How to Roast Chicken Breasts
This is a very simple recipe that will always yield amazing results. I love eating chicken breasts with spinach for lunch and Lou taught me how to properly prepare them. You will need the following ingredients:
Chicken breasts
Sea Salt
Pepper
A skillet (cast iron works the best, but a regular non-stick one works quite well)
Oil
First, season your chicken breasts with salt and pepper (on both sides):
Next, pour some oil on your skillet:
Turn on the heat to high. Wait until the pan gets VERY HOT (but not to the point that it’s smoking). You can tell that the pan is very hot by placing your palm about an inch and a half above the center of the pan. If it’s hot, your pan is ready!
Place your chicken breasts on the pan with a pair of tongs (you’ll also know that the pan is ready because the chicken + oil combination will make the chicken sizzle!):
Leave the chicken on one side for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, the chicken should look like this (the edges will start to turn white but the center of the chicken is still very pink):
Use a clean pair of tongs and flip those breasts over:
Leave them on the stove for 3 minutes and then transfer the chicken breasts to a 325 degree preheated oven:
Leave them in the oven for 15 minutes (don’t worry, your chicken won’t dry out because we’ve sealed in the juices by browning both sides of the breasts before sticking it in the oven!) When you take the chicken out of the oven, touch the thickest part of the chicken with a knife. If it’s very soft, your chicken is most likely not done yet. Stick it back into the oven for another 5 minutes and check again. After 15 minutes, take them out of the oven and let the chicken rest for another 3-5 minutes so the juices settle (similar to what you’d do with steak or turkey). Our chicken breasts:
Lou and I made this on Monday night and thought it was so good that we made it again on Tuesday night. On Tuesday, we used his cast iron skillet (which produced better results). Here is the final chicken (from Tuesday):
You can eat this with a side of vegetables, in a spinach salad, or just eat it plain! Tomorrow, I’ll show you what we did with the chicken breasts – we made amazing wraps. Maybe the best wraps, ever.
Reader Comments
Thanks for the tip! We make chicken breasts in the pan all the time, but don’t do the baking/roasting step. I think we’ll have to try this next time! We have a cast iron grill pan that is sadly in need of help (it’s never been seasoned and always gets rusty), but I may just use our nonstick-oven-safe fry pan.