Basic Baked Boneless Chicken Breasts for Your Recipes (2024)

Southern Dinner Recipes
Chicken Mains

Diana Rattray

Southern-cuisine expert and cookbook author Diana Rattray has created more than 5,000 recipes and articles in her 20 years as a food writer.

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Updated on 03/5/24

Tested by

Danilo Alfaro

Tested byDanilo Alfaro

Danilo Alfaro has published more than 800 recipes and tutorials focused on making complicated culinary techniques approachable to home cooks.

Learn about The Spruce Eats'Editorial Process

Prep: 6 mins

Cook: 25 mins

Total: 31 mins

Servings: 6 servings

107 ratings

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Chicken breasts are often baked and served as an entrée. These basic chicken breasts offer a change from fried chicken and are an excellent choice for sandwiches,chicken salads, casseroles, and other recipes that call for a cooked chicken, or simply served as a main dish. While rotisserie chickens and packaged cooked chicken breast strips are convenient options, making your own cooked chicken is much easier on the budget.

Make sure to time the chicken breasts based on their thickness so they'll cook thoroughly but won't dry out. Avoiding overcooking is the key to juicy and moist chicken breasts. If possible, use an instant-read food thermometer to check for doneness—the minimum safe temperature for chicken is 165 F.

These chicken breasts get their flavor from some simple ingredients: olive oil, salt,and pepper. Feel free to sprinkle them with the optional dash of onion powder or garlic powder, or top them with some sprigs of fresh herbs or a sprinkling of smoked paprika. Melted butter or bacon drippings are excellent alternatives to olive oil.

Basic Baked Boneless Chicken Breasts for Your Recipes (3)

What You'll Need to Make This Baked Chicken Breasts Recipe

A Nice Rimmed Baking Sheet

A Nifty Pepper Mill

An Accurate Instant Read Thermometer

"This chicken recipe is easy and a great way to make chicken breasts to serve on their own or use in another recipe, like tacos, soup, etc. I'm a big fan of minimal seasoning, and this recipe is perfect in that regard: the chicken is well seasoned but the flavor of the chicken shines through." —Danilo Alfaro

Basic Baked Boneless Chicken Breasts for Your Recipes (7)

A Note From Our Recipe Tester

Ingredients

1 1/2 poundsboneless chicken breasts(or as many as you need for a recipe)
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 dash kosher salt, or to taste
1 dash freshly ground black pepper, or to taste
1 dash onion powder, optional
1 dash garlic powder, optional

Steps to Make It

Gather the ingredients.
Preheat the oven to 350 F/180 C/Gas Mark 4. Line a rimmed baking pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking oil.
Pat the chicken with paper towels to dry.
Arrange chicken breast halves on the foil and brush lightly with olive oil. Sprinkle with kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper, and onion powder or garlic powder (if using).
Bake, uncovered, for about 22 to 28 minutes, depending on the thickness of the chicken breasts (thick breasts will take longer, while thin breasts will take less time). Check with an instant-read thermometer to ensure the baked chicken has reached the minimum safe temperature for poultry of165 F/74 C without drying out.
Let the chicken breasts rest for about 5 minutes before slicing or dicing.
Serve and enjoy.

Tips

Four small chicken breast halves (like the ones pictured) will yield about 2 cups of diced cooked chicken.
Thaw chicken breasts before baking. To thaw frozen chicken breasts, place them in the refrigerator overnight. For faster thawing, leave the chicken in its packaging and submerge it in cold tap water. Change the water about every 30 minutes until defrosted. Individually wrapped chicken breasts will thaw in 30 minutes to an hour while a large package might take two to three hours.
A serving size of cooked chicken is considered to be 3 ounces for adults, 1 ounce for children under 4, and about 1 1/2 to 2 ounces for children from 4 to 12. If you are feeding guests and don't know their eating habits, err on the side of more. A raw 5-ounce boneless chicken breast will yield approximately 3 1/4 ounces of cooked chicken.

Recipe Variations

You can change up the spices to suit your taste. Try the following flavors:

Curry powder
Cajun seasoning
Creole seasoning
Lemon pepper
Barbecue rub
Old Bay Seasoning

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Nutrition Facts (per serving)
227	Calories
9g	Fat
0g	Carbs
35g	Protein

Show Full Nutrition Label

Nutrition Facts
Servings: 6
Amount per serving
Calories	227
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 9g	11%
Saturated Fat 2g	9%
Cholesterol 96mg	32%
Sodium 110mg	5%
Total Carbohydrate 0g	0%
Dietary Fiber 0g	0%
Total Sugars 0g
Protein 35g
Vitamin C 0mg	0%
Calcium 17mg	1%
Iron 1mg	7%
Potassium 291mg	6%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.

(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)

Recipe Tags:

baked chicken
Chicken Main
entree
american

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