How To Make Preserved Lemon and Olive Chicken Tagine

There are many variations of Chicken Tagine in Moroccan cuisine. This one uses preserved lemon and olives for a Mediterranean experience. We’re cooking this in an actual tagine but a large covered skillet or dutch oven would work.

This recipe is naturally gluten free.

Watch A Video

Here is a video of 2 Cooks in the Kitchen making Preserved Lemon and Olive Chicken Tagine

Ingredients For Preserved Lemon and Olive Chicken Tagine

• 4 Chicken Thighs
• 2 Onions, diced small
• 2 Tbls chopped Ginger
• 1/2 Cup Parsley (chopped)
• 1/2 Cup Cilantro (chopped)
• 4 cloves Garlic (minced)
• 1 Preserved Lemon
• 1 teaspoon Turmeric
• 1 teaspoon Black Pepper
• 1 Tbls Ras el Hanout
• 1 Tbls Harissa or Berbere
• 1/4 teaspoon saffron threads
• 2 Tbls Melted Ghee
• 1/3 cup Olive Oil
• 3/4 Cup Pitted Olives (green or red, or mixed)
• 1/3 Cup Raisins or Dried Apricots
• 1/4 cup Water (approximately, if using a tagine)
• 1/3 Cup Slivered Almonds

Make The Marinade

We are going to start by marinating the chicken. We like to let it marinate overnight but you should at least give it a couple hours. We’ll begin by putting the chicken in a large mixing bowl and adding our chopped onion, ginger, parsley and cilantro.

Garlic, Preserved Lemon, Turmeric and Pepper

Next we’ll add the garlic and chopped preserved lemon. We use 3/4 of a lemon and save the other quarter for the top of the dish. We’ll also add the turmeric and black pepper.

Ras el Hanout and Harissa

Next we add two staples of Moroccan cooking; Ras el Hanout and Harissa. We use Berbere instead of Harissa as they are quite similar and we keep Berbere around.

Saffron and Ghee

Lastly we’ll add a few saffron threads and some melted ghee. We use Niter Kibbeh, which is a very flavorful ghee.

Mix Well

Now we mix this together well, making sure to get all the chicken coated. We’ll cover the bowl and put it in the refrigerator overnight.

Fill The Tagine

Now it is time to assemble our dish. This is fantastic in a tagine but if you don’t have one you can cook this in a dutch oven or a slow cooker. Just make sure you get the internal temperature of your chicken to 165 degrees. We put some olive oil in the tagine, spread it around and then we’ll place our chicken pieces in the bottom of the tagine.

Onion Mixture

Then we add the rest of the onion mixture to the tagine.

Olives

Next well spread our olives over the top of the onion mixture. You can use any kind of olives you like. Traditionally this would be some kind of Mediterranean olive such as Kalamata but you won’t ruin the dish whatever you use.

Preserved Lemon Slices

Next we arrange the remaining preserved lemon, cut into strips, over the olives.

Raisins and Almonds

Then we will top off our tagine with a few raisins and slivered almonds. Dried apricots would work as well. This will add that fruit flavor and some crunch.

Water

Before we close our tagine we want to make sure it has enough liquid in it. A tagine cooks by heated liquid condensing, collecting at the top and running back down the sides to the bottom. We’ll add about 1/4 cup of water.

Cook For 90 Minutes

We’ll close our tagine and cook it for 90 minutes. The tagine should not be placed directly on the burner. You need to use a heat diffuser, a conductive disk that sits over the flame. You want to cook this over low heat. It will take about 20 minutes for it to start bubbling. You don’t want a hard boil but you should see steam coming from the vent and some liquid bubbling around the seal.

Turn the Chicken

Now we’ll turn the chicken over. You should see everything getting coked nicely and it should smell heavenly. Cover the tagine again and return it to the burner.

Cook One More Hour

We’ll let this cook for another hour and out tagine will be ready to serve. Put a piece of chicken on a plate and scoop some of the goodies out of the tagine around it and on it. This can be served with couscous. This is a really really flavorful dish and is good and showy for company.

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