Lemon Butter Chicken

Make this tender and juicy lemon butter chicken for a quick weeknight dinner. It comes together in under 30 minutes using pantry staples.

If you like chicken, here are some more recipes that you will absolutely love – Cilantro Lime Chicken, Jamaican Jerk Chicken, Sheet Pan Spicy Korean Chicken, and Creamy Baked Pesto Chicken Thighs.

Jump to:

• About This Recipe
• Ingredients
• How to make Lemon Butter Chicken?
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Variations
• Serving Suggestions
• Storage Suggestions
• You might also like
• Recipe Card

About This Recipe

Crisp, juicy, and tender chicken pieces dunked in the creamiest lemon butter sauce ever – this lemon butter chicken will surely satisfy your taste buds.

Lemon garlic butter chicken is super easy to cook and makes for a great chicken dinner. I have used chicken breast to make this but you can definitely use bone-in skin-on chicken thighs.

Lemon butter chicken is an irresistible one-pan dish, where the chicken breast is coated with an all-purpose flour and cheese mixture, pan-fried, and then dunked into a delicious buttery sauce.

You can even bake the chicken pieces instead of pan-frying them, before adding them into the lemon butter sauce.

And this creamy sauce which basically has no cream in it is absolutely heavenly. I assure you won’t be able to resist this inviting sauce once you taste it.

This lemon butter chicken is,

• Lip Smacking
• Buttery and Creamy
• Perfect for weekday meals
• Easy to make
• Loaded with zesty Lemon flavor

Ingredients

Chicken – Boneless chicken breast is pounded first before using to make this chicken recipe. High in protein, I make sure that I include Chicken in one of my week’s meals.

I have used chicken breast but you can use chicken thighs too. But make sure that the cooking time will be different, as chicken thighs take more time than the chicken breast to cook.

To coat the Chicken – We will coat the chicken with just 4 ingredients before pan-frying it – all-purpose flour, parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper.

The cheese adds a yummy taste to the pan-fried chicken which is lightly flavored with salt and pepper.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil – Use good quality extra virgin olive oil to pan-fry the chicken. If you do not have olive oil, you can use any vegetable oil for the same.

For the sauce – These yummy pieces of chicken are dunked into a delectable sauce which is made of lemon juice, lemon zest, garlic, red chili flakes, Italian seasoning, salt, pepper, cold butter, and parsley.

Lemon juice and zest together add such a nice zesty flavor in this buttery sauce, which is hard to resist. You can even add orange juice and zest instead of lemon to make this sauce.

There are a lot of Italian seasonings available in the market, but if you can’t find them you can use a combination of red chili flakes, dried basil, oregano, and black pepper.

This sauce is buttery and creamy and why not! As butter is one of the key ingredients that affect the taste of the sauce, go for a high-quality one.

You can also add garlic powder instead of fresh garlic, but the taste which fresh garlic delivers is hard to match.

How to make Lemon Butter Chicken?

Start by preparing the chicken. Wash the boneless chicken breast and pat them dry using a kitchen tissue. Pound them using a meat pounder until they are quite thin.

Mix ¼ cup all-purpose flour, 2 tbsp powdered parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper to taste in a large shallow bowl. I shredded the cheese but powdering it will be better.

Dredge the chicken breast in the flour mixture on both the sides.

Heat 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil in a 9-inch skillet. Shake the chicken breasts to remove the extra coating and add them to the hot skillet in a single layer. Cook for 4-5 minutes on medium heat on each side until nicely browned.

Remove on a plate once cooked and keep aside. Add the remaining oil to the pan and cook the other breasts as well.

Add the ingredients to make the sauce that is ½ cup lemon juice, 1 tsp lemon zest, 2 tsp minced garlic, 1 tsp red chili flakes, 1 tsp Italian seasoning, and salt & pepper to taste to the same pan in which we cooked the chicken. I used a different pan for cooking the sauce and realized my mistake later. All the flavors are in the bits of chicken sticking to the pan in which we fried it. We don’t want to lose those flavors.

Cook on medium heat until the sauce is reduced to ⅓rd, 10-12 minutes.

Add 6 tbsp cold butter (cut into 1 inch cubes) to the pan and cook until everything comes together, 3-4 minutes.

Transfer the cooked chicken breast to the serving plates. Pour the sauce over the chicken pieces. Garnish with parsley and serve hot.

Frequently Asked Questions

Variations

Gluten-Free – If you are looking for a gluten-free alternative, you can use gluten-free flour instead of all-purpose flour.

You can also avoid coating the chicken with all-purpose flour and just grill the chicken and flavor it with salt and pepper.

Dunk this grilled chicken in the lemon butter sauce and your gluten-free chicken is ready to be served.

With Vegetables – Vegetables such as asparagus, broccoli, green beans, and zucchini goes well along with this lemon butter sauce. Cook the veggies in the same pan after cooking the chicken.

Saucy – If you want to make your chicken a little saucy, then you can add some chicken broth to the sauce.

The flavors from the chicken broth compliment the lemon sauce really well and make this dish even more delicious. To thicken the sauce, add some cornflour slurry and cook until the sauce is thick.

Others – Add a splash of wine to the sauce. You can also add some smoked paprika for a smoky flavor of the sauce.

Serving Suggestions

This lemony chicken tastes great on its own, but you can also serve some refreshing salads on the side such as Broccoli Apple Salad, Greek Salad, or just some grilled vegetables such as asparagus, carrots, beans, etc.

You can also serve some mashed potatoes, melting potatoes, or even a cilantro lime potato salad on the side if serving for your brunch.

Serve it on a bed of plain steamed rice or herbed rice. The buttery sauce tastes really well with the same. It even tastes great with pasta or cauliflower rice.

You can also serve some spaghetti or linguine by the side.

Storage Suggestions

If you have leftovers, you can store them in an airtight container for about a day or 2 in the refrigerator. You can use the leftover chicken to make a zesty chicken salad the next day.

You can pound and coat the chicken with the flour mixture and refrigerate it until you want to prepare it. Making the sauce is really easy and hardly takes any time. The time your chicken is getting pan-fried, you can get the sauce ready.

You might also like

Recipe Card