Chicken Breasts

By Food & Wine
Updated March 01, 2019
The chicken breast is America's favorite part of its favorite bird, and Food & Wine has the best recipes for this staple weeknight dinner ingredient. Chicken breasts are incredibly easy and fast to cook, and they're also healthy. Because they're low in fat and high in protein, lean chicken breasts benefit from careful cooking and flavorful marinades. Here are the best classic and innovative recipes for both bone-in and boneless chicken breasts including ginger-marinated chicken breasts, delicious cheese-stuffed chicken breasts, crispy pan-fried chicken breasts and a fantastic recipe for spiced chicken breasts with a coconut-caramel sauce from star chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten.
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Chai-Spiced Chicken Breasts

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This satisfying chicken dish from Justin Chapple calls for just five ingredients. One of them is chai tea, which is mixed into a paste with oil and spread under the chicken skin to flavor the meat as it roasts.

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Crisp Spiced Chicken

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Ready in just 30 minutes, this Mediterranean-inspired chicken breast is coated in falafel mix and topped with tangy tahini.

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Spiced Chicken with Coconut-Caramel Sauce and Citrus Salad

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Jean-Georges Vongerichten cleverly rethinks a classic Southeast Asian sauce not by what he adds, but by what he leaves out. Instead of a rich curry paste, he creates a creamy sauce with a caramel base, coconut milk and fish sauce.

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Cheese-Stuffed Chicken Cutlets with Mustard Sauce

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In this lovely riff on classic chicken cordon bleu, the heavy ham-and-Swiss-cheese filling is replaced with creamy havarti and thyme. Instead of weighing down the cutlets with thick breading, they are sautéed in a light flour-and-egg coating.

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Chicken Breasts with Potatoes and Mashed Peas

Credit: © Dana Gallagher
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Marcia Kiesel browns chicken breasts in butter on the stove before roasting them in the oven; the butter enriches both the chicken and browned pan juices, which become a base for the flavorful sauce. As a delicious accompaniment, she mashes minty green peasand mixes them in with whole ones.

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Red Curry Chicken Kebabs with Minty Yogurt Sauce

Credit: © Lucy Schaeffer
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For spicy chicken kebabs as addictive as Buffalo wings, Kerry Simon creates a fantastically simple marinade using just jarred red curry paste, vegetable oil and salt.

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Sautéed Chicken Breasts with Salsa Verde

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In Italy, piquant salsa verde often accompanies poached chicken or fish and boiled meat. The tangy green sauce is also delicious on sautéed and grilled foods.

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Ginger-Marinated Chicken with Onions and Peppers

Credit: © Lucy Schaeffer
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To give this simple dish another layer of flavor without adding much fat, chef Jacques Torres glazes chicken and vegetables with a bit of honey and cooks them until they are deeply caramelized.

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Oven-Fried Chicken Breasts

Credit: © Peter Frank Edwards
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"I admit that nothing can stand in for good fried chicken," says John Currence. "But this is a hell of an impostor." He adds sweet tea to his marinade; the tannins help tenderize the poultry while the sugar gives it a light cure. The accompanying gravy gets a ton of flavor from strips of caramelized onion.

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Lime-Coconut Chicken

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Tangy watercress balances sweet coconut milk in this quick skillet dish.

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Chicken Parmesan with Pepperoni

Credit: © Quentin Bacon
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Chef Bryan Vietmeier merges two Italian-American favorites here: chicken parm and pepperoni.

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Piquant Chicken with Lemon and Capers

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Chinese Poached Chicken Breasts with Star Anise

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Chicken breasts poached in a broth flavored with star anise, cinnamon, ginger, scallions, and soy sauce is a Chinese classic. Traditionally you would save, not serve, the broth—it improves each time you use it—but we can never resist serving it with the chicken as a light sauce. If you like, boil noodles separately and add them to the broth for a meal in a dish.

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Chicken Breasts with Artichoke-Olive Sauce

Credit: © John Kernick
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Yucatán-Spiced Chicken

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These roasted bone-in chicken breasts with a light, citrusy sauce were inspired by Marcie Turney's trip to the Yucatán. At her restaurant, the chicken's burnished color comes from achiote, a paste made with annatto seeds.

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Honey-Rosemary Chicken with Cherry Tomatoes

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Chicken Parmesan Heros

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Hero sandwiches at the sub shop are usually served on untoasted rolls, but we prefer to brush the bread with olive oil and run it under the broiler for a minute or two. If you like, put a slice of mozzarella on the top half of each before broiling.

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Chicken-and-Andouille Étouffée

Credit: Photo © Quentin Bacon
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Étouffée—from the French word for smother, stew or braise—is a classic Cajun dish of shellfish (or sometimes chicken) served over rice. Grace Parisi uses chicken breast, whole wheat flour and only three ounces of andouille sausage to make the recipe lighter.

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Hot-and-Crunchy Chicken Cones

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To simplify the recipe, home cooks can keep the crunch but omit the spicy ancho "paint." instead upping the amount of jalapeños in the slaw.

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Pan-Roasted Chicken with Citrus Sauce

Credit: © Quentin Bacon
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John Sedlar flavors the bird with a range of citrus, including Cara Cara oranges, blood oranges and pomelos. For the home cook, the dish is just as delicious with a simple mix of navel oranges and limes.

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Chicken Breasts with Walnuts, Leeks and Candied Lemon

Credit: © Lucy Schaeffer
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Angela Hartnett flavors lean chicken breasts with leeks and preserved lemons, which deliver vitamin C and minerals like magnesium and iron.

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Pickle-Brined Chicken

Credit: © Simon Watson
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"When you have leftover pickle juice, isn't it a waste not to use it to make chicken taste delicious?" asks Frank Falcinelli. He brines chicken breast in dill-pickle juice to flavor it and keep it moist in the oven, then serves it on top of supertender leg meat he's shredded and mixed with sautéed chard.

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Ginger-Marinated Bulgogi-Style Chicken

Credit: © Kana Okada
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Bulgogi, the Korean classic, calls for slices of rich beef; this version uses thinly sliced chicken breast, which has barely any fat at all. The chicken is best served with rice and lettuce leaves for wrapping. Kimchi, a spicy, garlicky Korean pickle often made with cabbage, is especially delicious on the side and is loaded with beneficial bacteria known as probiotics.

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Chicken Breasts with Apricot-Onion Pan Sauce

Credit: © Lucy Schaeffer
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After sautéing chicken breasts, Melissa Rubel Jacobson adds diced onions and white wine to sweep up the delicious browned bits left in the skillet, then sweetens the sauce slightly with dried apricots and apricot preserves.

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Maple-Glazed Chicken Breasts with Mustard Jus

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Chef David Slater glazes chicken breasts with maple syrup, sherry vinegar and orange juice infused with anise and other spices. Then he serves them with a confited chicken leg, caramelized root vegetables, braised kale and crisp Benton's bacon. At home, glaze the chicken breasts with a sweet-tangy blend of syrup and vinegar and skip the confited leg and root vegetables.

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Herb-Marinated Chicken Skewers with Harissa

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Andres Barrera briefly marinates chicken in herbs and cumin before skewering and grilling it; then he serves it with a cool chickpea puree and fiery harissa. His harissa is a knockout, scented with toasted and ground cumin seeds, coriander and caraway seeds, but jarred harissa also works.

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Chicken and Noodles in Spiced Broth

Credit: © Joseph de Leo
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Alternative healers use star anise to fight cold and flu symptoms. Melissa Rubel Jacobson combines the licorice-scented spice with cinnamon and ginger—both stomach soothers—to flavor a restorative chicken-noodle soup.

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Pan-Roasted Chicken Breasts with Mole Negro

Credit: © Maura McEvoy
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Oaxaca is famous for its complex mole sauces, often made with more than 20 ingredients, like unsweetened chocolate, seeds and chiles. Since moles are so time-consuming to make, most Mexican cooks rely on the prepared pastes sold at the outdoor markets, and Olmedo is no exception. Instead of stewing chicken in the mole, he takes a more elegant approach: He roasts chicken breasts until the skin is crisp and serves the mole alongside.

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Twice-Glazed Asian Barbecued Chicken

Credit: Anna Williams
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Instead of the usual smoky-sweet tomato-based barbecue sauce, Mike Sheerin bases his Asian-style version on oyster sauce, soy sauce and roasted garlic, with toasted black peppercorns added for heat. The sauce is superb glazed on chicken, but it would also be great on pork or steak.

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Middle Eastern-Inspired Chicken with Tahini Sauce

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Tahini is made with sesame seeds, which are rich in essential minerals. Blended with nonfat Greek yogurt, it becomes a luscious sauce for cardamom-spiced chicken breast.

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Waldorf Chicken Salad

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Mark Sullivan brines poultry before roasting it, then tosses it with little gem lettuce, pickled grapes and candied walnuts. The total number of ingredients: 28. At home, streamline the ingredient list to lower the cost: This recipe calls for about half the ingredients.

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Harissa Chicken with Green-Chile-and-Tomato Salad

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Grilling gives foods a great smoky flavor, but for even more of that flavor, turn to wood-fired ingredients like smoked paprika and chipotle chiles.

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Thai Grilled Chicken with Cilantro Dipping Sauce

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Cilantro stems get in the act in this recipe; they're pureed with the leaves, jalapeños, garlic, fish sauce, and sesame oil to make a flavorful coating for grilled chicken. The dipping sauce, which also contains cilantro, is a classic Thai sweet-and-sour sauce.

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