This One-Pot Chicken and Rice Dish Is Our New Favorite Dinner

Kardea Brown's chicken perloo recipe couldn't be easier or tastier.

By: Drew Anne Salvatore

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When it comes to delicious dinners, take a tip from South Carolina-based Kardea Brown. In her class on the Food Network Kitchen app, Kardea (you may know her from her television show, Delicious Miss Brown, which is back for its second season this month) dishes on her step-by-step technique for making chicken perloo: an irresistible one-pot meal starring chicken and rice.

Also known as purloo, perlo or perlou (or sometimes called chicken bog), this iconic Gullah dish is just one of many that Kardea shares in her Intro to Gullah Cooking course on the Food Network Kitchen app.

“Gullah is a term used to describe a distinct group of African-Americans living in the Southeast region of the US, all the way from Jacksonville, Florida to Wilmington, North Carolina," says Kardea, as she shares some of her family's favorite dishes from her home kitchen on Edisto Island.

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To make chicken perloo, you start by cooking bacon in a large Dutch oven, then searing bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (Kardea prefers them over breasts for their more intense flavor) and smoked sausage (to add a subtle smokiness to the dish) in the bacon fat left behind. Kardea's trick is to sprinkle the chicken first with her personal House Seasoning, a blend of equal parts onion powder, garlic powder, sweet paprika, salt and pepper that she always has on hand. You then sweat some vegetables in the remaining bacon and chicken fat, then stir in long-grain rice, fresh tomatoes and chicken stock before nestling the meats back in. And just like magic, the chicken braises to tender perfection as the rice absorbs all the layers or flavor and becomes fluffy. This foolproof trick of using one pot to cook your rice at the same time as your vegetables and your proteins transforms the simple pantry ingredient into a delicious and decadent meal.

Want to master even more one-pot dishes and learn more about Gullah cooking? Take this class and more from Kardea on the Food Network Kitchen app. You can also catch the brand-new season of Delicious Miss Brown Saturdays at noon on Food Network.