Tarragon chicken with creamy white beans
Tender chicken in a creamy white bean sauce with fresh tarragon.
About 30 min · 375 kcal · 43 g protein per serving
One pan
Chicken, olive and lemon with couscous
Chicken braised with olives, cumin and lemon, served over couscous.
By The foodose editorial team. Nutrition calculated from USDA FoodData Central. Checked on paper on 22 September 2026; not yet cooked in a test kitchen or photographed, so the times and yield are estimates. How we develop our recipes
What still needs a real kitchen
- Confirm 100 g couscous absorbs 120 ml of liquid in 5 minutes
- Confirm 150 g breasts cook through in 14 to 16 minutes covered
- Photograph the finished plate
- Time
- About 40 min
- estimated
- Serves
- 2
- see below
- Energy
- 500 kcal
- per serving
- Protein
- 42 g
- per serving
Ingredients for 2 servings
Check off ingredients as you go.
Contains gluten. Check the labels on packaged ingredients:
- chicken stock. Stock often contains celery, and sometimes gluten or soya; check the label.
- black olives. Olives are packed in brine and are salty; rinsing removes some of it.
Cooking steps
Warm the oil in a lidded pan and brown the chicken breasts on both sides, about 4 minutes. Lift them out.
Soften the sliced onion in the same pan for 6 minutes, then add the cumin and turmeric and cook for a full minute before any liquid goes in.
Pour in the stock, add the olives and return the chicken. Cover and simmer for 14 to 16 minutes.
Cooked when: 74°C / 165°F in the thickest part. A food thermometer is the reliable way to tell.
Lift the chicken onto a board to rest. Measure 120 ml of the hot braising liquid over the couscous in a bowl, cover with a plate and leave for 5 minutes.
Fork the couscous through with a fork, slice the chicken, and serve with the remaining sauce spooned over and the coriander scattered on top.
The useful detail
Soak the couscous in the braising liquid rather than in water. It is the same five minutes and it turns a plain side into part of the dish.
Make it work for you
One serving is 150 g of chicken with half the couscous and sauce. You can switch to a smaller portion in the ingredients above; it is three quarters of this, and it contains correspondingly less energy and protein. It is an option, not a goal.
Green olives instead of black
Firmer and sharper. Nutrition is not recalculated; they are the same fruit picked earlier.
Quinoa instead of couscous
Nuttier with more bite. Quinoa is gluten-free and couscous is wheat.
Per serving: about 10 kcal less, about the same protein, about 3 g more fat.
Allergens: Removes gluten.
Turkey breast instead of chicken
Leaner and firmer; a couple of minutes longer.
Per serving: about 10 kcal less, about 2 g more protein, about 2 g less fat.
Estimated nutrition
Per standard serving, calculated from the ingredients above. Nutrition changes with substitutions, brands and how much oil stays in the pan.
A braise where the starch is cooked in the cooking liquid, so it needs no butter to be worth eating.
| Energy | 500 kcal |
|---|---|
| Protein | 42 g |
| Fat | 15 g |
| of which saturates | 3 g |
| Carbohydrate | 47 g |
| of which sugars | not calculated |
| Fibre | 4 g |
| Sodium | 890 mg |
Show calculation notes
Each ingredient’s weight is multiplied by its USDA FoodData Central values per 100 g. The whole recipe is added up and divided by 2. Raw weights are used for meat, fish and vegetables; beans and lentils are drained weights. All of the oil is counted as eaten. Added salt is not included; sodium from stock, bread, cheese and tinned food is.
| Ingredient | Weight used | Source | Energy | Protein |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| olive oil | 14 g | FDC 171413Oil, olive, salad or cooking | 121 kcal | 0.0 g |
| chicken breast | 300 g | FDC 171077Chicken, broiler or fryers, breast, skinless, boneless, meat only, raw | 360 kcal | 67.5 g |
| onion | 120 g | FDC 170000Onions, raw | 48 kcal | 1.3 g |
| ground cumin | 2 g | FDC 170923Spices, cumin seedFoodData Central records cumin seed; ground cumin is the same seed, milled. | 8 kcal | 0.4 g |
| ground turmeric | ½ tsp | Not calculatedA quarter teaspoon of ground turmeric weighs well under a gram, which is under 2 kcal at the energy density of any dried spice. | · | · |
| chicken stock | 315 g | FDC 174536Soup, chicken broth, ready-to-serve | 19 kcal | 2.0 g |
| black olives | 60 g | FDC 169094Olives, ripe, canned (small-extra large) | 70 kcal | 0.5 g |
| couscous | 100 g | FDC 169699Couscous, dryFoodData Central's record for dry couscous has no sugars value, so sugars are left uncalculated for this recipe rather than guessed. | 376 kcal | 12.8 g |
| fresh coriander | 10 g | FDC 169997Coriander (cilantro) leaves, raw | 2 kcal | 0.2 g |
| Whole recipe | Divided by 2 | 1003 kcal | 84.7 g |
Per serving the energy is rounded to the nearest 5 kcal, grams to the nearest whole gram and sodium to the nearest 10 mg. Ingredients marked “Not calculated” are excluded and could add at most 2 kcal to the whole recipe. of which sugars could not be calculated, because one ingredient’s record does not cover it; the row above says which. Calculation method 1.0, September 2026. How the calculation works.
Storage and reheating
- In the fridge
- Cool, cover and refrigerate within 2 hours of cooking. Eat within 3 to 4 days. The couscous stiffens overnight; loosen it with a spoonful of stock.
- In the freezer
- The FDA chart gives cooked poultry dishes 4 to 6 months in the freezer for best quality.
- Reheating
- Reheat until it reaches 74°C / 165°F, steaming hot throughout.
Checked against US Food and Drug Administration, Refrigerator and Freezer Storage Chart, USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, Leftovers and Food Safety, FoodSafety.gov, Safe Minimum Internal Temperatures and FoodSafety.gov, Cold Food Storage Chart. UK guidance from the Food Standards Agency is shorter, at two days for most leftovers.
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About 40 min · 585 kcal · 42 g protein per serving