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One-Dish Italian Chicken and Cauliflower Dinner

Chicken breasts and cauliflower all on one-pan, ready in under 30 minutes, and best of all, coated in delicious Italian flavors. It doesn’t get better than that!

One of the most popular recipes on this site is for Roasted Italian Cauliflower. It’s a really quick and easy dish that is beyond delicious.

That dish takes about 25 minutes to bake. One day it occurred to me that that’s about the same amount of time that it takes to cook chicken breasts. I tried baking the cauliflower on the same pan as some chicken breasts. Success! A new one-pan dinner was born.

What Is Italian Seasoning?

For this recipe, the cauliflower gets tossed in a tomato paste mixture with oregano and garlic powder. But for the chicken, we call for Italian seasoning. What is that?

Italian seasoning is a blend that you can find in most stores. The ingredients and ratios may vary slightly from brand to brand, but usually basil, oregano, rosemary, and thyme are the stars with occasional additional ingredients. If you find you use it a lot, you may even want to consider making your own Italian Seasoning!

Making This Chicken And Cauliflower Dinner

To make this dish, cauliflower florets are tossed with a mixture of tomato paste, olive oil, Dijon mustard, oregano, and garlic. You spread them out around the outside of a large sheet pan and then plop some halved chicken breasts in the middle of the pan. Those guys get some olive oil and Italian seasoning.

It all goes into a 425ºF oven for 25 minutes. In that time, the chicken will cook through and the cauliflower will be al dente, just right. (If you like your cauliflower softer, you can take the chicken breasts off the pan, cover them in foil and let the cauliflower roast for 5 more minutes.

More Chicken Recipes

Chicken is one of my best go-to’s for weeknight meals and for special occasions too. I’m linking to some of my all time favorite chicken recipes below. And you should definitely also check out my entire chicken recipe collection of over 100 chicken recipes, all tested and perfected by me!

I also highly recommend this Italian Cauliflower and Quinoa Bake for a protein-packed meatless option.

Podcast Episode About The Chicken And Cauliflower Recipe

Listen to me explain briefly about how to make this dish, with some great tips along the way, by clicking the play button below:

Do you love cooking podcasts? Then you have to subscribe and listen to all of the short recipe episodes that I have over here on the Recipe of the Day podcast (there are over 650 of them!).

Print

One-Dish Italian Chicken and Cauliflower Dinner

  • Author: Christine Pittman
  • Prep Time: 5 minutes
  • Cook Time: 25 minutes
  • Total Time: 30 minutes
  • Yield: 4 servings 1x
  • Category: Entrée
  • Method: Baked
  • Cuisine: Italian

DESCRIPTION

Chicken breasts and cauliflower all on one-pan, ready in under 30 minutes, and best of all, coated in delicious Italian flavors. It doesn’t get better than that!


Ingredients

Units Scale
  • 5 tsp. tomato paste
  • 5 Tbsp. olive oil, divided
  • 1 tsp. dijon mustard
  • 1/4 to 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese, divided
  • 1 tsp. dried oregano leaves
  • 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
  • Salt
  • Black pepper
  • One medium head of cauliflower
  • 4 large boneless skinless chicken breasts (about 1 lb. total)
  • 2 tsp. Italian seasoning

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 425ºF.
  2. In a large bowl whisk together the tomato paste, 3 tablespoons of the olive oil, and Dijon mustard. Note that the olive oil will not fully incorporate. That’s ok. Add 1/4 cup of the Parmesan cheese, the oregano, garlic powder, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon coarse black pepper.
  3. Break a head of cauliflower into florets and add them to the tomato paste mixture. Stir using a spatula to make sure the sauce is getting onto the cauliflower, which should end up stained red. Use the spatula to transfer all the cauliflower and sauce to a large baking sheet, spreading the cauliflower around the outside of the pan.
  4. Cut the chicken breasts in half width-wise (to make more square plump pieces rather than long rectangles). Put them in the middle of the pan in a single layer. Brush them with the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil and sprinkled with the Italian seasoning, 1/4 teaspoon of salt, and 1/4 teaspoon of coarse black pepper.
  5. Roast until cauliflower is darkened in spots and is tender-crisp when stuck with a fork and the chicken is cooked through to 165ºF, about 25 minutes. Sprinkle everything with remaining Parmesan cheese to serve.

This post originally appeared in September 2016 and was revised and republished in August 2021.