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
Video
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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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?
I made my own slight modifications but, hands down, this makes the top 10 best savory dishes I’ve ever tasted. Bravo!
I made this dish as a new-to-the-kitchen chef for my then boyfriend. We’re now married, and love having this regularly! Absolutely delicious and hits so many flavor notes. Love serving it with roasted broccoli to sop up the sauce!
Lemon Butter Chicken is the best recipe I have ever cooked.
Amazing! I made this dish today for my family and there were no leftovers WHICH IS UNHEARD OF IN MY HOUSE … so I made a second batch after dinner was cleaned up for everyones lunches tomorrow! Will be adding frequently to my meal plan!
Beautiful, light and bursting with flavour! Super easy to make. Thank you for this recipe!
Has anyone subbed natural yogurt for cream successfully? Have everything but the cream in the house
I have made this recipe so many times. And i don’t like to repeat recipes. I sometimes swap out other greens for the spinach, like chard. Deliscious!
I love this recipe and often use milk instead of cream and cook the sauce a little longer to thicken. Always looks beautiful and is delicious
Delicious! Made this doubling the sauce as recommended by other comments here. We made it with mashed potatoes but will make it with egg noodles next time! Also made it with boneless, skinless chicken thighs and made it completely on top of the stove. Thank you!!
Dear Miss Rhee,
The Lemmon Butter Chicken is absolutely one of the best recipes we have found. We’ve tried other recipes from your cook book, and they were all big hits. Then we found….Lemmon Butter Chicken, and WOW! Being Italian, family dinners on Sunday means some kind of pasta. But know the Lemmon
butter chicken is in the Sunday mix, thank you.
Gary
Was wondering if It would make much difference (or what else I could substitute) for the Parmesan cheese as my grandson is dairy intolerant. I have read the review and seen that coconut cream is a good substitute for double cream and can get around the butter. Suggestions would be appreciated
An aged Parmesan should not affect a dairy intolerance. That being said nutritional yeast is usually the go to for cheese substitution.
Just found this recipe and made it last night–absolutely delicious!! Sadly, I have a crew of non-spinach eaters so I had to leave that out (I would have loved it) but served it over mashed potatoes and it was a huge hit all around. The sauce is so full of flavor and the chicken was perfectly tender. I cooked it in a cast iron skillet so I could go stovetop to oven and it worked great. Thank you so much for this easy weeknight recipe!