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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Made this tonight and my family was raving about it!
That’s awesome!
This is delicious and easy to make. Thank you
You’re so welcome!
Can you cut breast smaller to make additional pieces?
Oh yes you can!
Tried this recipe and it turned out delicious! I served it with rice and salad. The only change I made was dried parsley instead of fresh. A great quick meal!
That’s great. Happy you enjoyed it!
Fantastic. I had to kind of guess at how much paprika to sprinkle on the chicken and how much to leave for the sauce (½ and ½). My eldest gave the best praise: it’s a keeper.
Happy to hear that.
Wife was licking her plate! May add broccoli in the skillet next time
That’s awesome to hear that.
GREAT RECIPE!!!!!! I made this a year ago and then couldn’t remember where I found it and my family has kept asking me to make it again and I finally found it!!!!!!! Making it now.
Awesome!!!
Delicious easy chicken breast recipe. I’ve saved it and plan to make it often.
Perfect!!!
Family approved 🙌🏾 This is very flavorful recipe. My husband was ike, 😲”Wow!” I definitely will be making it again and again. Thanks for sharing 😁👍🏾💯
Glad you both enjoyed it!
My family loves this recipe, they even fight over who gets the last piece.
That’s so awesome! You’re comment made my day 😉
I should have did 1-1/2 times the butter recipe. I think the oven temp was a tad too high as my 4 oz breasts were slightly over done after just 19 min. I will make again. Was tasty and easy using my cast iron skillet
Yes this recipe is very easy and flavourful. Since your chicken breast was 4oz, you could have baked it for less time to not over done. But I am glad you liked it.
Delicious! Added a little pepper flakes for a lil kick!
Mm.. yummy!
First time I ever made anything with chicken, and it was surprisingly easy. I used smoked paprika in place of regular paprika. I paired it with brussels sprouts (made in the air fryer) and roasted garlic mashed potatoes. Huge hit in our house! My husband said it was the best chicken he’s ever had. He even took some to his parents, and they agreed. My children (2 and 6 years old) both enjoyed it. For the first time in a long time my 6 year old finished her entire meal and literally cleaned her plate.
That’s so amazing. Your comment made my day. Thanks for this kind feedback and for stopping by.
The sauce is a game changer!!
Totally!
My kids love this recipe! It’s one of my go tos!
My son loved it too. This recipe is perfect for kids 😉
This is an easy and excellent recipe. I made more of the sauce than it called for in case I dried the chicken out, which I tend to do. Chicken wasn’t dry and the sauce was really good with the asparagus we had with it. One question is how to not burn the garlic (as the recipe says) when it has to cook for 20+ min on 400 degrees. My garlic did start to burn though it was all still tasty.
Awesome!
Chicken breast dinner in the oven
Awesome!
Made in my Dutch oven.After searing I poured the butter in the bottom of the pan and spooned the garlic on top of the chicken so it wouldn’t burn. I threw asparagus tips in the middle. Everything came out juicy and tender. Easiest chicken dish I have made in a while.
Love that. Happy you liked it!
This recipe came together easily, and was absolutely delicious! Thank you so much!
You’re very welcome!
Was simple and delicious
Awesome!