Garlic Butter Baked Chicken Breast is a simple and delicious way to make juicy, flavorful chicken every time. These oven-baked chicken breasts are covered in a tasty garlic butter sauce. This sauce keeps them tender and moist, with a golden and slightly crispy edge. Perfect for a quick weeknight dinner or easy meal prep!
Best Chicken Breast Recipe You’ll EVER Make!
If you love juicy chicken breast recipes, I’m sure you’ll love this one. My husband also loves it, especially because I cook it in garlic butter sauce. Who doesn’t love a buttery flavoured sauce?
This sauce gives more flavor to this recipe and helps the chicken breast to be tender, moist and juicy too. This sauce is so good that you don’t need to even use a chicken marinade.
I also love how quick and easy this recipe is. No complicated steps, wrapping, or brining required. You don’t need to pound the chicken breasts with a rolling pin or meat mallet. Also, there’s no need for parchment paper or plastic wrap either.
I absolutely love easy and quick baked chicken breast recipes for dinner. If you’re like me, try these delicious family chicken breast recipes too: Creamy Parmesan Chicken Breast and Stuffed Chicken Breast recipe. Want even more chicken breast recipes? Try these 50 Best Chicken Breast Recipes, Instant Pot Chicken Breast and this Air Fryer Chicken Breast Recipe.
Chicken Breast – I use boneless, skinless chicken breasts for a lean, quick-cooking protein. After making this recipe many times, I found that this cut is the best. It has a great balance of tenderness and juiciness, especially when baked with garlic butter. But feel free to replace chicken breast for chicken thighs if it’s what you have.
Butter – I always opt for unsalted butter in recipes like this to give me full control over the salt levels. I’ve found that unsalted butter allows the garlic and other seasonings to shine without the risk of the dish being too salty.
Garlic – Freshly minced garlic is a must for its vibrant, aromatic flavor. I’ve tried pre-minced or jarred garlic, but nothing beats the flavor and freshness of fresh garlic in the butter sauce.
1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Season all the sides of chicken breast with salt, pepper and smoked paprika. If you prefer you can also use your favorite spices like garlic powder, dried oregano and chili powder too.
2. In a cast iron skillet, heat olive oil over medium heat. Once the skillet is hot, add the chicken breast. Sear for 1-2 minutes on each side, or until golden brown.
2. In a small bowl mix together the butter, Italian seasoning, parsley, and garlic. Then, pour the garlic butter mixture over the chicken breasts.
3. Place the skillet in the oven. There’s no need to flip them when baking.
4. Bake chicken breast for 20-30 minutes or until the chicken reaches an internal temperature of 165°F.
4. Remove the cooked chicken breasts from the oven. Using a spoon, drizzle some of the butter sauce from the skillet over the juicy, tender chicken breasts before serving.
Olivia's Recipe Tips:
- After removing the chicken breast from the fridge, pat dry the chicken with paper towels.
- Let the chicken rest for 5 minutes before serving.
- You can use a regular skillet to sear your chicken if you don’t have a cast iron skillet. Then, transfer them to a casserole, or an oven-safe baking dish.
- If you want a more buttery sauce, add two extra tablespoons of butter.
The cooking time will depend on the size of your chicken breast and also on the power of your oven. Some ovens have slight heat differences.
But according to USDA, a 4-oz. chicken breast should be bake at 350°F (177˚C) for 25 minutes or 30 minutes to be fully cooked. If it’s smaller than 4oz, bake it for about 20 minutes.
However, to bake a 5 to 6 ounce chicken breast at 400F, it will take around 20 to 25 minutes.
It’s important that you use an instant read thermometer when cooking chicken breast to check that the internal temperature.
How do you keep chicken breast from drying out in the Oven?
Be sure to not over bake the chicken breasts to avoid them getting dried out when baked. We also put the garlic butter overtop the breasts so that there’s extra added moisture to it. This is how I make delicious baked chicken breast that retain all of their natural juices.
Serve this Recipe with:
This baked chicken breast recipe is amazing served fresh out of the oven with some veggie sides. But you can also slice, shred, or dice them to use in other dishes, like chicken noodle soup, chicken salad, or chicken chili.
I usually love to serve it with salads, rice, mashed potatoes, roasted asparagus, broccoli salad and sweet potato fries.
You can also serve with a delicious quinoa salad and yummy air fryer baked sweet potato.
More Chicken Breast Recipes To Try:
Chicken Mushroom Recipe
30 mins
Baked Chicken Breast Recipe
35 mins
Lemon Rosemary Chicken
40 mins
Mediterranean Chicken Recipe
35 mins
Garlic Butter Baked Chicken Breast
Video
Equipment
Ingredients
- 3 boneless skinless chicken breasts
- salt and black pepper
- 1/2 + 1/4 teaspoon paprika
- 4 tbsp butter (melted)
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- 1 tablespoon fresh parsley chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic minced
- 1 tbsp. olive oil extra virgin
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°F. Season chicken breast with salt, pepper, 1/2 teaspoon of paprika and set aside.
- In a small bowl mix 1/4 teaspoon of paprika, butter, Italian seasoning, parsley, and garlic. Set aside.
- In a cast iron skillet, heat olive oil over medium heat. When the skillet is hot add chicken breast. Sear until golden. It’s about 1-2 minutes each side.
- Pour garlic butter mixture over the chicken breast. Place skillet in the oven and cook until cooked through. It’s about 20 minutes or until chicken breasts gets to an internal temperature of 165F.
- Remove from the oven. Using a spoon, pour some of the butter sauce left in the skillet onto the chicken breast. Also, if you prefer, top with fresh herbs before serving.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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Just made this and it is delicious! My husband had seconds and he rarely likes chicken. I added my own fresh herbs in the butter mixture and then grated fresh lemon rind over the chicken prior to serving. Oh wow ! So moist and the sauce was fantastic over balsamic rice. Thank you !
Wow I’m so happy to hear that. You’re comment made my day 😉
Love it!!! Making it again tonight!
Awesome!
Made this tonight! Even my picky 82 year old mother loved it!!!!!
How awesome! Your comment made my day 😉
This is restaurant quality. I added potato, onion, celery, and carrot to pan to make a complete meal for two in one pan.
Aww thank you so much!
Delicious, healthy, AND kid approved? What more can a momma ask for? All the right flavors were there, complimenting each other. Chicken stayed juicy. Did I mention it was kid approved?
Definitely saving as a family favorite.
Aww that’s amazing. So happy to hear that. I appreciate a lot your comment. Thanks for stopping by and leaving me this lovely comment.
This was just what I wanted: quick, easy and tasty!
Awesome!
This is great. I used small chicken breasts so watch the oven cook time- mine only took 10 mins but was juicy, looked so appealing and it will be a part of my weekly rotation. Thanks for the great recipe!
You’re so welcome!
This recipe was absolutely delicious. My husband and son both said the “recipe was a
keeper”! I followed directions and it turned out wonderful. The flavor was incredible.
Thank you.
My husband loves this recipe too. It’s so good. Thank you so much for stopping by.
Excellent..followed instructions just as is…i didnt add anything extra..definetly kid approved. Will make again
Awesome. Thank you for stopping by.
Very quick and easy as well as delicious!
Glad you liked it!
I made this chicken last week and it was amazing! So much flavor! The kids and hubs gave a thumbs up for this baked chicken recipe! And it was easy to make, and all in one skillet which is a bonus! I followed the recipe exactly (except for using dry parsley flakes rather than fresh).
Your comment made my day. Thank you so much!
Very good!!
Thanks!
2/23/23
I made this tonight for dinner. It was delicious and juicy. I had to substitute the fresh parsley for dried as I didn’t have any fresh on hand.
Happy you liked this recipe!
I’m planning on making this for dinner. Looks yummy! But I don’t have fresh garlic cloves. How much minced shud I use in its place?
1/2 a tablespoon should be fine.
Tasty
Totally!
Ordinary baked chicken. Way overcooked at 20 minutes. Enough butter and garlic makes anything tolerable!
As it was mentioned on the post, the cooking time will depend on the thickness of your chicken breast. It can be short or longer.
Wow! Family of 6 here so I doubled the breasts, tripled the spices and added 2tsps of brown sugar to spice mix, tripled the butter and garlic. Added two twigs of rosemary and one lemon cut in round wedges. Absolutely phenomenal and everyone loved it! Even my picky eater! That’s a winner right there 🤩
Served with jasmine rice and tomato salad. Did I mention this is my first time using a cast iron? Thank you for this amazing recipe!!
Your comment made my day!! Thank you so much for stopping by. Thank you so much!
This was amazing and super easy!
Right? One of my fave chicken recipes!
Awesome chicken! We thoroughly enjoyed!
That’s awesome. Happy you liked this recipe!
The ingredient list only lists 1 tsp paprika, but the recipe instructions use paprika in step 1 and 2. Should the paprika be divided?
Thanks for pointing it out. I just fixed it on the recipe card. Thank you!
This was very good and very easy to make. I sliced the breast at an angle and placed on top of bed of seasoned brown rice, with a side of stir fried green beans.
Sounds yummy!!
This recipe was so delicious and so easy to make. My family loved it. Definitely a keeper!
That’s awesome. Happy you and your family liked this recipe! Thanks for stopping by.