28 Essential, Easy Chicken Recipes for Every Night of the Week (2024)

If you're ready to expand your culinary skills, you can't go wrong with any of these simple chicken recipes. Chicken is incredibly versatile, and there are beginner-friendly options for almost any kind of chicken dish, whether you're craving a classic like roast chicken, something indulgent like chicken wings, or something inventive like a chicken pizza.

While you may be used to fancy restaurant-quality chicken, don't let that scare you away from attempting one of these easy chicken recipes. Clear, step-by-step instructions will guide you through the whole cooking process and teach you staple techniques like how to bread chicken cutlets or how to spatchco*ck a chicken. Once you get a little practice, we hope you'll never have to stress over what to make for dinner again.

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Chicken Noodle Soup

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Homemade chicken noodle soup will warm your heart and your belly with a single bowl. This chicken noodle soup recipe calls for a whole chicken, which might seem like a lot of effort, but it also makes a whopping 12 servings, so you'll be slurping down savory chicken and tasty noodles for days.

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Crispy Honey Mustard Chicken With Fries

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Sometimes, you just need a crispy chicken dinner to satisfy your cravings. Here, skin-on chicken thighs are coated in honey mustard and panko before going into the oven. The chicken is paired with retro crinkly fries and a quick slaw for an easy dinner that comes together with 20 minutes of hands-on time.

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Chicken and Chard Dumpling Soup

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This fresh take on chicken soup recipes uses chewy gnocchi, tender chicken, and Swiss chard for a balanced meal in a single bowl. (Best of all, it's easy to make—only 30 minutes of hands-on time.)

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Southwestern Chicken Soup

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It's labeled a soup, but let's be honest: This is a real white chicken chili. It's got salsa verde for flavor and cannellini beans for weight, both main ingredients in any good white chicken chili recipe, plus cumin and green onions for extra taste.

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Instant Pot Chicken Pho

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If you're a fan of the Instant Pot, you likely already use it for almost everything, but trying something a little new with this Instant Pot chicken recipe. It'll give you all the pho flavors you know and love, but with less hands-on time.

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Miso Chicken Noodle Soup

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Dress up your classic, comforting chicken noodle soup recipe with a little miso. This recipe from Healthyish by Lindsay Maitland Hunt uses white miso paste, soy sauce, tofu, udon or soba noodles, and chicken (of course) for a soup that is savory and satisfying all at once.

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Grilled Pizza With Chicken and Peach

Chicken may not be the first topping that comes to mind when you think of pizza, but this summer chicken recipe proves that it's on the same level as mozzarella and peppers. Best of all, this recipe calls for rotisserie chicken, so you can spend more time focusing on the pizza and less cooking chicken.

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Zesty Chicken Salad

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For this chicken salad recipe, you'll poach chicken breasts—it's easier than you think—and mix it with dill pickles, mayonnaise, shallot, and more for a homemade chicken salad you can rely on for office lunches, picnics, and more.

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Grilled Chicken and Pepper Salad

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This easy chicken recipe has a salad base, but don't think that means it won't fill you up. Delicious marinated grilled chicken brings flavor and heft to the meal, and a homemade salad dressing means you can be certain this is a healthy dish.

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Almond-Crusted Chicken With Arugula Salad

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This easy weeknight chicken dish can be made quickly, but speed doesn't come at the expense of flavor: With almond flour and sesame seeds for flavor and crunch on the chicken breast cutlets and a customizable salad, this is sure to become a regular in your weekly meal rotation.

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Vietnamese-Inspired Chicken Patties

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Chicken may be the main ingredient in this recipe, but the vinaigrette is the star of the show. With fish sauce, sambal oelek, and chile, it dresses up the ground chicken meatballs and rice vermicelli noodle base nicely.

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Cherry-Bourbon Chicken Wings

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Make watching the game at home special with this irresistible chicken wings recipe. These wings are saucy, sweet, and sour, for a near-complete flavor palette in every bite. If you cook them on the grill, they'll even get a crispy, caramelized finish that will keep everyone coming back for more.

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Garlic-Parmesan Chicken Wings

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If you strongly believe that garlic makes everything better, this chicken wings recipe is for you. They're messy and delicious—everything wings should be—and can be cooked on the grill or in a broiler, depending on the cooking tools available for you.

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Chicken Enchiladas Verdes

Green salsa verde and Muenster cheese (or Monterey Jack, if you prefer) offer an alternative to the classic red enchilada sauce in this chicken enchiladas recipe. Mild and tangy, these enchiladas are sure to be a crowd favorite. Plus, they have corn in them, so you can serve them on their own as a full meal or add a side salad for an even more balanced meal.

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Zesty Chicken Enchiladas

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A homemade enchilada sauce takes this easy chicken enchiladas recipe from good to great. Using a rotisserie chicken instead of cooking your own saves you time and effort—so you can focus on the sauce—and the four-serving yield feeds the whole family.

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Slow-Cooker Creamy Chicken With Biscuits

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With this slow-cooker recipe, your cooker takes care of the chicken. When the chicken is almost ready, all you have to do is make some easy-drop biscuits, and then combine it all in a bowl. It'll taste amazing on night one and every night afterward, if you're meal-prepping.

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Chicken and Vegetable Potpie

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Potpie might be the pinnacle of comfort food. This chicken potpie recipe includes onions, carrots, and peas, so it's healthy, too, without sacrificing any of the rich flavor you know and love.

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Creamy Chicken and Corn Potpie

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All good chicken potpies are creamy, but this chicken potpie recipe might be the creamiest, thanks to the addition of corn chowder, which both introduces tasty corn and veggies to the dish and adds plenty of luscious creaminess.

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Chicken Spaghetti Casserole

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Consider this chicken recipe with an eight-serving yield, so you can enjoy an indulgent chicken and pasta dish for days to come or feed a crowd. You'll need your stovetop and broiler for this one, so it's more suited to fall and winter than summer, but it's a dish you'll love in any season.

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Crunchy Baked Chicken With Ham and Swiss

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Baked chicken gets a fresh update with this quick, easy chicken recipe, which bakes chicken cutlets with a rich thyme-and-Swiss cheese sauce topped with prosciutto and breadcrumbs. Mouth watering yet? We've got great news: It's all ready in 30 minutes, too.

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Baked Chicken Parmesan

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Skip the breading step—easily the most challenging part of making chicken parmesan—with our clever baked chicken parmesan recipe, which layers those beloved chicken parm ingredients and bakes them for a still-satisfying (but easier) dish.

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Slow-Roasted Lemon and Herb Chicken

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This easy roast chicken recipe is sure to impress a crowd—but the secret is that it's incredibly easy to make. Foolproof, juicy, and well-seasoned, this is sure to be your new go-to roast chicken dish.

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Spatchco*cked Buffalo Chicken

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You don't need to know how to spatchco*ck chicken before you start this recipe—it's easier than you think, and you'll learn in the process. The finished product is tender with a kick, thanks to a hot sauce marinade, and when you serve it with a wax bean and celery salad on the side, it's a full chicken meal.

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Crispy Chicken With Roasted Radishes

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It sounds fancy and intensive, but this chicken recipe is actually incredibly easy—and all it takes is one pot. It's a chicken thigh recipe that is delightfully crispy and juicy, with roasted red onion and radish on the side—and some toasted baguette to soak up any extra sauces.

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Shawarma-Spiced Chicken Thighs

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Enjoy robust Middle Eastern flavors at home with this completely doable chicken thigh recipe. A delicious blend of spices brings the flavor, and the dish is served with a fresh tomato salad on the side.

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Crispy Chicken Cutlets With Artichoke Dressing

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This easy chicken recipe will have you serving a delicious chicken dinner in less than 30 minutes. The chicken cutlets are amazingly crispy, and the accompanying lemony dressing brings those just-right extra flavors to the meal. With fresh asparagus for the all-important vegetable, it's everything you want from a weeknight dinner.

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Slow-Cooker Curried Chicken With Ginger and Yogurt

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Put your slow-cooker to work with this easy chicken recipe. Cumin, curry powder, and fresh ginger bring the delicious curried taste, and when you set your slow-cooker up before work, you can come home for a ready-to-eat meal that the whole family will love.

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Teriyaki Chicken

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Make your favorite restaurant dish at home with this teriyaki chicken recipe. All you need is chicken and some teriyaki sauce—we'll teach you the rest.

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28 Essential, Easy Chicken Recipes for Every Night of the Week (2024)

FAQs

What are 3 ways to cook chicken? ›

5 different ways to cook chicken
  1. Pan Fried chicken. Pan fried chicken is very easy and quick to make, and is delicious when seasoned! ...
  2. Braised chicken. Braised chicken is perfect for Autumn and Winter months as you can create scrumptious stews and casseroles. ...
  3. BBQ chicken.

What is the most popular way to cook chicken? ›

Grilled chicken is always a popular dish, especially during the summer months. You can grill an entire cut up chicken, which is great because the breasts cook a lot faster than the thighs or drumsticks. Skinless, boneless chicken breasts are especially popular for the grill.

How to cook chicken for beginners? ›

Place chicken on a large rimmed baking sheet. Brush with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast, until an instant-read thermometer inserted in the thickest portion of breast registers 165°F, 20 to 25 minutes. Let rest for about 5 minutes before serving.

What are the 5 steps for perfect chicken? ›

Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 450°F. ...
  2. Remove the giblets. ...
  3. Pat the chicken dry. ...
  4. Rub the chicken with olive oil or butter. ...
  5. Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper. ...
  6. Place flavorings inside the chicken and truss (optional). ...
  7. Place the chicken, breast-side up, in the pan. ...
  8. Lower the heat to 400°F and roast for 60 minutes.

What are the 5 ways to cook chicken? ›

There are plenty of ways one can cook chicken from roasted, grilled, baked, fried, or poached. No matter how you choose to cook chicken, there are a variety of ways to highlight the rich flavors that come from poultry.

What makes chicken taste better? ›

Here are 7 tricks to make chicken breasts taste better and even totally delicious.
  1. Cook them right. Most people get scared and overcook chicken breasts, cooking out all the moisture and leaving them tough and dry. ...
  2. Marinate them. ...
  3. Cut them thin. ...
  4. Fry them. ...
  5. Stuff them. ...
  6. Shred them. ...
  7. Use the right pan.

What is the best cooking method to keep chicken moist? ›

Sear and Bake

For chicken breast that's crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside, employ the sear-and-bake method. Brown the outside of the meat on a pan then finish it off in the oven.

Which is the most famous chicken dish in the world? ›

Butter chicken, also known as Murgh Makhani, has recently claimed the top spot in the "Top 100 Chicken Dishes in the World" list by TasteAtlas, (an online guide for traditional food) solidifying its place as a global culinary sensation.

What is the best all purpose chicken? ›

Rhode Island Red

One of the most well-known dual-purpose chicken breeds is the Rhode Island Red. These birds have been bred to produce more eggs than meat, but you will still get family-sized table birds out of them.

What is the best thing to eat with chicken? ›

Best Side Dishes to Serve with Chicken Breast (That Go Way Beyond Salad)
  • Classic Creamed Spinach. ...
  • Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Bacon. ...
  • Sautéed Zucchini. ...
  • Cheesy Potato Casserole. ...
  • Cheesy Mashed Cauliflower. ...
  • 5-Ingredient Cheesy Zucchini Bake. ...
  • Easy Oven-Roasted Potatoes. Kitchen Tested. ...
  • Roasted Vegetable Potato Salad. Kitchen Tested.
Apr 19, 2021

What is best chicken to eat? ›

Here are a few popular breeds: Cornish Cross: This breed is commonly used in commercial chicken production due to its fast growth and meaty texture. It's known for its tender and juicy meat. Rhode Island Red: Rhode Island Reds are dual-purpose chickens, meaning they are raised for both meat and eggs.

What is the secret to cooking chicken? ›

Never cook it cold. By allowing chicken breast to come to room temperature, you'll ensure it cooks more evenly once it hits the pan. Plus, by opting for skin-on chicken instead of boneless, skinless chicken breasts, you'll get a more flavorful dish with more texture and moisture.

What is the easiest method of cooking a chicken? ›

Pan-frying, sautéing, and stir-frying all produce quick, tasty results in as little as 10 minutes -- that's total, not per side. It depends, of course, on the thickness of the chicken. A thicker breast may take up to 6 minutes per side; a pounded-thin breast might take about 4 to 5 minutes per side.

What are the 3 cooking methods? ›

There are three types of cooking methods: dry heat cooking, moist heat cooking, and combination cooking. Each method describes how chefs use heat to cook food and bring out unique flavors and textures.

What are different ways to cook chicken? ›

12 Different Ways To Cook Chicken
  1. Roasted whole chicken. Shutterstock. ...
  2. Braised chicken. Shutterstock. ...
  3. Poached chicken. Shutterstock. ...
  4. Fried chicken. Moses Robinson/Getty Images. ...
  5. Grilled chicken. Shutterstock. ...
  6. Spatchco*cked chicken. Shutterstock. ...
  7. Pan fried and oven baked chicken. Shutterstock. ...
  8. Rotisserie chicken. Shutterstock.
Jan 12, 2022

What are 3 different types of meat cooking methods? ›

Primary meat cooking techniques include braising, stewing, pot roasting, barbecuing/smoking, pan searing, grilling/broiling, pan frying, roasting, and stir frying.

What are the 3 types of chicken? ›

Chickens. Many different breeds of chickens have been developed for different purposes. For simplicity, you can place them into three general categories: Laying, meat-producing and dual-purpose breeds.

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