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.
- 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 350ºF oven and cook for an hour and 20 minutes.
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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!
Serve with rice to help soak up all the delicious lemony sauce.
More Delicious Comforting Chicken Recipes To Try:
- 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
If you try this Chicken Yassa recipe, I hope you'll come back to leave a star rating and a comment. I'd love to know what you think!
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Senegalese Chicken Yassa
- Total Time: 2 hours
- Yield: 6 Main Dish Servings 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 minutes
- Cook Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
- Category: Main Course
- Method: Oven braised
- Cuisine: Senegalese, West African
Would omitting the Dijon mustard alter the flavor too much? Is there an alternative? I love every mustard other than yellow mustard but my partner is a super taster who can tell if I throw in just a pinch of any kind of mustardy flavoring into even complex dishes, and it automatically makes the dish taste not as good in his eyes. Believe me, I've done experiments lol
I bet this dish will still be great even without the mustard. The lemon flavors will shine through and you'll have plenty of flavor contrast with the garlic, olives and caramelized onions. I hope you and your partner enjoy!
Excellent recipe. Question, I am using boneless chicken thighs and would like an idea of how many pounds I need of this. Thanks so much.
Excellent I,ll make it tomorow! Thanks for the recipe!