How to Make: The Perfect Oven-Baked Chicken Breast
Chicken breast is a dish of many facets: easy to learn but hard to master, and there are always ways to improve a recipe through different spices and methods. There is also an enormous difference between good and bad chicken breast. At its best, it’s a juicy, flavorful and straightforward cut of meat, and at its worst it’s a dry, nondescript slab that resembles leather more than chicken. That’s why it’s great to know how to make it well!
Since I started cooking, I’ve been working to make chicken breast as juicy and delicious as possible. I’ve played with timing, combined different spices together, all in pursuit of the perfect chicken breast. This recipe is the closest I’ve gotten (until now!).
You may ask yourself, why oven-baked? It’s a perfectly valid question. In fact, pan-fried chicken breast is great as well: however, you need to fry it over pretty high heat and that can induce smoking. So if you have a sensitive fire alarm, try out the oven-baked version.
On to the recipe! There are a few key points to making chicken breast:
Bake for a very specific range of time, namely 20-22 minutes (in every scenario except if your chicken breast came from the André the Giant of chickens).
Never cut the chicken breast while it’s in the oven, to see how done it is. This will result in all of the fluids leaving the chicken breast, which is the cardinal sin of making this cut. Believe in the process!
Always let your chicken breast rest for at least 5 minutes after taking it out of the oven. This is an extremely important rule with basically every type of meat, and especially so with chicken breast. Letting it rest allows the meat to retain all of the fluids, resulting in a much juicier chicken breast. This is the most important step in the whole recipe.
As always, there are some optional steps that take your meal to the next level: namely, brining the chicken and coating it with butter. But either way, your chicken is guaranteed to impress if you follow these steps. Enjoy!
Ingredients (for 1 serving):
1 chicken breast
A few sprigs of rosemary
A few sprigs of thyme
Paprika seasoning
Garlic powder or 3 cloves of garlic, or both :)
Onion powder (not mandatory)
Cajun seasoning (or cayenne pepper if you can’t find this)
Salt and pepper
1. First, preheat your oven to 230°C/450°F.
Then, lay out your ingredients. Along with the ones on this picture, take your onion powder, garlic powder, garlic cloves, cayenne pepper, or whichever of those you have available.
Optional: Brine your chicken breast. Brining means submerging your chicken breast into lukewarm water with a generous helping of salt in it. The meat will absorb the water and salt, which results in an even juicier chicken breast at the end. Brining is a staple of food methods that can be used for most meats. In a perfect world, we could leave the chicken breast in the water for up to 3 hours, but with our busy lives, 15 minutes will do as well!
Optional but recommended: Fry your butter on low heat, and use a brush or something similar to coat the chicken breast with it. This:
Makes the outside of the chicken crispier when it’s done,
Allows the spices to stick to the chicken breast better.
2. Whether you used butter or not, the next step is to coat the entire chicken breast with all of the spices. Don’t forget to coat both sides!
3. Put your chicken in an ovenproof tray. To avoid it from sticking, put in some butter or oil, depending on your preference.
Throw in the thyme and rosemary, along with the garlic cloves.
4. Throw the chicken in the oven, and bake for 20-22 minutes. Again, unless your chicken breast is extremely large, do not leave in for longer. Not only is 20 minutes long enough, your chicken will be hot while it’s resting as well.
If you want to double check the inner temperature, I suggest using or buying a meat thermometer. This is an extremely useful tool that allows you to cook your meat with great precision.
After your chicken is done baking, leave to rest for at least 5 minutes, in order to allow the juices to settle. Don’t worry, it’ll still be hot!
5. After your chicken is done resting, it works with almost any side dish, such as rice, pasta or potato dishes.
Enjoy!