Garlic Lemon Chicken

5 from 2 votes

These basic instructions to make Garlic Lemon Chicken will become your new favorite chicken dish. I’m not kidding. It’s amazing.

Prep Time10

Cook Time20

Total Time30

Course: Dinner, Lunch, Main Course

Cuisine: American

Keyword: garlic lemon chicken

Servings:

Calories: 394kcal

Author: Erich Boenzli

Ingredients

12 ounces thin cut chicken breast
½ teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 cloves garlic (or more) - 2 whole, 2 chopped
1 tablespoon capers, drained
3 anchovy fillets
1 teaspoon hot pepper flakes
1 tablespoon butter
Lemon juice, from about half a lemon
¼ cup Italian flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

Pat dry the chicken with a paper towel and add salt and pepper
In a skillet, over medium heat, heat the olive oil
Add garlic, capers, anchovies, and hot pepper flakes. Make sure the oil is not too hot so it doesn’t burn the garlic.
After about 5 minutes, the anchovies will have nearly disappeared and also all the other ingredients will have neatly flavored the oil
Add chicken and cook on both sides until done. Mine only took about 3 minutes per side due to their thinness .
Remove chicken and set aside
Add butter to the hot oil and scrape all the bits and pieces off the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. Then,within less than a minute, add the fresh lemon juice.
Now is the perfect time to taste. Make sure you like the balance. There are a lot of strong flavored ingredients in here so make sure none of them wants to be in the front of your taste buds alone. Balance is the key here. Maybe it needs a little more lemon juice, or maybe butter. Maybe now you feel you’d like it spicier. No problem, add more hot pepper flakes. You know where I’m going with this. That’s when you are cooking! You are the cook, this recipe is just a guideline. Make it yours.
Once the sauce it’s done, you can put the cooked chicken back in the pan for a minute, just to warm it up before serving
Serve on a warm plate, garnish with some flat leaf Italian parsley and a side of your choice. Another delicious way to serve is with your favorite salad and a nice french baguette to mop up the sauce.

Notes

Anchovies: Eating an anchovy fillet by itself can be a pretty daunting task (aka salty, strong tasting), but if you let them cook in a sauce or olive oil, they basically just disappear and add a ton of flavor (umami) to your dish. Even if you think you don’t like anchovies, give them a try. You’ll surprise yourself.

⭐ Note: If you prefer using anchovy paste from a tube instead of fillets, ½ teaspoon anchovy paste equals about one anchovy fillet.

Nutrition