Review: MyFitnessPal’s One-Pan Chicken With Green Beans & Tomatoes

MyFitnessPal is a great tool for anyone seeking to lose weight or improve their overall health. The site (and mobile app) offers an enormous nutrition database that makes it easier to count calories, an exercise tracker, a very busy community forum, and a huge collection of recipes.

On December 24, MyFitnessPal published a blog post highlighting its 10 Most Popular Dinner Recipes of 2019. This is the stuff people seeking a healthier lifestyle were cooking last year. I want to try out all of these recipes and see if they deserve their popularity.

First on the list is this One-Pan Chicken with Green Beans & Tomatoes.

Now, I love a one-pan dinner — anything that leads to less cleanup is fine with me. I also enjoy a simple recipe, and this one delivers, calling for just six ingredients, plus salt and pepper.

Once I had my ingredients assembled, I turned back to the recipe and found myself dismayed with the “directions,” which read, in total:

In a large saucepan, brown chicken thighs in olive oil over medium-high heat. Add chicken broth and balsamic vinegar. Cover and reduce heat, simmering for 10 minutes. Add green beans and cherry tomatoes. Cover, cooking 3–4 minutes more or until green beans are tender and chicken is cooked through. Season with salt and pepper and serve.

I have been cooking for 30 years, so I was not particularly intimidated by this dish. But I did put myself in the mind of a beginning cook, which is, in many cases, exactly the person seeking out recipes on MFP — someone who’s decided to get healthier but has a lot to learn in the kitchen. I’d find a few things intimidating about this — that it’s all one paragraph instead of being broken into steps; that it includes vague language like “reduce heat” (to what? how low?); that it’s telling me to season the entire dish, at the end, with salt and pepper but not how much or even how to do that (stir it in? sprinkle on top?)

So I took photos as I cooked, and I have some suggestions.

First, brown chicken thighs in olive oil over medium-high heat.

This is pretty easy, although again, the directions are lacking. First, heat the oil over medium-high heat until it’s hot. While the oil is heating, I would also recommend trimming any big hunks of fat from the thighs, patting the thighs dry with a paper towel (both sides), and sprinkling the thighs with salt and pepper.

Once the oil is hot, drop the thighs into the pan. They should sizzle. Leave them alone for about 4 minutes, then turn them.

Leave them alone for another 4 minutes. Note that boneless chicken thighs are kind of butterflied, and they might spread out or even break apart. Don’t worry about it. Just get them browned on both sides.

While your chicken is browning, you can wash your green beans and wash your tomatoes and slice them in half.

Add your chicken broth and balsamic vinegar to your pan.

Reduce the heat to medium-low, cover your pan, and let it simmer for 5 minutes. (I only reduced my heat to medium and wound up with chicken that was a little overcooked.)

After 5 minutes, turn your chicken over, then recover and simmer for 5 more minutes.

Add in the green beans and tomatoes.

This is just silly. You want that delicious balsamic to coat the beans and you also want the tomatoes to mingle with it. Stir that stuff up just to coat everything.

My poor beans look so anemic. Geez.

Recover the pan and let it simmer another 3 to 4 minutes, or “until the beans are tender.” This is going to vary from person to person. In fact, if I were to make this again, I would probably add just the beans first and cook them for 3 or 4 minutes, then add the tomatoes and give it another 2 minutes, because I’d prefer my beans a little more tender and my tomatoes a little less cooked. As is, you’ll end up with very soft tomatoes and fairly snappy beans. Still tasty.

Finally, remove the pan from the heat and serve.

This recipe as written makes four servings of just 291 calories each, which is not an adequate meal for most adults. I would not plan on making this meal for a family of four without something on the side — a big salad or a hunk of bread would both work well. Adding new red potatoes to the dish itself could also add some bulk, but you’d have to reconfigure your cooking times.

You can also just plan on eating two servings. This alone is a nice meal for two adults.

I did eat it right away. It was yummy and satisfying, and I think my leftovers will keep well.

The picky eater was unwilling to try it (dark meat is nasty, balsamic vinegar is gross, multicolored tomatoes are weird). It is a simple enough recipe that it may very well be just fine for plenty of fussier eaters, though.

You could make this with chicken breast, but white meat is less forgiving than dark, so be very careful not to overcook it.

Final verdict: Great recipe for beginning cooks, easy weeknight meal, colorful, healthy, and full of flavor. The writing of the recipe itself could use some adjustments.

Are you going to try this meal out? Let me know what you think in the comments.