French Onion Chicken with Roasted Carrots & Mashed Potatoes

1. 1
2. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Wash and dry all produce. Trim, peel, and cut carrots on a diagonal into ¼-inch-thick pieces. Dice potatoes into ½-inch pieces. Halve, peel, and thinly slice onion.
3. 2
4. Toss carrots on a baking sheet with a drizzle of oil, salt, and pepper. Roast until browned and tender, 15-20 minutes.
   15–20 minutes
5. 3
6. Meanwhile, place potatoes in a medium pot with enough salted water to cover by 2 inches. Bring to a boil and cook until tender, 12-15 minutes. Drain and return potatoes to pot; cover to keep warm.
   12–15 minutes
7. 4
8. While potatoes cook, heat a drizzle of oil in a large pan over medium-high heat. Add onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned and softened, 8-10 minutes. Sprinkle with 1 tsp sugar (2 tsp for 4 servings). Stir in stock concentrate and 2 TBSP water (¼ cup for 4); season with salt and pepper. Cook until jammy, 2-3 minutes more. Turn off heat; transfer to a small bowl. Wash out pan.
   8–10 minutes2–3 minutes
9. 5
10. Pat chicken dry with paper towels; season all over with salt and pepper. Heat a drizzle of oil in pan used for onion over medium-high heat. Add chicken and cook until browned and cooked through, 5-6 minutes per side. In the last 1-2 minutes of cooking, top with caramelized onion and cheese. Cover pan until cheese melts. (If your pan doesn’t have a lid, cover with a baking sheet!)
    5–6 minutes1–2 minutes
11. 6
12. Heat pot with drained potatoes over low heat; mash with sour cream, 2 TBSP butter (4 TBSP for 4 servings), salt, pepper, and a splash of water (or milk, for extra richness) until smooth. Divide chicken, roasted carrots, and mashed potatoes between plates.

Cooking notes

When scaling protein-led dishes, weigh the meat rather than counting pieces, and remember that the pan size limits how much you can sear at once.

For volume-to-weight conversions of any ingredient — flour, sugar, butter, salts — use the ingredient converter. To translate the recipe's oven temperature between °C, °F and gas mark, see the temperature converter.

When you scale this recipe up or down, remember that cooking time does not scale linearly. A doubled cake takes longer, but not twice as long; a doubled soup takes roughly twice as long. The cooking-time guide gives sensible starting estimates by dish geometry.