31 Easy Chicken Breast Recipes to Make in Less Than 40 Minutes
Get dinner on the table in no time with these chicken breast recipes.
Quick-cooking chicken breasts are lean, versatile, and easily transformed with spices and flavorings. While infamous for becoming tough and dry, we gathered easy chicken breast dinner recipes that guarantee to turn them out juicy and tender, all with no more than 40 minutes of hands-on work. Whether you choose bone-in or boneless, skin-on or skinless, cutlets or tenders, these simple chicken breast recipe ideas won't disappoint!
When shopping for chicken breasts, you have options:
Boneless breasts cook the fastest, but are easy to overcook and dry out if you're not careful.
Bone-in breasts take longer to cook, but more reliably yield succulent meat.
Skin-on breasts retain a lot of flavor, hold in moisture, and can get nice and crispy with the right technique.
Skinless breasts are the leanest cut of chicken and yield the highest protein content.
Cutlets are simply thin slices made by carefully slicing horizontally through a chicken breast.
Tenders are long, fast-cooking strips of chicken detached from the bottom of the breast.
Roasted Chicken With Lemon-Garlic Green Beans
This one-pan meal calls for bone-in, skin-on breasts that turn golden and crisp in a hot oven. Lemony green beans and potatoes roast in the same pan for a nourishing dinner with minimal effort.
Baked Marinated Chicken
A jar of artichoke hearts plays an important supporting role in this clever sheet-pan recipe. The liquid joins a cheesy-mayo mixture to coat the chicken breasts, and roasted artichokes serve as a vegetable side. A sprinkle of toasted panko gives the roasted chicken a nice crunch.
Chicken with Salsa, Olives, and Lime
This recipe keeps boneless, skinless chicken breasts tender by searing and then braising them in jarred pico de gallo (or make your own), olives, and capers, infusing them with punchy flavor. Serve with lime wedges and warm tortillas or crusty bread.
Stuffed Chicken Breasts With Tomato Salad
This retro recipe calls for stuffing boneless, skinless chicken breasts with an herby, cheesy artichoke mixture, and then grilling them until cooked through. A bright tomato salad is the perfect accompaniment to cut through the richness.
Oven Baked Chicken Tenders
Chicken tenders aren't just for kids! These not-fried tenders get dredged in seasoned flour, dunked in egg and milk, and then coated with panko before baking for only 15 minutes. Since the recipe makes a big batch (36 tenders), bake some now and freeze the rest to bake later: The recipe tells you how. Serve with a homemade honey-mustard-mayo dip.
Almond-Crusted Chicken With Arugula Salad
This recipe coats chicken cutlets with sesame seeds and almond flour (instead of breadcrumbs) for their golden crust, giving them a toasty flavor, crispy exterior, and gluten-free status. While they're frying stovetop, you have just enough time to toss an arugula-Brussels sprouts salad in a simple lemony dressing.
BBQ Chicken With Slaw
Bone-in, skin-on breasts are the way to go for this recipe that brings summer vibes to your kitchen no matter what season it is. The chicken is oven-roasted, basted with your favorite BBQ sauce, and then broiled for that just-off-the-grill char. Shredded coleslaw mix simplifies the make-ahead homemade side that comes together in minutes.
Orange-Chicken Stir-Fry With Rice Noodles
This recipe calls for chicken thighs, but boneless, skinless breasts work just as well. It includes a sweet, tangy sauce that's just as good as your favorite Chinese takeout (probably better). Stick with rice noodles as the base, or try it with white or brown rice.
Crispy Chicken and Blue Cheese Salad
This recipe guides you through filling a plate with greens tossed in a honey-mustard vinaigrette and dotted with creamy blue cheese, and laying a chicken cutlet on top for an easy, satisfying dinner salad. The cutlets are dipped in eggs and breadcrumbs, and then pan-fried to a crispy golden brown.
Baked Chicken Parmesan
For a speedy weeknight chicken Parm, crank up your oven to 400 degrees and turn to these quick-cooking chicken cutlets baked in store-bought marinara sauce. The result is the same comforting Italian-American dish you know and love that's ready for the table in just 40 minutes.
Slow-Cooker Curried Chicken With Ginger and Yogurt
Feel free to swap thighs for boneless, skinless breasts in this warming, slow cooker recipe. Despite its 3- to 8-hour cooking time, the hands-on part is less than 15 minutes. As long as you start early, this meal is as easy as can be.
Crispy Chicken Cutlets With Artichoke Dressing
Instead of pan-frying, this recipe roasts panko-coated chicken and asparagus at the same time (on separate sheets). The cutlets get an extra broil to turn out super crispy and are finished with a tangy artichoke dressing.
Spicy Grilled Chicken With Shaved Zucchini Salad
This low-effort recipe uses the grill to cook boneless, skinless breasts seasoned with Aleppo pepper: an earthy, mildly hot spice from Syria. Alongside the grilled chicken is a lemony, herby, shaved zucchini salad that offers a bright contrast.
Greek Chicken and Potatoes
Bring the flavors of Greece to your table with fresh oregano, lemon, and red onion. This sheet pan dinner calls for a whole chicken but also works beautifully with just bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts. It may take a bit longer than 40 minutes, but it's meatier and easier than breaking down a whole chicken.
Tandoori-Spiced Chicken With Coconut Rice
The spiced yogurt marinade in this recipe flavors bone-in, skin-on breasts and tenderizes them, resulting in juicy chicken. An Indian-inspired coconut rice is the mellow, subtly sweet side this chicken is searching for.
Chicken Paillard
Rudisill/Getty Images
It sounds exotic and fancy, but "paillard" is simply a French term for "pounded". This recipe puts that technique into practice, starting with a boneless, skinless chicken breast that's pounded between layers of plastic wrap, seasoned with just salt and pepper, and then pan-fried. The result is a thin cutlet that's tender and tasty, cooks quickly, and goes with just about any veggie side dish.
Warm Roast Chicken Salad
Bet this isn't what you think of when you hear "chicken salad" but you'll like where it goes. At its heart are bone-in, skin-on chicken breast halves that roast alongside new potato halves on a single sheet pan. They sit atop a bed of arugula, radicchio, and citrus wheels, all dressed in a creamy buttermilk dressing.
Cornflake-Crusted Chicken With Purple Slaw
You've heard of breakfast for dinner, but how about breakfast cereal for dinner? Forget the milk and use crushed cornflakes for a crunchy panko-style coating for boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Bake for 40 minutes and serve with a purple-cabbage slaw dressed in a creamy dill mixture.
Crunchy Baked Chicken With Ham and Swiss
This recipe transforms chicken, ham, and cheese into a homey casserole. Seasoned cutlets are pan-seared, layered in a baking dish, covered in a Swiss cheese sauce, and topped with prosciutto and panko. Sounds complicated, but the broiler helps speed up the cooking process, making it ready in just 30 minutes.
Coconut Chicken Cutlets With Mango Chutney Slaw
Fred Hardy
Feeling tropical? Coconut and mango reign supreme in this recipe. Coconut shreds join panko in the crunchy coating for pan-fried chicken cutlets, and mango chutney leads the list of ingredients for the make-ahead slaw.
Grilled Chicken and Corn Salad With Avocado
When the kitchen's too hot, take the cooking outside with this grilled dinner-salad recipe. It calls for marinating boneless, skinless chicken breasts in a lemony rosemary vinaigrette before hitting the grill alongside lightly oiled corn on the cob. Rounding out the dish are baby spinach, shaved Parm, and avocado slices dressed in the other half of that vinaigrette.
Salad With Pretzel-Crusted Chicken
This recipe uses pretzels as a crunchy coating for boneless, skinless chicken breasts, each sliced horizontally to make two thin, quick-cooking cutlets. They're pan-fried for 7 minutes and then served atop a salad—lettuce, strawberries, avocado, and onion—dressed in a store-bought honey-mustard vinaigrette.
Chicken Pickle Piccata
"Piccata" is an Italian dish: a thin, pan-fried, flour-dredged meat (usually veal) in a sauce of lemon juice, butter, parsley, and often capers. This twist features unbreaded chicken cutlets that are pan-fried just minutes a side. The sauce, prepared in that same skillet after the chicken is done, is a zingy shallot-dill pickle mixture that makes those cutlets sing!
Chicken and Avocado Rice Bowl
This meal-in-a-bowl recipe is ready in just 25 minutes! It stars lightly seasoned, quick-cooking chicken cutlets pan-seared to a golden brown. They're set atop individual bowls of white rice and topped with creamy avocados, grilled onions, crunchy radish slices, and scallions, all drizzled with lemon juice and hot sauce.
Grilled Chicken and Pepper Salad
The key to keeping boneless, skinless chicken breasts from drying out on the grill is in the marinade. This recipe treats chicken to a 15-minute soak in a lemony yogurt mixture before it hits the grill, turning them out juicy and flavorful. They join grilled peppers and onions atop a bed of mixed greens for a colorful, nutritious salad.
Chicken and Vegetable Pot Pie
The ingredient list for this iconic dish leads with boneless, skinless chicken breasts that are simmered in water, cooled, and shredded. Those shreds eventually join vegetables simmering in a creamy white wine sauce, destined for a baking dish topped with a store-bought crust.
Spicy Asian Chicken With Brussels Sprouts
This recipe halves boneless, skinless chicken breasts into thin cutlets that are dipped in egg and then cornstarch to give them a light coating for pan-frying. The "Spicy Asian" part comes when the cutlets return to that skillet to join Brussels sprouts and red chili pepper slices sauteed in a garlicky soy-ginger sauce, all of which is served over cooked white rice.
Orange-Glazed Chicken and Coconut Rice
Don't tell the chicken, but this recipe's orange glaze—made of orange marmalade, soy sauce, rice vinegar, and spicy chile-garlic sauce—may well outshine the bone-in, skin-on breasts. The chicken cooks in the oven, gets coated in the sauce, and then broils with bok choy and orange slices, all in the same skillet.
Chicken and Chard Dumpling Soup
If you have frozen boneless, skinless chicken breasts and no time to defrost, this easy, one-pot recipe is for you. The chicken simmers with chard as well as lemon zest, Parmesan rind, and bay leaf (which later get removed) for a rich, flavorful broth. After 30 minutes, the chicken is shredded and returned to the pot with cooked gnocchi for a nourishing, comforting soup.
Chicken Kebabs With Tomato Salad
This 20-minute recipe gives your kitchen the night off. It skewers seasoned chunks from boneless, skinless chicken breasts and grills them alongside ears of fresh corn. Plate them with a lightly dressed tomato salad and dinner is served.
Crispy Chicken Cutlets
This recipe serves as a primer for frying chicken cutlets to crispy perfection. Each is dredged in egg and then a panko mixture as a prelude to sizzling in hot oil to a golden brown. Serve as-is with your favorite sides, or use this recipe as a jumping-off point for other uses for crispy chicken cutlets like sandwiches and salads.
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