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.
Did You Make This?
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This sounds delicious!! However, I do not have a cast iron pan, can it be seared in a non stick or can this step be skipped??
You can use a non stick pan.
Made this for dinner tonight with fettuccini Alfredo! Excellent! We could really taste the garlic!
That’s amazing!
Can you freeze chicken breasts? Somethings just don’t taste as good after they’ve been frozen. Thank you!
Yes I do freeze chicken breasts and I think it does taste good. I think it depends on the seasonings.
Not to be picky, but doesn’t extra virgin olive oil smoke at 400 degrees?
You can use any oil. I used it because I live the flavour of it!
This is a great weeknight meal! I used 1/2 of the butter in the recipe and mixed in some olive oil, but otherwise followed the instructions. I made some oven roasted broccoli to go with it (taking advantage of the 400 degree oven!) Both my teen sons loved it, and my husband said it can go in “heavy rotation.” Thank you!
So happy you and your teens loved it. What a great complement your husband said. I feel very happy to hear that 😉
It Looks so Moist! Definitely gonna try it…
You’ll love it!
This was very delicious and it surprised with how much flavor was packed into the chicken. Even my 8 and 11 year olds loved it. Yummed it right up!
This was so quick and easy. Absolutely delicious. Will become a regular part of rotation.
Awesome!
Did a quick search of flavorful quick chicken breast recipes and this was the healthiest of the options I saw. Made it exactly as specified (except I added the paprika to the butter sauce…so i added an extra sprinkle of paprika to the chicken as well). Turned out delicious. As one commenter suggested, I made a bed of egg noodles to go with it and mixed them in with the drippings. YUMMMM!
I know, right? The egg noodles mixed with the drippings are amazing.
I made this early this morning to bring to my home that is being renovated. I also made a mistake and added too much olive oil! I tossed in a little bit of flour to correct that. I must say that this is one of the best chicken dishes I have tasted in a long time.
Wow I am so so so happy to hear this. Thanks so much for this awesome feedback. I appreciate it!
Excellent!!! Looking forward to trying more of your recipes.
So happy you are enjoying these recipes!
I like this recipes yummy. and easy to cook
Happy you liked it!
Family favorite! ☺️
Awesome!
This is a awesome way to cook chicken
Yes it’s very flavourful and easy to make
This was so delicious. I forgot to take photo though. I will next time because I will be making again.
Yes share the photo with me next time 😉
I tried the recipe tonight and was impressed at how good it was. The next time I make it I will cut the chicken breast into fillets.
Happy you like it!
How would I go about making this without a cast iron skillet? I was going to just move them over to a glass dish?
You can use a oven-safe skillet or a baking dish.
As a single father I try to find recipes that are fairly easy and most of all good. This checks both boxes. My 6year old absolutely loves it. I keep it as a routine dish. I really enjoy it as well
That’s great. Happy to her that 😉
Can these be seared ahead of time and cooked in the oven later?
Yes it can!
I wanted a quick easy tasty chicken dinner to use up a chicken breast. This hit the spot and then some. I couldn’t resist adding a little sprinkle of chili flakes. Thank you really enjoyed it.
Love that you added a little bit of chili flakes!