This Oven Roasted Chicken Breast recipe gives you juicy, tender and flavorful chicken every time. Yes, chicken breast can be juicy! It does not have to be dried out and tasteless as we have all experienced. Just be sure to check out the keys to success for the small, but impactful tweeks that will give you chicken breast you and your family will want to eat any day of the week.
Keys to Success with Oven Roasted Chicken Breast
Buy bone in, skin on chicken breast. This will protect the lean chicken breast while cooking it.
Salt the chicken early, also known as Dry Brining. This is going to give you the absolute best result as the salt is pulled into the chicken to flavor it and protect it from squeezing out all the moisture. Dry brining is simply sprinkling salt over the chicken and giving the salt enough time to permeate the chicken, so try to salt it 30 minutes in advance or better yet overnight.
To get the salt quantity right, consider investing in a kitchen scale. Each type of salt, such as kosher and sea salt, have different weights for the same quantity. The weight is what determines the “saltiness”.
Use high heat at 400ºF to brown the skin, making it nice and crispy. Of course you don’t have to eat the skin if you don’t want it, but I’m warning you it’ll be hard to resist!
How Long to Cook Oven Roasted Chicken Breast
The chicken breast should be cooked until the internal temperature at the thickest part of the breast reaches 160 to 165ºF, which takes around 45 to 55 minutes for skin-on, bone-in chicken breast depending on the thickeness of the breast and how well the oven retains the 400ºF temperature.
Time Tips for Oven Roasted Chicken Breast
If you have time right when you get home from the grocery store, go ahead and dry brine the chicken by sprinkling 3g of salt per lb on the chicken. I typically sprinkle salt on all meat I purchase right away so I get this step out of the way and it has ample time to work it’s magic. This can also be done the night before or morning before cooking if you forget after the grocery store. Whenever you have a minute to sprinkle salt, but the earlier the better, trust me you will be rewarded!
Although this does have a long cook time, it’s a great opportunity to get side dishes made. Roasted Baby Potatoes and this Edamame Salad pair beautifully.
Adjustments for Kids
If you’re kids don’t like the crispy skin, that means more for you! The tender, juicy, flavorful chicken is usually a big hit with kids, so this is a great place to start.
The most juicy, flavorful, tender chicken you will ever eat.
Total Time:50 minutes
Yield:41x
Ingredients
UnitsScale
2lbchicken breast, bone-in / skin-on
2 tsp thyme, dried or fresh
1 Tbsp olive oil
6gsalt (Or 1 tsp of Morton Kosher Salt)
1/4 tsp black pepper
Instructions
At least 30 minutes before cooking, or better yet the night before, sprinkle 6 g of salt per lb of chicken. Wrap the chicken back on the styrofoam tray or put in a glass or plastic container and put back into the fridge.
When ready to cook, preheat the oven to 400ºF
Chop the thyme. Carefully wiggle your finders under the skin of the chicken to create a little space and add the thyme.
Add the olive oil on top of the skin and add the black pepper on top
Roast in the oven until the internal temperature reaches 160 – 165ºF, about 45-50 minutes.
Remove from the oven. Cut the chicken off the bone and slice against the grain, meaning perpendicular to the muscle fibers. This is the longer length of the chicken breast, not the shorter width.
Prep Time:5 minutes
Cook Time:45 minutes
Category:Main Course
Cuisine:Healthy American
Variations
Any of your favorite herbs work well with this dish. I love it with Rosemary, Majoram, Savory, or Oregano. I also love using a mix of these herbs called my Ultimate Herb Mix. Another option is to add a couple cloves of garlic under the skin.
Let us know how it turned out and if you tried any variations in the comments!
To provide the best experience, we use cookies on our site to provide personalized content and analyze our traffic.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Analytics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
