One-pan Baked Lemon Chicken is so flavorful and easy it will be a regular weeknight dinner! Just place simple ingredients in a baking dish and dinner is done!
Baked Lemon Chicken is one of my go-to baked chicken recipes for busy weeknights! If you need more quick chicken dinner ideas, check out Honey Butter Chicken, ready in less than 30 minutes, or Instant Pot Chicken Breasts! Need more, I’ve put together some of my FAVORITE chicken recipes for you in one place!
It seems like life just keeps getting busier and busier, so weeknights definitely call for easy recipes everyone around the table will enjoy. This Lemon Chicken sounds a little fancy, but it’s so flavorful and simple you’ll want to put it on your weeknight dinner meal plan week after week. It’s that easy!
This dish is one of our all-time favorite recipes, especially served alongside Tortellini Pasta Salad, whether as comfort food for the family or to serve to guests (my mother-in-law is a big fan). It tastes wonderful any time of year.
BAKED LEMON CHICKEN
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Oven-Baked Chicken Thighs Recipes
With the addition of potatoes to this dish, it’s a meal waiting to happen! The lemon, chicken, and potatoes come together to create the perfect flavor combination.
It doesn’t get much better than turning on your oven, cutting up onions and lemons, placing all your ingredients in a baking pan and getting to enjoy a delicious and hearty dinner in about an hour. How wonderful does it feel not having to peel the potatoes?? See, I told you this recipe is simple!
The other time-saving perk about this quick and easy recipe is minimal dishes. If you know me, then you know I don’t exactly love washing dishes, so one-pot meals like Chicken Enchilada Verde Soup anD Veggie Casserole are always in rotation.
Ingredients Needed For Lemon Chicken
- Bone-in chicken thighs skin on
- Red potatoes
- Yellow onion
- Lemons
- Olive oil
- Minced Garlic
- Fresh thyme
- Crushed red pepper flakes
- Salt
- Fresh ground pepper
You could use chili powder instead of red pepper flakes if you’d like, or even reduce the heat and use paprika instead.
How To Bake Chicken
- To start, preheat your oven to 400 degrees F and spray a 9-inch x 13-inch baking dish with non-stick cooking spray.
- Then you’ll arrange chicken thighs in the bottom of the dish in a single layer with the skin side facing up. Add the potatoes, sliced onion, and lemon slices on top of the chicken and spread them out across the baking dish.
- After that, mix together the lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, thyme, crushed red pepper, salt, and pepper in a small bowl using a fork to whisk everything together. Then pour the lemon mixture evenly over everything in the dish.
- Place the dish on the middle rack and bake for 1 hour or until the potatoes are fork-tender and the chicken is no longer pink. The chicken skin will crisp up nicely as it bakes.
*If you feel like anything is browning too much, loosely place a piece of foil over the dish for the rest of the cooking time. - Remove the chicken from your oven. Use tongs to serve the chicken. Stir the potatoes, onions, and lemon in the pan sauce before serving them up. You can also spoon some of the extra pan sauce over the chicken thighs. I highly recommend it!
How Long to Bake Chicken Thighs?
Bone-in skin-on chicken thighs should be cooked at 400 degrees F for 40 minutes to 1 hour OR at 425 degrees F for 35-45 minutes. The higher temperature may cause the skin to brown quickly. Use foil to help prevent over-browning.
Boneless, skinless chicken thighs should be cooked at 425 degrees F for about 20 minutes.
Always make sure to check the internal temperature of your chicken with a meat thermometer to ensure it has reached 165 degrees F.
What To Serve With Lemon Chicken?
This Lemon Chicken recipe is foolproof and delicious. If you’re wondering what to cook with lemon chicken, we like Lemon Butter Broccoli and Loaded Cauliflower Casserole.
If you’re looking to make this recipe for a dinner party, or event, try these great recipes for a whole night of amazing food! We would start with a Cucumber Mint Mojito and a Pineapple Mango Salsa appetizer. Followed by the main dish served up with Roasted Asparagus on the side. Then the night would be perfectly rounded out by ending things off with a slice of Perfectly Easy No-Bake Cheesecake.
Tips for Making Lemon Chicken
- This Lemon Chicken recipe calls for skin-on chicken. You may not be one of those people that care for poultry skin but do cook your chicken with the skin-on if you can. Cooking with the skin not only protects the meat from drying out (we aren’t fans of dry chicken around here) but more importantly, the chicken gets bathed with the rich flavor from the skin while it cooks and it’s mouth-watering good! You can always remove the skin when you’re ready to serve.
- For convenience, you can definitely prep this dinner the night before and pop it in the oven when it’s time for dinner or when you get home from work.
- In a pinch, you can use dried herbs. However, because dried herbs are generally a bit more potent and concentrated than fresh herbs, you’ll need approximately 1 teaspoon of dried thyme in the recipe.
Want more easy chicken dinner ideas?
- Honey Butter Chicken
- Spaghetti Squash Chicken Parmesan
- Chicken Piccata
- Sheet Pan Chicken Fajitas
- One-Pot Chicken and Broccoli Rice
- Honey Mustard Chicken Kabobs
- More dinner recipes…
Tools used to make this Baked Lemon Chicken recipe
Baking Dish: This baking dish is a must-have for any home cook. I actually have 3 of them in my cupboard, and each dish comes with a lid for storing leftovers or taking your dishes on the go.
Mixing Bowl: These mixing bowls are perfect for mixing and serving. I love the varied sizes so I always have the right-size bowl for all my mixing needs.
Tongs: A good pair of tongs is a kitchen essential. I like having a couple of sizes – a longer set for grilling and a shorter set for stovetop cooking.
*This post originally posted on 03/16/2018.
Ingredients
- 6 bone-in chicken thighs skin on
- 1 pound mini red potatoes washed
- ½ yellow onion sliced
- 2 lemons 1 sliced and 1 juiced
- ⅓ cup olive oil
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1 tablespoon fresh thyme plus sprigs for garnish
- ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon pepper
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Spray a 9-inch x 13-inch baking dish with non-stick cooking spray.
- Arrange chicken pieces (skin side up), potatoes, sliced onion, and lemon slices to fit in the pan.
- In a small bowl, mix together lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, thyme, crushed red pepper, and salt and pepper. Pour mixture all over chicken, potatoes, lemons and onions coating all ingredients evenly.
- Bake uncovered for about 1 hour, or until potatoes are completely cooked and chicken has an internal temperature of 165 degrees F. Remove from oven. Serve warm with pan juices.
Notes
Nutrition
lenny face says
So flavorful!