Baked Chicken Breasts
Chicken is one of the most popular chicken recipes, for lunch or dinner.
First of all, everyone loves chicken breasts and always have them in the refrigerator. Secondly, baking chicken breasts in the oven is so easy and quick, with very short active time.
However, not all baked chicken breasts turn out the same way.
Many people under-season the chicken, and/or baking the breasts for too long, resulting in dry, tough, rubbery and tasteless meat.
What Temperature for Oven Baked Chicken Breasts?
To seal in the juice and ensure moist, juicy and tender chicken breasts, you want to bake the chicken in a pre-heated oven at 400 degrees.
How Long Does It Take to Bake Chicken Breasts?
Not all chicken breasts are the same size or thickness. Some are thicker and some are leaner.
As a general rule of thumb, the baking time is about 30-40 minutes, depending on how big and thick the breasts are.
The internal temperature for properly cooked chicken (regardless of the parts of the chicken) is 165° Fahrenheit or 75° Celsius. To test the temperature, use a meat thermometer.
Insert it into the thicken part of the chicken breasts. If it reaches 165°F, it’s done.
Secrets for Juicy Chicken
As you can see from my pictures, my Parmesan baked chicken breasts are juicy, with the juice seeping out from the meat. Here are my tips and tricks for juicy baked chicken breasts:
- Marinate the chicken with olive oil. Olive oil seals in the juice of the chicken, making the surface moist and the inside extremely juicy.
- Use lemon juice as part of the marinade. If you marinate the chicken breasts with all dry ingredients, they will turn out dryer. Use lemon juice to marinate and your chicken will be moist and bursting with amazing flavors.
- Remove the chicken immediately from the oven as soon as they are done. Do not leave them inside as the remaining heat in the oven will continue to cook the chicken. This is the number 1 reason for dry, tough, rubbery and over-cooked oven baked chicken breasts.
What Dishes to Serve with this Recipe?
For a wholesome meal and easy weeknight dinner, I recommend the following recipes.
Menu and Meal Ideas
Garlic Creamed Spinach
Lemon Herb Roasted Potatoes
Skillet Dinner Rolls
Other Recipes You Might Like
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Parmesan Baked Chicken Breasts Recipe
Bake chicken breasts with Parmesan cheese is so easy to make in the oven. These juicy and moist chicken are marinated with olive oil and garlic-lemon seasonings. So delicious!
Ingredients
- 1 lb. skinless and boneless chicken breasts
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 tablespoon garlic powder
- 1 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice
- 3 dashes cayenne pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon salt or to taste
- 1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese (real Parmesan cheese)
- lemon wedges, for serving
Instructions
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Rinse the chicken with cold water and pat dry with paper towels. Marinate the chicken with olive oil, garlic powder, lemon juice, cayenne pepper and salt. The marinade will be paste-y and not liquidy, like the picture below.
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While the chicken breasts are marinating, preheat oven to 400F.
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Top the marinated chicken breasts with the grated Parmesan cheese evenly. Bake the chicken for about 30-40 minutes, until a meat thermometer hits 165 degrees Fahrenheit when inserted into the thickest part of the breasts.
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Remove the Parmesan baked chicken from the oven. Serve immediately with lemon wedges.
Recipe Notes
Do not use bottle Parmesan cheese.
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Lynn
Current advice is that you should not rinse chicken before cooking as washing spreads bacteria:
https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2016/11/16/wash-or-not-wash
Apart from that, this is a lovely recipe and will be joining my dinner rotation.
Rasa Malaysia
I was raised to always wash chicken meat and I do not believe in not washing raw meat. It just doesn’t make any sense that washing chicken with clear water can spread bacteria in your kitchen. I mean, you wash inside the kitchen sink and not outside of the kitchen sink and so how can it spread bacteria in your kitchen? And the kitchen sink is constantly flowing with water the whole day, washing away all the dirty stuff. The chicken could have a zillion bacteria packed in a styrofoam pack, sitting on the supermarket for the whole day if not days, some even oozing with sticky liquid. I always always wash my chicken, to get rid of the sticky slimy liquid in the packaging. Thanks though and I will continue to wash my chicken.
Peter Nichol
Thank you for your baked chicken recipe. I have never been a great chicken eater as I have always said chicken is to dry. To be honest the only chicken I eat are chicken wings baked in a Asian sauce.
Dawn Winning
Well, as I was making the marinade my only thought was “that’s a LOT of garlic powder!” And I LOVE garlic. I was skeptical as to how this would turn out. It turned out great! It was delicious and so easy. I can taste the garlic but it is not over-powering. The chicken is tender and juicy and cooked in 30 minutes for me (@ 400). My only suggestion would be to make your readers aware that the marinade is more like a paste, I always think about marinade being liquid, but maybe that’s just me. Well done, Rasa, well done!
Rasa Malaysia
Hi Dawn, thanks for your suggestion, I will update the recipe to tell them about the marinade being paste-y. :)
Sue
Is the 3 dashes of cayenne pepper a powder or liquid for the Parmesan Baked Chicken Breasts? I saw this in another recipe also and am not sure if I should use the powdered cayenne pepper or the liquid bottled cayenne pepper.
Rasa Malaysia
Powder.
Zalina
I followed the recipe exactly and it did come out delicious and juicy, BUT the parmesan did not brown at all. It didn’t create what I consider a crust. Am I supposed to raise the chicken closer to the heat of the oven?
Rasa Malaysia
Hi Zalina, you sure can. Every oven is different or you can use broil function but you have to watch closely or else it will burn.
Sue
Can you use shredded Parmesan instead of grated?
Rasa Malaysia
Yes you can.