Chicken Yassa is scrumptious West African comfort food that the whole world needs to know about. Delicious tender chicken and lots of caramelized onions in a sweet, spicy, lemony sauce.
Senegalese Chicken Yassa is a famously popular recipe throughout west Africa. It's one of those simply delicious dishes: just a few ingredients that are transformed, by the magic of cooking, into an exciting and comforting meal.
Chicken, lots of onions, lemon juice, garlic, dijon mustard and one hot pepper to infuse a perfect amount of kick. After marinating, browning and a slow braise, you get fall-off-the-bone tender chicken and sweet caramelized onions in a captivating sweet-tangy-spicy sauce.
HOW TO MAKE CHICKEN YASSA
There are several stages to this recipe, each one contributing a delicious layer of flavor to the dish.
- The first step is to marinate the chicken and onions with a mixture of oil, lemon juice, garlic and dijon mustard. Let the chicken marinate for a good three hours for maximum flavor. If you can leave it overnight, even better.
- Next, brown the chicken. This can be done on a grill (the most authentic method) or in a skillet. I prefer the skillet to the oven for browning. Just a personal preference. I might have considered grilling it but there's still a mountain of snow between my back door and my grill!
- Remove the browned chicken pieces from the skillet and add the onions with their lemony, garlicky marinade. Sauté them until they are golden and caramelized. Remove them from the pot.
- Add the chicken back to the pot. Mound the caramelized onions on top. Set the hot pepper in the middle. Turn on the heat and get everything simmering.
- Cover the pot and set it in a preheated 350ºs oven and cook for an hour and 20 minutes.
Serve Chicken Yassa hot, with plain white rice to soak up all the delicious sauce.
Be careful when you transfer the chicken to a plate or platter because it might fall apart - it's that tender!
This comforting dish with bright flavors feels just right as the snow here in Boston is starting to melt and the birds are starting to chirp.
I hope you enjoy!
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If you like this kind of comforting flavorful chicken dish, don't miss these other delicious Panning The Globe chicken recipes:
- Filipino Chicken Adobo
- Jollof Rice with Chicken
- Slow Cooker Chicken Tagine
- Ottolenghi's Roast Chicken with Za'atar and Sumac
- Arroz Con Pollo: Spanish Chicken and Rice Casserole
Here's the Senegalese Chicken Yassa recipe. If you try this recipe, please come back to leave a star rating and a comment. I'd love to know what you think.
Recipe
Senegalese Chicken Yassa
- Total Time: 2 hours
- Yield: 6 1x
Description
Tender chicken braised with lemon and caramelized onions. Serve with fluffy rice and Moroccan Carrot Salad.
Ingredients
- 3 chicken leg quarters (leg and thigh)
- 3 chicken breast halves (bone-in)
- 5 onions (about 2 pounds) peeled, halved, and thinly sliced
- 1 habanero or scotch bonnet pepper
- Marinade
- ½ cup fresh lemon juice
- ¼ cup canola oil or olive oil
- 2 tablespoons dijon mustard
- 4 medium garlic cloves, crushed
- ½ teaspoon salt
- For Browning and Braising the Chicken
- Kosher salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 1 tablespoon cooking oil (olive, canola, or grape seed)
- 1 ½ cups low-salt chicken broth (I recommend Swanson's)
- Garnish 1 cup pitted green olives, sliced
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Instructions
- Marinate the Chicken: Put the chicken and onions into a large glass bowl. Cut a few slits in the habanero pepper and add it to the bowl. Whisk marinade ingredients in a small bowl and pour on top. Toss to coat. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and marinate in the fridge for at least 3 hours or, preferably, overnight.
- Brown the Chicken and Caramelize the Onions: Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Heat 1 tablespoon oil over medium-high heat in a large heavy pot or Dutch oven. Remove the chicken from the marinade and sprinkle pieces with a few pinches of salt and a few grinds of pepper, to taste. Brown chicken on both sides in batches, three pieces at a time, about 5 minutes per batch. Transfer to a plate and set aside. Spoon out some of the chicken fat from the pot, leaving about one tablespoon.
- Caramelize the Onions Set the hot pepper aside and scrape the onions and all the marinade into the pot over medium-high heat. Cook, stirring, for about 5 minutes to get the onions hot and cooking. Cover the pot and turn the heat to medium-low. Let the onions cook, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes more, until they are soft and starting to caramelize. Regulate the heat so they don't burn.
- Use a spatula or wooden spoon to move onions aside, as you lay chicken pieces into the bottom of the pot, and then mound the onions on top of the chicken pieces. Place the hot pepper in the middle of the pot. Pour in chicken broth. Turn the heat to medium high and bring the broth to a simmer. Cover the pot and put it in the oven and cook for 1 hour and 20 minutes.
- Serve with fluffy white rice and sliced green olives.
- Prep Time: 30 min
- Cook Time: 1 hour 30 mins
- Category: Main Course
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: African
Saskia
This is delicious! Simple to make and so full of flavour!
Killeen
Hi can this recipe be used for fish instead of chicken
Lisa
Hi Killeen, I've never tried this recipe with fish. I'm sure it will be delicious but the timing will be very different. Fish cooks much quicker than bone-in chicken. You'll have to experiment a bit. I would suggest using large pieces of fish - fish steaks - and marinate them for only an hour. I would then caramelize the onions and add the fish, following the same directions as for chicken, but only cooking the dish for 20 minutes or so, just until the fish is cooked through. If you try this, I hope you'll report back. I'd love to know how it turns out.
Zaineb
My husband made this
With fish but he cried the fish 1st to
Dry jt out so it didn’t dissolve in the pan
Djuana
Hi Lisa,
I have made this dish before from your recipe and it was amazing. My daughter does African Dance an this is one of the dishes that the Africans make for us and my daughter loves it. So when I fixed your recipe the taste was the same and she loves it... THANK YOU SO SO MUCH!!!!
Lisa
Hi Djuana. I'm so happy to read your wonderful comment and thrilled that you and your daughter enjoyed the Chicken Yassa. Thanks for coming back to share your thoughts!!
Jen
A favorite recipe! I do the whole thing on the stovetop (no oven) and it is fantastic and super cheap to make.
Bob the builder
How long would this take?
Bob the builder
How long would this take?
Lisa
It takes maximum 2 hours from start to finish.
Michelle
I am so excited to make this -- what is your oven at when you bake it all for the 1 hour 20 minutes?
Thank you!
Lisa
The oven is at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. I hope you enjoy!
S.G.
I followed this recipe for my Senagalese friend, and he loved it. Very good recipe. Definitely adding this to my repertoire.
ALLEN MORNLEE KROMAH
Wow, just by seeing these rather tempting dishes, I wanted to busre into my computer to gorge at on. Your job is great,keep it up, Lisa
amy
Lisa - just wanted to make you aware that the share buttons on the left hand side of your site are a problem! They cover up text, making it difficult to read. When I attempt to close them I end up enlarging a photo. When I close the photo and I get bounced back to pinterest, which is how I found you. This has háppened four times and I'm giving up now. You may wish to use a better share plugin .
Ps I'm not selling anything. I'm a cook!
Lisa
Amy, thank you so much for letting me know about this! Can you tell me what browser you're using? Also, I just made some changes to my plugins and I'm hoping the problem is solved. Let me know!
Laura @MotherWouldKnow
I don't know anything about Senegalese cuisine, but this looks amazing. The Dijon mustard reminds me of French cooking and the mix of olives and caramelized onions must smell divine! What a feast to look at, and even more, to eat.
jennifer
Michael made this the other night at my request. I've been wanting to have this dish again for years. About 25 years ago I lived with some friends who had just come back from the Peace Corps. in Western Africa. Along with lots of storied they brought this dinner to our table. We ate it as a comunal dish with our hands in a circle with lots of rice and lots of napkins. Just as they ate it in Africa! Thanks for posting Lisa. Brought me back!
Carol at Wild Goose Tea
You come up with THE best recipes. This one falls right into that BEST category.
Fun too because of where it came from.
Lisa Goldfinger
Thanks so much Carol!
Rachel (Rachel's Kitchen NZ)
Oh, love the sound of this Lisa - wanted to pick a piece right out of my computer!
Kristine
I forgot to ask... are the breasts with the ribs or boneless?
Lisa Goldfinger
Yes, Kristine - bone in chicken pieces. Thanks for asking. I clarified that in the recipe.
Kristine
LAWD HAVE MERCY!! OMG my salivary glands just went haywire!!! This is going in my oven over the weekend. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for all you do!
Lisa Goldfinger
And Thank you Kristine, for your enthusiastic support!