Lemon Chicken

This Lemon Chicken recipe is an easy restaurant-quality main dish that’s ready in minutes – tender lemon pepper chicken fillets with a creamy lemon butter sauce!

 

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes

Cooking restaurant-quality meals at home is one of the BEST ways to enjoy delicious food without breaking the bank. We absolutely LOVE this Lemon Chicken recipe as a quick and easy weeknight main dish when we’re craving something delicious. It’s easy to serve with some mashed or roasted potatoes and a quick side salad, and it’s become a staple recipe in our monthly meal plan!

Lemon chicken is a dish that features chicken cooked with lemon zest and juice, white wine, garlic, and lemon pepper seasoning, creating a buttery, tangy, and citrusy sauce. The result is a bright and flavourful dish, perfect for a quick mid week dinner or even meal prepping.

This Lemon Chicken recipe involves pan-searing chicken breasts seasoned with salt and lemon pepper, then cooking them in a sauce made from lemon zest, lemon juice, onion, garlic, white wine, chicken stock, and butter.

There are SO many reasons we make this Lemon Chicken recipe over and over again! Here’s a few:

1. It’s EASY to make. There’s nothing like a simple, one-pan chicken recipe with minimal steps and basic ingredients. This Lemon Chicken is all that and more.
2. It’s SO flavourful. Talk about a flavour punch – the sauce is SO creamy and tangy thanks to a little trick!
3. It’s on the table FAST. In under 30 minutes, you can have this amazing chicken ready to go. Whip up a quick salad and some baked potatoes and you’ve got an easy and delicious dinner.
4. It’s great for MEAL PREP. We love doubling this recipe in a big skillet and saving half for another dinner later in the week. The chicken can be sliced, reheated in the sauce and served as leftovers over pasta for a delicious and creamy meal.
5. It’s easy to CUSTOMIZE. Want to add more veggies? Throw in some chopped kale or spinach. Like spicy foods? Add in some cayenne pepper. Avoiding dairy? Make it with dairy free butter.
6. It calls for SIMPLE ingredients. Using just pantry staples, you can whip up this simple pan-fried chicken with a dreamy sauce.

Here’s a short list of our favourite dishes to serve with this Lemon Chicken recipe!

• Best Mashed Potatoes – These mashed potatoes are perfect for sopping up all that delicious sauce!
• Air Fryer Roasted Potatoes – These crispy potatoes pair perfectly with this creamy dish.
• Caprese Salad – A fresh salad is the perfect starter to pair with this chicken and its creamy sauce.
• Air Fryer Green Beans – This fresh and flavourful green bean recipe is a great side dish!
• Roasted Vegetables – These roasted veggies go with everything and they’re a great accompaniment to this chicken dish.

Want to make the BEST Lemon Chicken ever? Follow our PRO tips and tricks!

This Lemon Chicken recipe makes a delicate, velvety lemon butter sauce that pairs best with boneless chicken breasts (or cutlets), the most delicate cut of chicken.

Slice the chicken breasts so that the pieces have the same thickness throughout. Pat your chicken dry before seasoning and cooking. Heat up your pan well to get even browning on the chicken cutlets.

Use cold butter, and add it in gradually, mixing well with a whisk so that your sauce emulsifies and becomes rich and decadent.

Use fresh herbs for the best flavour, fresh lemon juice and the lemon zest for a tangy punch! The freshness of this Lemon Chicken is out of this world and it’s all because of these ingredients.

Here’s a couple issues you might encounter with this Lemon Pepper Chicken and how to fix or prevent them!

For the moistest Lemon Chicken, make sure you use an Instant Read Thermometer (affiliate link) to check the internal temperature of the chicken. Once the cutlets reach 165 degrees Fahrenheit (74 degrees Celsius) remove them to a plate and let them rest.

For a balanced flavours, make sure you don’t use too much lemon juice and as you zest the lemons, you only use the yellow part. The white part of the lemon peel is bitter and you don’t want it in your sauce.

Here’s what you’ll need to make this delicious Lemon Chicken recipe (affiliate links)

• Large knife and a Cutting Board
• Large skillet
• Tongs
• Instant Read Thermometer
• Microplane Zester
• Whisk

Here’s what you’ll need to make this deliciously easy Lemon Pepper Chicken recipe (affiliate links)

FOR THE CHICKEN:

• 3 chicken breasts or 6 chicken cutlets
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon lemon pepper seasoning or a mix of black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder
• 1 tablespoon olive oil or vegetable oil

FOR THE SAUCE:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 small onion
• 3 cloves garlic
• 3 lemons (zest of 3 and juice of 1)
• 3 springs of fresh thyme or use dried thyme
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 1/2 cup chicken stock or chicken broth
• 4 tablespoons butter

Want to try something new? Here’s a list of some new and interesting ways to switch up the basic Lemon Chicken recipe!

1. Dairy-Free – Substitute butter with dairy free butter.
2. Greens – Add some leaves of spinach, kale, or even some chopped asparagus during the final minutes of simmering, allowing them to wilt a little bit in the sauce.
3. Mediterranean – Add chopped olives or capers and some extra herbs like basil and oregano for a tangy Mediterranean flavour.
4. Low Carb – This recipe is naturally low carb, so you’ll only need to pick an appropriate side. Serve it over cauliflower rice or our favourite Low Carb Cauliflower Mash.
5. Pesto – Stir a few tablespoons of basil pesto into the sauce as it thickens to infuse the dish with a fresh, herby flavour.
6. Tarragon – Finely chop some fresh tarragon leaves and add them in the sauce before you add the chicken back in.

We hope you love this Lemon Pepper Chicken recipe as much as we do! Let us know in the comments below, what’s your favourite easy chicken recipe for busy weeknights? We’d love to know!

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