Our Best Chicken Breast Recipes

Honey Chicken Stir-Fry

This one-pot meal is one of our favorite chicken breast recipes for busy weeknights. The chicken and vegetables cook together in a single nonstick skillet and the flavors of honey, garlic and soy sauce create an incredible sauce. Serve it over rice to create a complete meal.

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Puff Pastry Chicken Potpie

This twist on the classic chicken potpie uses puff pastry instead of pie crust to create a satisfying, crispy exterior. The recipe calls for cutting the pastry sheets and layering them to make a visually appealing lattice pattern, but you can place the whole sheet directly on the baking dish if you’re running short on time.

Quick Chicken Piccata

Chicken piccata is a delightful dish featuring pan-fried chicken served in a bright lemon-butter sauce. You have a choice when it comes to preparation: Pound the chicken breasts to 1/2-in. thick or cut the breasts in half to make chicken cutlets.

Chicken Burrito Skillet

This skillet is packed full of chicken, tomatoes, green onions, rice and beans—like your favorite burrito! It’s a fantastic chicken breast recipe, but it’s also a good way to use up leftover rotisserie chicken. If you don’t have a can of black beans handy, substitute any beans you have in the pantry.

Cheesy Chicken Parmigiana

If you’ve never made this dish before, you’ll be amazed at how easy it is to make chicken Parmesan at home. Simply coat the chicken with seasoned bread crumbs and cook in oil for about 5 minutes a side. Melt a little mozzarella cheese on top and serve with tomato sauce. Pasta is the classic choice here, but zucchini noodles or spaghetti squash work well, too.

If you like this dish, you’ll love these other copycat chicken recipes, too.

Breaded Ranch Chicken

A 5-ingredient chicken breast recipe that’s ready in less than an hour? Yes, please! The chicken breasts stay juicy and moist as they bake, and the cornflake crust is irresistibly crunchy. Use a store-bought ranch seasoning packet, or make your own with this ranch dressing and dip mix recipe.

Broccoli-Stuffed Chicken

Use a meat mallet for this recipe, pounding the chicken until it’s 1/4-in. thick. If you don’t have one, use a rolling pin or the bottom of a skillet. After the chicken is finished cooking, we highly recommend thickening the pan juices with a cornstarch slurry to make a flavorful gravy that takes this dish to the next level.

Coconut Curry Chicken

Slow-cooker chicken recipes are the best, and this one is no exception. The curry spices and coconut milk combine to create a delicious sauce, and you can customize the spice level by making your own curry powder at home. Be sure to use a can of coconut milk instead of the cartons found in the refrigerated section. The latter has a higher water content, so it won’t create a luscious, thick sauce.

Teriyaki Grilled Chicken

We highly recommend picking up bone-in chicken breasts for this grilled chicken recipe. The bones conduct heat throughout the chicken, helping the meat cook evenly on the grill. Meanwhile, marinating the chicken overnight infuses it with rich flavor while also keeping the chicken from drying out. That ensures your meal will be both juicy and flavorful.

Herbed Chicken Caesar Salad

This chicken breast recipe is perfect for a light lunch or a healthy dinner. The chicken is spiced with an aromatic blend of basil, oregano, paprika, garlic salt and black pepper, and the grill adds an extra layer of smoky flavor. The chicken is fantastic when served hot off the grill, but also tasty when chilled and served cold.

Love grilled chicken? Here’s our Test Kitchen’s secret to grilling chicken breast.

Baked Lemon Chicken

The combination of lemon juice, chicken broth, butter and herbs comes together to create an out-of-this-world sauce that pairs perfectly with chicken. We often serve this dish over white rice, but cauliflower rice is an excellent choice for those looking for low-carb options.

Peanut Butter Chicken Skewers

The idea of slathering peanut butter onto chicken might sound odd—but bear with us. Mixing peanut butter with soy sauce, ginger, chiles, sugar and lemon juice creates a sauce that’s simultaneously savory, sweet and spicy. We baste the chicken skewers with the sauce as it cooks, but make extra so you can serve the cooked chicken with dipping sauce on the side.

Kentucky Grilled Chicken

KFC makes its grilled chicken with a blend of herbs and spices, but we keep the marinade simple for our version (which we think tastes better than the original). You only need 5 ingredients—cider vinegar, canola oil, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce and salt—and 4 hours to let the marinade do its magic. It’s fantastic for grilling chicken, but the marinade is amazing for roasted or sauteed chicken, too.

Chicken Stuffing Bake

This chicken breast recipe has some serious Thanksgiving vibes, but it’s easy enough to make as a weeknight dinner. We use seasoned bread cubes, but you could choose leftover stuffing if you happen to have it on hand. Feel free to add vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower or sweet potatoes to make a complete meal.

Mongolian Chicken

Don’t let the number of ingredients dissuade you from making this incredible chicken. The chicken, vegetables and sauce stir-fry in a single pan, and it cooks in only 15 minutes. The leftovers almost taste better the next day, so don’t be afraid to double this recipe!

Chicken Scampi

Scampi generally refers to shrimp, which is cooked in a rich garlic butter sauce and served over pasta. The sauce is so good, we figured we’d pair it with chicken and see what happened. The result is just as tasty as the seafood version, and it’s a great dinner choice for anyone with picky eaters in the family.

Applesauce Barbecue Chicken

We love barbecue sauce on its own, but it gets even better when combined with applesauce, olive oil, brown sugar and chili powder. It’s a brilliant way to celebrate barbecue flavors without having to fire up the grill. Serve this roasted chicken with side dishes like baked beans, cornbread, corn or coleslaw.

Southwest Smothered Chicken

Capture the flavors of the Southwest with this smothered chicken breast recipe. The corn, salsa and pepper jack cheese come together to create the perfect seasoning for chicken, but the pickled jalapenos really make this dish shine. It tastes fantastic over rice, but we also love shredding the chicken and turning it into tacos.

Buffalo Chicken Egg Rolls

This game-day appetizer has everything we love about chicken wings, all wrapped up in a crispy egg roll wrapper. You start by making the Buffalo chicken in the slow cooker, so you could easily turn this starter into a main meal by serving the cooked chicken as a healthier egg roll in a bowl.

Find dozens of new spins on your Chinese takeout favorites.

Sheet-Pan Chicken Parmesan

If you don’t want to mess with pan-frying chicken for chicken Parmesan, this recipe is for you. It has all the flavors of the original, but we lighten it up by baking the chicken instead of frying it. You could easily make this dish in your air fryer, too.

Chicken and Broccoli with Dill Sauce

Chicken and broccoli is a classic pairing, and it gets even better when smothered in a zippy dill sauce. You’ll only need the broccoli florets for this recipe, but that doesn’t mean you should throw away the broccoli stems. Peel them and add the centers to cheesy broccoli soup or add the chopped stems to stir-fries or slaw recipes.

Slow-Cooker Pad Thai

Traditional pad thai recipes call for tamarind paste made from a tangy fruit that gives the dish its characteristic sweet and sour flavor. Our slow cooker recipe uses lime juice instead, saving you from having to buy a jar if you don’t often cook with this ingredient. You can serve the chicken over cooked lo mein noodles or soak a package of rice noodles to make a gluten-free version.

Spicy Air-Fryer Chicken Breasts

This list wouldn’t be complete without at least one air-fryer chicken recipe! The chicken stays juicy and tender thanks to a buttermilk marinade, and you can make it as spicy (or mild) as you like by adjusting the amount of hot sauce and cayenne pepper.

Chicken Caesar Pizza

Transform refrigerated pizza crust into a unique meal with this recipe, which takes everything you love about Caesar salad and turns it into a pizza-eating experience. The Caesar dressing is used instead of tomato sauce, infusing the chicken and the dough with a fun and different seasoning.

BBQ Chicken Baked Potatoes

Baked potatoes are often served as a side dish, but stuffing them with well-seasoned shredded chicken definitely turns them into a filling main. The barbecue vibes add a fun twist to a classic baked potato, but this chicken also tastes fantastic when served on a sandwich bun or on pizza.

Pizza Chicken Roll-Ups

Anyone with picky eaters in the house knows it can be difficult to make a meal enjoyed by the entire family. That’s not a problem when pizza chicken is on the menu! If rolling the chicken sounds like too much work, you can layer the pizza sauce, pepperoni and mozzarella on whole chicken breasts instead.

Slow-Cooker Chicken Taco Salad

If you’re looking for a go-to shredded chicken recipe, this is the one to bookmark. The chicken is tossed with a ton of flavorful spices, and it’s ready to shred after about 4 hours in the slow cooker. It’s perfect for tacos, sandwiches, enchiladas, omelets or salads, so double the recipe and make enough for several meals.

Bacon & Swiss Chicken Sandwiches

You can never have too many sandwich recipes in your back pocket, and this one is definitely a keeper. The Swiss cheese brings a sweet and nutty character while the bacon adds crunch and a salty, savory flavor. The real winner here is the sauce, an easy mixture of mayonnaise, Dijon mustard and honey that’s great for the sandwich, but also perfect for dipping fries.

Country Chicken and Gravy

Plan a Southern-style meal by serving this country chicken and gravy with mashed potatoes, corn on the cob and buttermilk biscuits. The chicken turns out so juicy and delicious, and the homemade gravy only takes about 5 minutes to make.

Simple Salsa Chicken

Sometimes, simple is best, especially when you’re running short on time. This recipe is as easy as combining taco sauce and salsa, pouring it over the chicken and topping it with cheese. We like serving this chicken with a side of rice and beans or a salad, but you can pair it with any vegetable side dish.

Chunky Creamy Chicken Soup

This is one of those slow cooker recipes that’s infinitely customizable. It tastes great as written, but feel free to make a few ingredient swaps to use up what you have instead of going to the store. It’s made with cream of potato soup, but cream of mushroom, chicken or celery work, too. Swap in other frozen vegetables if you aren’t in the mood for peas and corn.

Contest-Winning Chicken with Mushroom Sauce

If you want to impress dinner guests with a fancy meal but don’t want to spend all day prepping, pick up the ingredients for this chicken breast recipe. It only takes 25 minutes to make, but the mushroom sauce is fancy enough to be a restaurant dish.

Cashew Chicken with Ginger

Cashew chicken is a fantastic stir-fry dish featuring tender chicken swimming in a lightly sweet sauce. Between the tender-crisp vegetables and the chopped cashews, this dish has the perfect level of crunch. If you’re making enough for leftovers, keep the cashews on the side until you’re ready to serve to prevent them from getting soggy.

Zesty Chicken Soup

Most soups are made with broth instead of water, but you’ll find that you don’t need it with this recipe. The tomato sauce and salsa come together to create a zesty foundation, and the vegetables soak up all that flavor as they cook. Top it off with tortilla chips and some shredded cheddar cheese for a meal that warms the heart and the belly.

Chicken Veggie Packets

Foil packets are an excellent option for cooking chicken breasts because they lock the moisture inside as the chicken cooks. If you’re changing up the vegetables inside the packet, make sure they’re cut so they’ll finish in the same time as the chicken. Large chunks of potatoes wouldn’t cook through, for example, whereas thinly sliced potatoes would be just fine.

Shredded Barbecue Chicken over Grits

This recipe has a fun ingredient that we don’t often see in classic chicken and grits recipes: canned pumpkin. The sweet addition balances perfectly against the rich grits and bold barbecue sauce, and the ancho chile pepper adds a welcome level of spice. This one is a keeper!

Chicken Soup with Beans

This soup should be renamed “comfort in a bowl,” because it looks like a warm hug as soon as it reaches the table. The chicken and beans are soft and savory while the corn brings a welcome burst of sweetness with every bite. If you can find it, use shoepeg corn in this recipe. It’s sweeter than most corn varieties and really makes each bite pop.

Cornbread Chicken Bake

We don’t always end up with leftover cornbread—it’s usually gobbled up pretty quickly! But when we do, we make this chicken casserole. The flavors are reminiscent of stuffing, but the cornbread and cream of chicken soup create a fabulous texture that’s hard to beat.

Chicken with Florentine Sauce

Florentine sauce refers to a classic French dish made with spinach and Mornay sauce (a cheesy version of the mother sauce bechamel). It’s an elegant dish that—surprisingly—only takes 30 minutes to make. We use frozen spinach for ease, but you can easily swap in the fresh stuff. Just be sure to squeeze out the excess liquid after steaming it to prevent a watery sauce.

Caribbean Chicken

Caribbean food is known for being bold and spicy, and this chicken breast recipe holds to that standard. It’s made with a sweet and spicy marinade that contains 3 jalapeno peppers. You may want to adjust the number of peppers based on your family’s tolerance for heat, keeping in mind that individual peppers tend to vary in pungency and spice level.

Creamy Chicken Lasagna Roll-Ups

This recipe is so much fun to make. Instead of layering pasta, sauce and cheese like a traditional lasagna, the filling ingredients are rolled up inside the noodles before being topped with cheese and sauce. It ensures everyone gets a perfect portion!

Fontina Chicken & Pasta Bake

Fontina is one of our go-to melting cheeses because of its buttery, smoother texture and rich, creamy flavor. It pairs perfectly with chicken, especially when combined with mushrooms, spinach and tomato. This casserole can be frozen, but we recommend cutting it into individual portions first to make it easier to serve upon reheating.

Forgotten Jambalaya

You won’t believe how easy this recipe is. Combine all the ingredients (except the shrimp) in a slow cooker and cook on low for 4 to 6 hours. About 15 minutes before serving, stir in the shrimp. The combination of juicy chicken, smoky sausage and sweet shrimp is absolutely perfect!

Grilled Chicken Salad with Blueberry Vinaigrette

Some say that we eat with our eyes first. If that adage is true, this recipe starts to satisfy as soon as it reaches the table. This refreshing salad is chock-full of colorful ingredients that taste as good as they look.

Chicken Artichoke Skillet

This chicken breast recipe is packed with Greek flavors, from briny olives to herbaceous oregano and bright lemon juice. And then, there are the artichokes. Artichokes contain an acid called cynarin that doesn’t taste like much on its own, but it brings out sweetness in other ingredients. Put it together and this dish has it all.

Baked Chicken Fajitas

When you’re in the mood for a sizzling platter of fajitas but don’t want to make a mess on the stovetop, bake your fajitas instead. The chicken, vegetables and spices are combined in a single casserole dish, so it’s just as easy to cook as it is to clean up.

Chicken Rice Bowl

If you use a few ingredient shortcuts (like instant rice, precooked grilled chicken and frozen vegetables), this recipe takes only 10 minutes to come together. You could easily start by grilling fresh chicken breasts or swap in leftover rotisserie chicken, if you prefer. Either way, this quick meal is going to be delicious!

Smothered Chicken

We’re not sure what we love most about this recipe: the moist chicken breasts, smoky bacon, savory mushrooms, melty cheese or the fact that it only takes 20 minutes to cook. This dish pairs well with any vegetable, but our favorites are roasted broccoli, sauteed kale or mashed potatoes.

Nutty Chicken Strips

These chicken strips are reminiscent of a chicken tender, but the ingredients make them quite unique. The chicken is seasoned with curry powder to give it a lively character, and the breading is composed of bread crumbs and chopped almonds. The honey-cilantro yogurt dipping sauce brings it all together, making these chicken strips unforgettable in the best way.

Baked Chimichangas

Typically, chimichangas are deep-fried burritos, but our baked version is healthier and easier to make. After rolling the chicken mixture in flour tortillas, pop them into the oven for about 15 minutes to brown. Alternatively, you can spray the burritos with a little cooking spray and use the air fryer to crisp them up.

Golden Chicken Cordon Bleu

This classic chicken dish is easy to make despite its elegant look. Ham and cheese are stuffed into the chicken breast before it’s coated with breadcrumbs and baked, making it crunchy on the outside but soft and gooey on the inside. Swiss cheese is typically used, but Havarti or Fontina will work well here, too.

15-Minute Marinated Chicken

Most chicken marinades call for anywhere from 4 hours to overnight to let the marinade tenderize the meat. That requires planning ahead, which isn’t always in the cards. Luckily, this chicken breast recipe only takes 15 minutes to create full-flavored goodness.

Chicken Creole

The major difference between Cajun and Creole food is that the latter uses tomatoes, as seen in this fabulous spiced chicken and tomato dish. It tastes fantastic over rice, but we also love serving it with grits or buttermilk biscuits.

Makeover Swiss Chicken Supreme

Chicken supreme doesn’t have a well-defined history, but we know that it comes from traditional French cooking, where “supreme” referred to a boneless, skinless chicken breast. The sauce that tops the chicken was originally made from scratch, although most modern recipes use condensed cream of chicken soup.

Kabobless Chicken and Vegetables

We love chicken kabobs, but the idea of skewering all those ingredients on a weeknight is sometimes daunting. Luckily, this recipe has all the components of a good chicken and vegetable kabob with a fraction of the work. Serve with salad or rice, and you can’t go wrong with a yogurt dipping sauce.

Skillet Chicken Stew

Beef or lamb stew usually get all the attention, but we love this version that uses chicken breasts instead. It’s lighter but still has all the hearty characteristics of a good stew. The recipe turns out quite thick, so add a little extra chicken broth if you like your stew to be soupier.

Air-Fryer Lemon Feta Chicken

This recipe requires only 5 ingredients, but they come together to create a burst of flavor. The feta brings a salty, briny character while the lemon has a nice tang to brighten the chicken. Add in some zippy black pepper and herbaceous oregano, and it’s just perfect. As a bonus, it cooks in less than 25 minutes in the air fryer, so clean-up is a breeze.

Amazing Slow Cooker Orange Chicken

Who needs takeout when a copycat recipe is just as easy to make at home? The sauce is made with orange marmalade, a fantastic fruit preserve made with citrus peels. The red pepper flakes bring quite a bit of heat, so scale the amount back if your guests aren’t into spice.

Flavorful Lemon Chicken

There are quite a few lemon chicken breast recipes out there, and for a good reason. Lemon’s acidic flavor has a way of brightening up chicken, turning bland meat into a welcome pop of flavor. What we love about this recipe is the fabulous sour cream sauce and parsley sauce, which is so easy to make but adds an elegant touch to this slow-cooker recipe.

Chicken with Pineapple

The flavors in this chicken breast recipe will transport you to a tropical island, with a thickened pineapple and teriyaki sauce coating perfectly crisped chicken breasts. If you’re looking to make this recipe gluten-free, try swapping almond for all-purpose flour.