This is the Easiest Chicken Marbella You’ll Ever Make (simplified!)

Updated 1/8/2024 :: Today we’ve got an 80s classic on our hands. Simplified and streamlined, my easy-going version of the beloved Chicken Marbella (made popular by The Silver Palate Cookbook) is a minimalist’s dream dinner. It tastes lush and rich, savory and sweet, buttery, fruity, and perfectly salty. Feel free to use a cut-up whole chicken or a spatchcocked bird (a chicken that has had its backbone removed). I’m totally smitten with this six-ingredient Easiest Chicken Marbella, and I think y’all will be, too.

What is Chicken Marbella?

Chicken Marbella, a recipe that was popularized in the early eighties by The Silver Palate Cookbook, features marinated and baked chicken, green olives, capers, garlic, and prunes in a wine and vinegar-based sauce. There have been many spin-offs of the dish, changing an ingredient here or there. But the classic has little more than the aforementioned crew of simple ingredients.

To be honest, if you swapped in dates for the prunes, you’d have something resembling a North African tagine. If you, instead, opted to use golden raisins, you’d be well on your way to a Sicilian caponata of sorts. The bones of the recipe are simple and effective – some tangy, sweet, briny, and salty elements all working in tandem to create big flavor in a hurry.

How we’ve updated the Classic Chicken Marbella

The classic version would have you marinate your chicken, which is great. But in my quick-fix version here, we’re going to create a heavy-hitting flavor paste from the same ingredients that go in the sauce (prunes, olives, garlic, vinegar, olive oil). This will roast away on top of that chicken skin, creating a crust of sorts, and adding tremendous flavor very quickly.

What is The Silver Palate Cookbook?

This book became super trendy and quite popular after its publication in 1979. Its unique (at the time) blending of flavors and ingredients challenged the popular notion that people should be cooking French foods with French techniques all of the time. A refreshing, forward-thinking, modern take on home dining, this cookbook was an instant classic and is still going strong. Its recipes have truly stood the test of time. But its most famous recipe of all was and is arguably the beloved Chicken Marbella.

Published in 1982 by Manhattan-based duo Sheila Lukins and Julee Rosso, its recipes mix Spanish, Mediterranean, and Asian flavors in a time when everyone was obsessed with French cooking techniques. Lukins and Rosso introduced their readers to arugula, pancetta, and pesto way before it was cool. Now, it’s hard to find a New American restaurant (or food magazine) that doesn’t use these ingredients.

Bon Apetit

What you’ll need

This simple, streamlined “Easiest Chicken Marbella” recipe only contains six core ingredients. I don’t count salt and pepper or olive oil when counting ingredients, as I believe those things should be as essential to our cooking as say, our knifes, pots, and pans. So, all you really need to procure for this amazing version of Chicken Marbella is the chicken itself – you can use a whole bird cut up or a spatchcocked bird. Then, you’ll need to get some prunes and green olives. Lastly, a splash or two of both red wine vinegar and white wine go in, creating a well-rounded sauce that goes so beautifully with juicy roasted chicken.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 whole chicken, cut up (8 pieces) or one spatchcocked chicken (see note)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
• Salt and pepper, as needed
• 8-ounces prunes (usually sold in this quantity)
• 2 cups small pitted green olives
• 4 garlic cloves, smashed
• ⅓ cup + 1 TBSP red wine vinegar, divided (or white wine vinegar)
• ½ cup white wine (or chicken stock would work)

How to make this easy Chicken Marbella recipe

DIRECTIONS

• Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F. Adjust the rack to the middle position.
• Add the olive oil to a large, deep-sided, oven-proof pan set over med-high to high heat. Season the chicken generously with salt and pepper and brown it, skin side down, for about 6 to 8 minutes. Don’t touch or move it! That will deter the best browning. Transfer to a platter/sheet pan for now. Don’t wipe out the pan.
• Meanwhile, while the chicken is browning, add the following to a food processor (or blender): 4 of the prunes, ½ cup of the olives, 1 garlic clove, 1 tablespoon olive oil, and 1 tablespoon of the vinegar. Blend or process until a smooth creamy spread/paste forms. Set aside for now.
• Reduce the heat on the stove to medium. Add the wine to the pan, ⅓ cup vinegar, 3 smashed garlic cloves, and the remaining prunes and olives. Stir in 1 tablespoon of the flavor paste. Scrape up all of the browned bits on the bottom of the pan and allow the sauce to bubble and reduce for 3 or 4 minutes. 
• Put the chicken in the pan, skin side up, and slather the paste all over the top. Roast for 15 minutes, uncovered, reduce the oven temp to 350 degrees F, and roast for 18 to 20 minutes more, or until the chicken is done in the center (165 degrees F). 
• Serve the chicken with the olive sauce sauce, garnished with the green herbs of your choice.  

Tips and Tricks for making the best and easiest chicken marbella

Firstly, please go right ahead and ask the friendly folks at your grocery store’s butcher counter to spatchcock that bird for you. It’s a really simple thing to do (it’s just removing the backbone), but it’s even easier to have them do it for you while you’re shopping for the other things of your list.

Next, you can use capers if you like. That’d be great, and also traditional as the original recipe calls for them. Also? you can use any vinegar you like. Red wine vinegar or white wine vinegar are great, but so is apple cider vinegar and honestly even balsamic would be great in a pinch.

Don’t have prunes or can’t find them? Let’s pretend that’s the case. Pitted dates would be delicious, and would give this a decidedly North African feel, almost like a tagine. As I mentioned previously, golden raisins would be great, too. That said though, the prunes are truly delicious here. They plump up, getting all swollen with that salty chicken fat and just taste incredible with the briny green olives.

Six Ingredient Easiest Chicken Marbella: The Breakdown

Rather than marinate two whole chickens overnight, we’re going to reduce the ingredient list down to the heavy hitters and use some of them to create a quick flavor paste in the food processor, while the other half go to work as a sauce. A quick browning of the chicken, a fast pan sauce to scrape up those tasty bits, and then a slathering of the paste makes for a three-step process that results in a faster meal and a TON of flavor.

1. Brown the chicken while you make the paste in your food processor.
2. Make the quick pan sauce.
3. Slather on the paste and throw the whole lot into the oven for 30 minutes.

If you like the looks of our Easiest Chicken Marbella, you might want to check out:

7-Ingredient Chicken Marsala with Crispy Potatoes

Best Tuscan Garlic Butter Chicken

Jezebel Chicken

Creamy Sage Butter Chicken and Polenta

Roasted Chicken with Grapes and Dijon

Print