Chicken and Chickpea Tagine is a pretty easy weeknight meal that makes tons of leftovers that you can eat for lunch for the next couple of days. You just brown the chicken, throw everything into a dutch oven, and let it braise for an hour. The recipe is outrageously inexpensive to make and is full of protein from both the chicken legs and the chickpeas.
This Chicken and Chickpea Tagine recipe makes 6 portions at $1.40 per serving.
I prefer using dried chickpeas in this recipe because I think they hold up a lot better than canned chickpeas during the braising process. Preparing dried chickpeas is pretty easy: you just soak them overnight and then do a quick boil the next day before using them in your recipe. It is a tiny bit of extra work but I think the results of knobbly and firm chickpeas in the tagine is worth the effort, and dried chickpeas are cheaper than canned ones too.
I like to put in a big 800g can of whole tomatoes with all the juice in this tagine recipe to make extra sauce. While my tagine may be a bit soupy and not very traditional according to the recipe writer Mark Bittman, I think the extra sauce tastes really good when mixed together with the couscous. I also don’t bother putting the vanilla seeds and pods in the recipe because I’m not sure it is worth the cost. We have made it both ways–with or without the vanilla–and I don’t really notice that big of a difference so we just go without.
When using chicken legs or thighs with skin on them, I like to really brown them before I put them into the sauce to braise. Making sure that they are thoroughly browned doesn’t impact the taste or texture of the chicken, but it does allow you to pull the chicken skin off much easier than if the legs are just barely browned. In this recipe, I pulled off the skin before putting the chicken in to braise so there wouldn’t be any unnecessary fat in the dish. When the tagine was finished cooking, I took out the chicken legs and shredded the meat which I then returned to the sauce. I prefer having all of the chicken off the bone when I eat my tagine because it is easier to mix the sauce and couscous together, and the shredded chicken also makes it a breeze to eat as leftovers the next day.
When I made the tagine this time, I added a big tablespoon of harissa
What do you think about making this in a slow cooker? I might give it a try…
i think you could make it in the slow cooker. you just might want to add some extra canned tomatoes in case it dries out. to be honest, we got a slow cooker for the wedding and have only used it once. i much prefer using my dutch oven. if you do it in the slow cooker, let me know how it turns out. good luck!
Dave hates chickpeas, so I’m looking for a substitute cause I want to try this one. Thoughts?
Bethany, I think perhaps the best replacement for chickpeas would be lentils. The lentils should hold up throughout the braising and won’t overpower the sauce. Let me know how it works out. You could also make it without any legumes and just do the chicken. We have made other tagines with zucchini or other kinds of veggies in it, so you could try that as well. Good luck and let me know how it turns out, whatever you try.