Last Updated on March 13, 2025
Easy Lemon Chicken Tagine with Olives.
At this time of year, I love spicy food, warming stews and rich, deep flavours. A Tagine is not only the name of the unique cooking pot used for recipes like this but is a Moroccan recipe. It usually involves meat or fish and some kind of fruit and vegetables. It seems particularly appropriate to make a lemon chicken tagine using preserved lemons and olives because they are ingredients I always have on hand. This tagine is the sort of recipe that with the aid of herbs and spices, some chicken, an onion and a few ingredients you already have in your store cupboard, will produce impressive results that belie the effort involved.
This lemon chicken tagine dish does benefit from fresh herbs. My windowsill is usually lined with pots of parsley and chives during the summer. But, for some reason, while I can happily grow some herbs, fresh coriander never lasts long even when it gets the best spot on the windowsill. If you don’t have parsley and coriander growing, I’d strongly suggest avoiding the overpriced little bags you can buy from the supermarket and heading to your nearest Turkish, Indian or Asian shop and looking out for bundles.
Chicken Tagine with Preserved Lemons is a dish you shouldn’t try to hurry. And, it’s frugal – best made with chicken thighs, which have the advantage of being relatively cheap, to produce really tender moist meat. If you want to make a quicker version, then, by all means, use chicken breasts but try to buy the sort with skin on and some bone still left. By using chicken breast, you can cut the marinade time down to around 30 minutes and you shouldn’t need to cook the tagine for more than half an hour without the lemon and olives and then half an hour to finish off. If you don’t have a tagine, you can, of course, make this dish in a normal casserole, but the principle of the tagine is that it will part casserole and part-steam your food, making the meat particularly tender. My own rather beautiful Emile Henry tagine is tucked away at the back of the cupboard, so I often cook tagines in a shallow casserole with a lid.
Preserved lemons are quite unlike the fresh sort – it’s well worth keeping a jar in the cupboard if you like this kind of recipe. I make my own by buying unwaxed lemons when there’s a special offer and then salting down three or four in a Kilner jar. The kind of lemons you can buy in the UK are rather larger and thicker skinned than the doqq and boussera varieties commonly used in Morocco. But, I find they still work well and I’ll share my recipe later. If you choose to buy your preserved lemons I can recommend Belazu.
This lemon chicken tagine recipe is perhaps rather spicier than some versions but otherwise quite a classic dish. I use a chermoula to marinade the meat – a mixture of herbs and spices with a little olive oil and preserved lemon. The same chermoula mix works well with baked fish and can also be used as a rather fabulous barbeque marinade. You DO need to be patient and allow the mixture to marinate for at least half an hour, or if possible a few hours. Having said that, this dish can be made in advance and it freezes very well.
If you want a lower-calorie version of lemon chicken tagine with olives, then use half the amount of olive oil in the chermoula and replace the potatoes with carrots and celery. It’s not quite as hearty, but the calorie count will then be around 350 per portion, assuming you don’t eat the chicken skin;).
I serve chicken and lemon tagine with couscous or basmati rice. Jewelled rice, using butter, onions, spices and dried fruit is a good option if you are feeling extravagant. It’s also a dish that works well with a selection of mezze
Lemon Chicken Tagine with Spicy Chermoula
Equipment
- 1 Tagine or shallow casserole with lid
Ingredients
Tagine
- 8 Chicken Thighs
- 2 Onion
- 1 tin Tomatoes
- 500 ml Chicken Stock
- 15-20 Small potatoes
- 300 grams Pitted black or green Olives
- 2 Preserved Lemons Seeds and flesh removed and skin cut into fine strips
- 1 tablespoon Olive oil
- 1 large Handful fresh flat leaf parsley
Chermoula
- 1/2-1 Red chilli chopped finely
- 1 pinch Saffron soaked in a little warm water
- 1 Large handful fresh flat leaf parsley finely chopped
- 2-3 cloves Garlic
- 1 inch Fresh ginger chopped finely
- 1 handful Fresh coriander chopped finely
- 1 teaspoon Ground coriander seeds
- 1 teaspoon Ground cumin seeds
- 45 ml Olive oil
- 1 Preserved Lemon Any seeds removed and chopped finely
- 1 teaspoon Tumeric
- Salt and Pepper To taste
Instructions
Chermoula
- Make up the chermoula by mixing all the dry ingredients, then add the oil, then the remaining ingredients. Stir well together to mix into a paste.
- Place the chicken portions in a Tupperware or similar container and add all the chermoula, smearing it over the meat. Seal and shake to cover everything well. Marinade for at least two hours (at room temperature) or overnight in the fridge. If you are using chicken breasts, you can cut the marinade time down to half an hour (minimum!)
- Warm the oil in a tagine or ovenproof casserole and fry the onion until soft
Chicken Tagine with Preserved Lemons
- Add the tomato, potato and chicken together with all the chermoula. Top up with chicken stock and bring to a gentle boil. Simmer gently for an hour, (half an hour for chicken breast portions) checking to see the mixture isn’t too dry and topping up with water or chicken stock as necessary
- Remove the flesh from the preserved lemon and cut the skin into thin strips.
- Add the lemon skin and olives to the tagine. Check and adjust the seasoning and cook for a further 30 minutes or so, topping up with chicken stock if necessary and stirring very occasionally but otherwise not disturbing the mixture
- Turn off the heat and allow to rest for 10-15 minutes before serving with a garnish of fresh parsley and Moroccan flatbreads or couscous
Nutrition
Thinking of making this at home? Why not pin this post for later
Easy recipe that is pretty much failsafe – enjoy!