, flavourful bone-in thighs, whose juices baste the veg as they roast. Change up the vegetables and seasoning with whatever you have — it’s a template as much as a recipe.

Ingredients

• 8 bone-in chicken thighs — skin on
• 700g baby potatoes — halved
• 2 peppers — cut into chunks
• 1 red onion — cut into wedges
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 lemon — cut into wedges
• salt and black pepper

Method

1. Heat the oven to 200°C (fan 180°C). Tip the potatoes, peppers and onion into a large roasting tray.
2. Nestle the chicken thighs among the veg, skin-side up.
3. Drizzle everything with the oil, scatter over the paprika, oregano and seasoning, and tuck in the lemon wedges.
4. Roast for 40–45 minutes, until the potatoes are tender and the chicken is golden and cooked through (75°C, no pink, juices clear).
5. Squeeze over the roasted lemon and serve from the tray.

Serve it with

• A crisp green salad
• Steamed greens or broccoli
• Crusty bread to mop the tray
• A dollop of garlic mayo or yogurt

Why this works

Roasting the chicken skin-side up on top of the vegetables means the skin crisps in the dry heat while the rendered chicken juices drip down and flavour the potatoes. Everything cooks in the same time, so one tray does the whole dinner.

Common swaps

• Use drumsticks or chicken breast (add breast later, as it cooks faster).
• Swap in sweet potato, courgette or cherry tomatoes.
• Add olives, feta or chorizo for a Mediterranean twist.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Overcrowding the tray, which steams everything instead of roasting it.
• Using boneless skinless thighs, which give less flavour and can dry out.
• Not checking the chicken is cooked through at the thickest part.

Storage, freezing & reheating

Storage: Keep covered in the fridge for up to 2 days.

Freezing: The cooked chicken freezes well for up to 3 months; potatoes are best fresh.

Reheating: Reheat in a hot oven until piping hot to keep everything crisp.

Estimated nutrition

Per serving, estimated from typical ingredient values — not a substitute for precise dietary calculation.