The Chicken and Rice, Street Cart Style is a favorite from Smitten Kitchen Every Day. It’s one of those dinners that seems like a lot of work, but once the chicken is in the marinade you have plenty of time to prep everything else. It’s also got a built in pause point. If you’re still working on prep when the rice is done, just take it off the heat and leave it in the pot while you finish your prep. Then once everything else is ready, go back and do the last step, which is to finish the chicken.

The main tweak that I’ve made to this one is the white sauce. I use greek yogurt, since that’s what I have on hand, and for my taste it needs more mayo and vinegar to get a nice tangy sauce. This time I did 3TB each mayo and vinegar, which was pretty perfect. But it does make a lot of sauce. (It comes together super fast, so would be easy to make some more for leftovers if you’re not sure you’ll want it all.) Since yogurt can vary a lot, start with the ratios Deb recommends and adjust to your taste. I do tend to skip making the red sauce, mostly because we are both content to just hit it with some Cholula.

I also recommend that you think about how much rice to make. The recipe makes a lot! And it’s delicious, but if you get pitas, too, it may be too much depending on who you’re feeding. It will definitely be too much if you make a half batch of chicken, which I actually do not recommend. Make the full batch of chicken, the leftovers for this are so good. (I made a half batch this time and I’m regretting it. We just have one small serving of chicken left, and while I’ll sub chickpeas when that runs out it won’t be the same.)