This garlic butter chicken is perfect for a quick and easy midweek dinner. It’s rich, garlicky and only requires 4 ingredients for the sauce!
Better still it only takes 30mins to make. PLUS, I’ve got a sneaky suspicion you might have most of the ingredients on hand already Follow me…
Garlic Butter Chicken Breast
For this recipe you’ll want to use boneless skinless chicken breast. You’ll also want to butterfly the breasts right through to make 4 even sized breasts. This will not only ensure the breasts cook quicker, but also more evenly.
Room Temp
An important tip to ensure the chicken comes out nice and juicy is to make sure you don’t cook it straight from the fridge. This will cause the chicken to seize up and go chewy. Bring the chicken close to room temp before frying.
Dredge through flour
Dredging the chicken through seasoned flour is a nifty trick to ensuring the sauce sticks to the chicken. When you fry chicken that’s been dredged through flour it’ll go nice and crispy. When you pour sauce over the chicken it absorbs into the thin coating of flour on the chicken.
Process shots: mix flour, garlic powder and s&p (photo 1), coat chicken (photo 2), add to oil & butter (photo 3), fry both sides until golden (photo 4).
Pan Fried Garlic Butter Chicken
Pan frying is the best method here because you get to start the sauce with the leftover flavour from frying the chicken. First things first, let’s see what the magic 4 ingredient sauce consists of:
- Butter – You’ll want to use unsalted butter, just so you can control the level of salt in the sauce more efficiently.
- Stock – Chicken stock works best. This not only creates the base of the sauce, but it’s great to scrape off any leftover flavour stuck in the pan from frying the chicken.
- Garlic – 2 cloves is all you’ll need! Make sure they’re finely diced/minced.
- Parsley – Garlic and parsley is a classic combo. It’s also not too overpowering which ensures the garlic shines, as it should.
Can I use other herbs?
Thyme or rosemary work great. They are both more powerful than parsley though so I recommend starting off with a smaller amount and working your way up. In all cases make sure you’re using fresh herbs. Dried herbs won’t have long enough to infuse into the sauce properly.
Process shots: fry garlic (photo 1), pour in stock (photo 2), melt in butter (photo 3), whisk to emulsify butter with stock (photo 4), add parsley (photo 5), add chicken back in (photo 6).
Serving Garlic Butter Chicken
Once you’ve added the chicken back in, give it all a good baste then plate up right away. You don’t want to leave them in the pan too long or they’ll overcook.
From there I always serve up with a wedge of lemon. The sauce is quite rich, so a squeeze of lemon juice at the very end will cut through that richness. Optional, but recommended.
What to serve with Garlic Butter Chicken?
Here I serve with asparagus and Lemon Roasted Potatoes. Other sides that would pair nicely include Roasted Broccolini, Roasted Baby Potatoes or Mustard Mash.
And there we have it! All my top tips for the perfect garlic butter chicken.
For the sister recipes to this check out my Garlic Butter Pork Chops, Garlic Butter Cod and Garlic Butter Salmon!
For more garlicky goodness check out these beauties too:
Delicious Garlic Recipes
- Garlic Butter Potato Skins
- Honey Garlic Chicken
- Garlic Green Beans
- Roasted Garlic Bread
- Creamy Garlic Chicken
- Garlic Parmesan Chicken Skewers
Alrighty, let’s tuck into the full recipe for this butter garlic chicken shall we?!
How to make Garlic Butter Chicken (Full Recipe & Video)
Garlic Butter Chicken
Equipment
- Large Frying Pan & Wooden Spoon
- Shallow Dish (for dredging)
- Sharp Knife & Chopping Board
- Jug (for stock)
- Tongs
Ingredients
- 2x 9oz/250g Chicken Breasts, brought close to room temp
- 1/4 cup / 40g Plain / All Purpose Flour
- 1/2 cup / 120ml Chicken Stock
- 6 tbsp / 90g / 3.2oz Unsalted Butter, divided into tbsp chunks (see notes)
- 2 cloves of Garlic, minced/finely diced
- 1 tbsp finely diced Fresh Parsley
- 1 tbsp Olive Oil
- 1 tsp Garlic Powder
- 1 tsp Salt, plus more to taste
- 1/2 tsp Black Pepper, plus more to taste
- 1 Lemon, divided into 4 wedges (to serve)
Instructions
- In a shallow dish, combine 1/4 cup flour with 1 tsp garlic powder & salt and 1/2 tsp black pepper.
- Butterfly your chicken breasts right through the centre to make 4 even sized breasts. One by one dredge in the flour (press in the flour to get an even coverage), give them a shake then place to one side.
- Add 1 tbsp butter and 1 tbsp olive oil to a large pan over medium-high heat. When hot, add in the chicken breasts and fry until golden on each side and white/piping hot through the centre. Approx 3-5mins each side depending on thickness. Place to one side.
- Turn heat down to a medium and add garlic. Fry for 1-2mins until it just begins to brown, then pour in stock. Use your wooden spoon to scrape off any flavour stuck to the pan, then add in your remaining 5 tbsp butter. Swiftly whisk as it melts to bind with the stock, it should turn slightly cloudy. Sprinkle in parsley and season to taste with salt & black pepper.
- Allow to simmer for a few mins until it starts to thicken, then turn down the heat to low and add the chicken back in. Spoon over the sauce then serve up with extra sauce drizzled over and a squeeze of lemon juice to taste (optional - see notes).
Video
Notes
Your Private Notes:
Nutrition
Looking for more?
You’ll find plenty more delicious comfort food like this in my Debut Cookbook ‘Comfy’
For another garlic butter chicken recipe check out my Garlic Butter Chicken Orzo!
For more similar recipes check out these beauties:
Chicken Breast Recipes
- Creamy Bacon Chicken
- Creamy Tarragon Chicken
- Creamy Roasted Red Pepper Chicken
- Creamy Tomato Chicken
- Chicken Marsala
- Chicken Francese
Just finished eating this. Absolutely deeelish. Easy recipe and sooo moist and tasty! Served with home made potato wedges. Yum .
Awesome to hear! Thanks so much for the review, Carol! 🙂
Can i cook the chicken in advance for party. & Make the sauce fresh
I wouldn’t recommend doing this. The chicken won’t be half as juicy and the flour is likely to go mushy as it rests.
Thanks a lot
This was a hit even with my 3 picky children. I served it with mashed potatoes with the sauce spooned over and steamed broccoli tossed in garlic herb seasoning. We embraced the garlic!
Great to hear this went down well with the kids, Marie! Thanks so much for the review 🙂 C.
Butter is life. Jen Melbourne Australia.
I agree. Chris Edinburgh United Kingdom.
Huge garlic fan and this is probably, or very close to my favourite garlic dish ever, and it’s so easy to make! Just made this for the second time and I already can’t wait until I make it again.
Slightly gutted my children didn’t have the same opinion, I’ll have to whip them up a separate sauce in future so I can stink the house out with my love of garlic in peace. Thank you! <3
So great to hear you loved the recipe! Yes, just stink out the kitchen solo next time haha! Thanks for the review 🙂 C.x
Love this recipe. Also used cast iron skillet. Will definitely make again
Thanks so much for the review, Rose! 🙂
G’day from hot and sunny Perth, WA!! I joined up recently after searching for nachos recipes and stumbled upon this. So easy to do and so full of flavour. Served with mash potato and pan fried asparagus done in the same cast iron skillet. Incredible, can’t wait to try other recipes. Cheers Chris.
Hello form a wet and miserable Edinburgh!! So happy to hear the recipe went down well. Thanks so much for popping back for a review. C.
My husband and I love this recipe and have made it over a dozen times already since we first discovered it a year ago. However, we recently began the ketogenic diet and are about a month into it now. We miss our garlic butter chicken and were trying to think of ways to make it keto friendly. Do you think we could use almond flour or grated parmesan cheese for the dredge instead of all-purpose flour? As that appears to be the only ingredient that makes this recipe not keto-friendly.
Sofia, so happy to hear you like the recipe! To be honest I’d probably just leave off the flour all together and halve the seasoning. So just slice the chicken and coat in 1/2 tsp salt/garlic powder and 1/4tsp black pepper. The only difference will be you won’t get quite the same crust on the chicken and the sauce won’t soak in to the chicken as easily.
Update! I tried making it with the almond flour instead of all purpose flour last night, and it came out AMAZING!!! If anything, I think it produced even MORE of a crust and absorbed the flavor of the sauce even better than it did with the original flour recipe. I did it this way before I had a chance to read your response, but I wanted to come back and let you know how it worked out!!! So delicious!
Ah that’s so great to hear! Thanks so much for popping back and sharing how it went! 🙂 C.x
Excellent way to kick off the New Year! This recipe of yours, like all the others I have tried thus far, are so easy to follow! Flavor is exactly how you described! Rich and garlicky.
The chicken was perfectly cooked, thanks to your direction, with just the right amount of moisture and crispness on the outside. We chose to pair with Russet mashed potatoes.
Drizzled this delectable recipe sauce over the mashers and chicken. Paired those with a fresh, green salad on the side, and my daughters labeled the meal 5 out of 5 stars! Exceptionally yummy!
Such a lovely review, thanks so much, Shelby! 🙂
Made this with the lemon roasted potatoes (in the air fryer) on the side & we loved it. Wanted to lick the platter clean. Added pan sauce on top of the potatoes.
So glad the recipe went down well, Gail! Thanks for the review!