I made chicken traybake that is so quick and easy for midweek dinners

The simple one-pan dinner is packed with flavour and ready in under an hour

Midweek dinners need to be straightforward to prepare, quick to cook, and still deliver plenty of flavour. I find it all too easy to become trapped in a routine with evening meals.

It can seem like you’re serving the same dishes on repeat week after week. But I recently stumbled upon a straightforward chicken traybake that has changed my weekday cooking.

The dish tastes as though you’ve invested far more effort than you actually did. The peri peri chicken and halloumi traybake is simple to prepare, as all the ingredients are combined in one dish.

You’ll have additional time to enjoy evenings and spend less time in the kitchen as the oven does all the hard work for you. Plus, it’s an excellent way to incorporate plenty of vegetables.

I took inspiration from Alex’s Kitchen Bangers recipe, which she describes as “a super easy and simple dinner that the whole family can enjoy”.

Alex opts for reduced-fat halloumi in her recipe and prepares her own peri-peri sauce to accompany it, whereas I use full-fat varieties and opt for Nando’s sauce. You can adjust as you prefer.

Peri peri chicken and halloumi traybake

Ingredients

• Four boneless chicken thighs
• Cooking oil
• Two tbsp peri peri seasoning
• 600g baby potatoes
• Two sweetcorn, snapped in half
• Two red peppers, cut into chunks
• One large red onion, cut into wedges
• 100g halloumi, sliced
• 100ml peri peri sauce, I used Nando’s

Method

Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan.

Marinate the chicken with some oil and one tablespoon peri-peri seasoning.

Add the baby potatoes to a large roasting tray with the remaining peri-peri seasoning and a splash of oil. Add the chopped peppers, onion and sweetcorn into the tray.

Place the seasoned chicken thighs on top and drizzle with the peri-peri sauce. Place the tray in the oven for 40 minutes. Once the time is up, take the pan out and lay the halloumi slices on top.

Put it back in the oven for a further 10 minutes until the halloumi is golden brown and the chicken is thoroughly cooked through. Finish with an extra drizzle of peri peri sauce over the tray before serving.