Quick skillet chicken, rice, and steam broccoli all made in under 20 minutes for a healthy meal-prep lunch box that you can enjoy all week long!
If you’re new to meal prepping, please check out our meal-prep archives to see a whole bunch of our other delicious meal-prep recipes. Today we’re cooking up one of the easiest and simplest chicken meal prep recipes you can make. Chicken, rice, and broccoli all cooked in under 20 minutes. These tasty meal-prep boxes are quick, healthy, and make a great lunch for the entire week. If you’re like us, we actually love having them in the fridge and eating them for lunch or dinner not only at work but at home too!
To start you will need to get the rice cooking. It takes the longest so it’s better to get it out of the way first. While the rice is cooking, season your chicken and cook it in a hot skillet or heavy duty pan.
Now, here’s where it gets tricky and you’ll need to pull out your multitasking skills. While the chicken and rice are cooking, go ahead and steam the broccoli. You can do this on the stove-top in a pot of boiling water or in the microwave. Now all that’s left is to cut the chicken, spoon out the rice, and assemble the meal prep bowls.
20 Minute Meal-Prep Chicken, Rice, and Broccoli
Ingredients
For the Rice
- 2 cups water
- 1 cup jasmine rice
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
For the chicken
- 4 (about 4-6 oz each) chicken breasts or thighs, boneless, skinless
- 1 teaspoon brown or granulated sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon paprika
- 1/2 teaspoon cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2-3 cups broccoli florets
- water for steaming
Instructions
- To Cook the Rice:Bring the water to a boil in a medium saucepan. this Stir in the rice; cover and reduce the heat to low. Simmer for 15 minutes until all of the water is absorbed.
- To Cook the chicken: Rub chicken with brown sugar, paprika, cumin, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Heat 1-2 tablespoons oil in a large heavy-duty pan or skillet over medium-high heat.
- Add the chicken to pan and cook for 5-6 minutes on the first side without moving, until the undersides develop dark grill marks. Flip the chicken breasts using a pair of tongs or a fork and cook the other side for 5-6 minutes. Turn off heat and allow chicken breasts to rest in pan for at least 5 minutes before cutting.
- To steam broccoli: There are two ways to cook the broccoli. To blanch the broccoli on the stove-top. Boil water in a large pot. Add broccoli florets to pot and blanch for just 1 minute. Remove from the pot. To steam in the microwave: Place broccoli in a microwave-safe bowl and add water 3 tablespoons water to the bowl. Cover with a ceramic plate or plastic wrap. Microwave on high for 3 minutes.
- To assemble: Cut the chicken into slices or small bite-size pieces. Use a 2/3 cup measuring cup to evenly spoon 2/3 cup of rice into each (4 total) Top the rice with slices chicken and broccoli florets. Cover and refrigerate for you to 4 days. To reheat microwave on high for 2 minutes or until steaming.
Equipment
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
OMG this rub is SO good. Delicious! Definitely will make again. Unfortunately it took longer to cook bc the grocery store only had breasts with rib meat. I made a quick little sauce with the oil & browned/burnt bits on the pan by adding apple cider vinegar and balsamic, butter & veggie broth and more brown sugar.
In the reciepe (1x) it says 2 cups of water for 1 cup of Jasmine for the rice, along with the rest of the chicken recipe (which counts the four chicken breasts).
In the “assemble” instructions, it says that you’re supposed to have four cups of rice? I’m confused. Is it listed wrong or did I make this wrong because I only made 1 cup of rice per the initial instructions, and spread that one cup evenly.
Good catch! You would have about 2/3 cup of cooked rice per container. I’ve gone ahead and updated the instructions.
Simple easy and delicious
try marinating the chicken in Italian dressing, game changer!
Delicious and really easy to make 😋
I enjoyed it just as much as you did.
mate you’re just eating junk lmaoooooooooooo
Geezer this recipe is great
whilst your eating donughts, chocolate, chips and fizzy drinks……….
Super tasty!! didn’t have any chicken so I went with Beef instead, same with rice had do change it for fries, Unfortunately I don’t like broccoli so I traded it for some bearnaise instead. It all worked out really well and tasted great. Recommend the recipe any day!! 😋😋😋😋
mate you’re just eating junk lmaoooooooooooo
That’s the joke
What’s the shelf life on a meal like this?