Lemon Butter Chicken
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Easy crisp-tender chicken with the creamiest lemon butter sauce ever – you’ll want to forget the chicken and drink the sauce instead!
Happy New Year! I know I should really be sharing some sort of salad or quinoa recipe with the start of the year but you know me and my chicken thigh obsession. I just can’t get enough, especially when a lemon butter cream sauce is involved.
And if you’re in the need of some clean greens for the new year diet, well, this dish has plenty of baby spinach. Good enough, right?
Plus, these chicken thighs carry quite a bit of punch with that fresh, zingy lemon flavor and that smoky goodness from the paprika. And this cream sauce is absolutely heavenly. Just be sure to have a spoon ready because you’ll want to sip on it straight from the pan!
Lemon Butter Chicken
Ingredients
- 8 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
- 1 tablespoon smoked paprika
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 cup chicken broth
- ½ cup heavy cream
- ¼ cup freshly grated Parmesan
- 3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 2 cups baby spinach, chopped
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
- Season chicken thighs with paprika, salt and pepper, to taste.
- Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Working in batches, add chicken, skin-side down, and sear both sides until golden brown, about 2-3 minutes per side; set aside.
- Melt remaining tablespoon butter in the Dutch oven. Add garlic, and cook, stirring frequently, until fragrant, about 1-2 minutes. Stir in chicken broth, heavy cream, Parmesan, lemon juice and thyme.
- Bring to a boil; reduce heat, stir in spinach, and simmer until the spinach has wilted and the sauce has slightly thickened, about 3-5 minutes. Return chicken to the Dutch oven.
- Place into oven and roast until completely cooked through, reaching an internal temperature of 165 degrees F, about 25-30 minutes.
- Serve immediately.
Did you make this recipe?
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My family loved this recipe! My only complaint is the sauce is too thin. My son suggested taking the chicken out of the pan after roasting in the oven & heating the sauce up on the stove & constantly stirring it with a slurry of corn starch until it thickens up!
Yes, it does come out too thin and definitely requires a slurry (I’ve been making this recipe for a number of years). Honestly easier to just add the slurry before adding the chicken and putting it in the oven.
I always add shredded mozzarella cheese to mine. It thickens it up a bit but also is a nice extra flavor, and who doesn’t love melted cheese.
AWESOME!!! My Family loved it! The sauce is off the chat!! Keeper!!
My family absolutely LOVES this recipe. Thanks so much for sharing!!
This is in the oven cooking right now and I am excited to try. Thank you for easy directions. I do have one question, though. When I saw that you included adding lemon juice into cream sauce, I was immediately wondering how this would work given adding acid to a cream…..and…..just as I thought….mine curdled. How do you keep this from happening? I just went on, so I am hoping for the best.
I’ve made this recipe a few times, hubby asked to add to the chicken rotation, along with green beans and mashed potatoes. Yummmmy, I will keep making this again and again. Awesome.
This was so amazingly delicious, and quite easy, too! I added an entire package of fresh spinach and could have added more. I’m eating it over mashed potatoes but it would be delicious over rice or noodles, too.
Definitely saving this one to make again.
Absolutely delicious. I doubled the sauce also. Made it with egg noodles.
Amazing recipe! Definitely a great comfort food for winter and I can still eat it while on keto! For us we always add extra garlic, a bit more cream and some extra parmesan just to turn up those gorgeous flavours a bit more! We have served it with rice, mashed potato, cauliflower/brocoli, green beans, zucchini, asparagus and pasta. The sauce is perfect on green veggies and my young girls love dipping their veggies in the sauce! A+ recipe have been making it since 2017. Also have added cornflour to make the sauce a little thicker (but not too thick) Thanks for the awesome recipe!
Can you use boneless chicken breast instead of thighs?
I use chicken breast every time I make this recipe and it comes out great. I always use at least 2 or 3.
Another perfect recipe tonight!! Thank you so much. Followed recipe exactly and it was delicious.
This is mine and my family’s best go to recipe. I add mushrooms and fresh time at the end. Great dish served with garlic mashed potatoes or jasmine rice. Everything I make it the same comment is made, “Best Mom Ever”, just to make it again I bet.
Crowd pleaser! Easy to bring this together and such great solid flavors!
Very tasty sauce, but I wished it was a bit thicker. I served with pasta and everyone seemed to enjoy. I omitted the smoked paprika since they didn’t have it in our vacation house here, but it was not missed!
I love this recipe! I have made this for many years now. Always a favorite! I have always used Chicken thighs. I believe the smoked paprika is also a must. It gives this dish such an incredible flavor. I also double the sauce. I also double the herbs and garlic as I like allot more flavor. I have served this with Egg noodles, mashed potatoes, or Mashed cauliflour if watching carbs and honestly you cannot tell the difference. Amazing recipe.
This is so delicious!!!! I use chicken breasts cut in half instead though. Yummy!!
Love this recipe! It is a favorite of both my husband and I it is fairly quick to prepare, most of the time is the 25 minutes of baking. I love the sauce, although I did increase the cream and lemon juice a bit and thickened a bit with Wondra. It gets an A from me! P.S. I am a retired personal chef and I know good food and recipes.
This is a Fabulous recipe, which is easy to follow
And prepare
It suitable for a family meal , or a dinner party
Plus bonus : it tastes delicious
I love this recipe so much!
Does anyone know a good vegetarian alternative for the chicken thighs? Would tofu with veggie stock instead of chicken stock work? I want to make this for my friends but there are a few veggies in my group so I want to accommodate!
This is my most favorite recipe of off any site ever! Would you be able to figure out a conversion to instant pot? My family has been asking me to make this a lot lately and I just can’t bare to use the stove/oven any more! I used to make this with a side of angel hair pasta, so bonus points if we can make it a dump and go recipe to include any type of whole wheat pasta!! Thank you so much!!
Easy to prepare and cook but as others have mentioned my sauce split. Even so cooking times were accurate and despite a split sauce (which I attempted to bring back and thicken with a bit of cornflour) did taste nice. Would I make again? Probably but only to serve to my husband and myself as the sauce looked too ugly to serve to guests…unless I can overcome the splitting issue. Any suggestions?
This was delicious! I typically don’t care for cooked spinach, but the flavor was amazing. I used basil and oregano as another commenter suggested. I also sautéed the garlic over medium heat as I did not want it to burn other than that followed the recipe as written and served with mashed potatoes
I’ve made this before and got rave reviews. I have some zucchini, do you think that would work well in this recipe?