16 Sheet Pan Chicken and Veggies Ideas for Fast Dinners (and Faster Cleanup!)

We hope you’ve joined the sheet-pan-supper bandwagon by now, a boon to weeknight dinners everywhere with its super-easy prep, cooking and cleanup (if you’re smart, it can be the only pan you have to wash, or maybe occasionally, the rice cooker alongside). But if you haven’t, this is a good place to start. Chicken is a great candidate for the sheet pan, particularly if it has its skin, which bastes the meat as it renders, loans its super-savory umami into the surrounding veggies (bringing them to eleven) and crisps up by the time everything is done. Bring everyone’s favorite flavors to the mix (Fajita! Teriyaki! Shwarma!) and seriously, become the hero tonight.

Don’t make us pick a favorite sheet-pan-with-chicken-and-veggies recipe—but if we had to, this might be it. Get all the fillings for fajitas ready in record time with minimal cleanup. Once this tray of perfectly charred chicken, peppers and onions emerges from the oven, be ready to greet it with tortillas, or rice (for a fajita bowl), or greens (for a fajita salad). No wonder this one is on repeat for so many of our staffers.

This is one of those combinations that might be hard to imagine if you haven’t had it before—but you’ve got to trust us that it is different and wonderful. Valerie Bertinelli brings some briny olives to the roasted chicken mix, and the vinegar on the baking sheet cooks off a bit but intensifies the flavors in the juices. All you need is some rice or bread and you have a complete meal.

“Caprese” usually implies the combination of fresh mozzarella, tomato and basil, a specialty on the island of Capri located right off the coast of Naples. Here, the spirit of that salad goes chicken-parm, in a sense, with that fresh mozz melting right over the top. The cherry tomatoes go jammy in the oven, their sweetness enhanced with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. Fresh basil is so bright and wonderful. All it takes is crusty bread to turn this sheet pan into a dinner.

You might want to double this one; your kids will absolutely wolf this down. Teriyaki makes everything easy to love—even broccoli!—and the fact that you’ve got meat and veg on the sheet pan and just need some rice for serving means that this recipe will be a favorite of yours, too. Try making the homemade teriyaki sauce at least once; you’ll find that it’s less sweet and more subtle than what comes in the jar. But hey, there’s no shame in buying the sauce to take this recipe from fast to express.

Deb Perelman, of Smitten Kitchen fame, brings a whole array of veggies to this complete sheet pan supper, plus some chorizo for good measure, because what doesn’t chorizo improve? The chicken marinates before roasting, so you can prep this meal ahead of time and roast it when you’re ready for a meal. A topping of quick-marinated peppers brings a freshness to every bite.

You’ll hardly believe this combination is keto-friendly, because it tastes like the best kind of bar food. We’ve got crispy-skinned chicken, plus cauliflower topped with Cheddar, bacon, sour cream and chives, next to it. And yes, rest assured, even the bacon is cooked in the sheet pan!

Much like with the fajitas, this recipe uses the oven to turn chicken, onions and spices into a shawarma filling. And while the oven is doing its thing, you whisk together a savory lemon yogurt sauce and chop the fixings. Get those pitas ready and you’re on your way to dinner.

Roasting chicken and potatoes together is just a genius move in general—those drippings sneak into the potatoes and make them taste incredible, if it’s even possible to improve on roasted potatoes. Here, Ree Drummond adds some fresh thyme and lemon zest to the roast, plus onions that get meltingly sweet in the oven. Once you sprinkle with parsley and squeeze some lemon juice over those potatoes and that crispy-skinned chicken, oh, brother.

Ree Drummond takes advantage of the powerhouse seasoning ingredient that is canned (or jarred) curry paste. The seasoning paste that coats the chicken, carrots and green beans is packed with flavor, and will meld with the roasting juices to create its own sauce. Some fresh cilantro garnish brightens everything up.

Use your sheet pan to assemble an entire salad, including with romaine that’s broiled until charred on the edges. While the chicken cooks, bread cubes toast alongside for homemade croutons with none of the labor (or extra pans) of frying on the stovetop. A super zesty dressing ties everything together.

When you want Thai vibes but don’t have the ingredients in the house (and don’t want to call for takeout), this combination will satisfy quite nicely. The sauce, peanutty and salty-sweet with soy sauce and honey, will reduce and get sticky in the oven, and leave the chicken and vegetables with some nice char around the edges. It works well over rice or noodles.

Sheet pan dinners don’t just have to be a jumble of things (even though we love that jumble). You can also use zones of your sheet pan to give your ingredients their distinct flavors but still keep the clean-up to a minimum. Let’s not forget to count chickpeas as a veggie that roasts beautifully—they soak up seasonings and even get a little crisp if you cook them long enough.

“Lemony everything” is a dinner we can certainly get behind, particularly when we’re talking chicken. Thighs and legs aren’t the only candidate for sheet pan dinners; here, we get the whole-roast-chicken experience with an abundance of white meat (and delightful skin) and with a side of crispy Brussels sprouts. The homemade dressing will be one you return to for other dishes, too.

We love eggplant, but frying it on the stovetop is messy, time-consuming, soaks up seemingly a gallon of oil, etc., etc., etc. But it’s so good in the oven, where just a little oil takes it from spongey to melting and hearty. Here, the cabbage and fennel (and chicken, of course) exude wonderful juices that help the whole dish come together… and yes, it’s keto-friendly!

Get it all in there! Not only chicken, but large chunks of onion, zucchini and even corn on the cob go in the oven with this super-easy barbecue chicken supper. Ree’s own formula for BBQ seasoning makes a quick and easy “rub” for everything. Have your favorite sauce on hand for basting and serving.