Lemon Chicken and Potatoes in Foil
The most amazingly moist and tender chicken breasts cooked in foil packets – so easy and packed with tons of flavor!
Foil pack dinners are the best. There’s minimum effort involved, and clean up is an absolute breeze. And you don’t even need serving plates here.
With individual foil packets, each chicken breast is cooked on a bed of baby red potatoes, seasoned with a flavor-packed mixture of Dijon mustard, lemon and herbs.
When ready to serve, each person has their own little packet of lemon goodness.
Now how easy was that?
Lemon Chicken and Potatoes in Foil
The most amazingly moist and tender chicken breasts cooked in foil packets - so easy and packed with tons of flavor!
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
- 1 tablespoon whole grain mustard
- ½ teaspoon dried thyme
- ¼ teaspoon dried rosemary
- Zest of 1 lemon
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 16 ounces baby red potatoes, halved
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
- 1 lemon, thinly sliced
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
- In a small bowl, combine 2 tablespoons olive oil, mustards, thyme, rosemary and lemon zest; season with salt and pepper, to taste. Set aside.
- Cut four sheets of foil, about 12-inches long. Divide potatoes into 4 equal portions and add to the center of each foil in a single layer.
- Fold up all 4 sides of each foil packet. Drizzle with remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil and season with salt and pepper, to taste; gently toss to combine.
- Top each packet with the chicken. Using your fingers or a brush, work the mustard mixture onto both sides of the chicken. Top with lemon slices.
- Fold the sides of the foil over the chicken, covering completely and sealing the packets closed. Place foil packets in a single layer on a baking sheet. Place into oven and bake until the chicken is cooked through and the potatoes are tender, about 25-30 minutes.*
- OPTIONAL: Preheat oven to broil. Open the packets and broil for 2-3 minutes, or until caramelized and slightly charred.
- Served immediately, garnished with parsley, if desired.
Notes
*Cooking time will vary depending on the size and thickness of the chicken and/or potatoes.
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The cooking time was way off. After 30 minutes at 375, the chicken was still bright pink and the potatoes were hard. I ended up cooking the packets for a little over an hour, and perhaps because of this the food ended up being pretty dry. I would recommend cutting the potatoes in small pieces.
Has anyone tried this with a portobello mushroom instead of chicken for a vegetarian option? I have a split household and I like to try to find easy recipes that accommodate both 🙂
What did I do wrong? There was too much water in the packet.
I’m not entirely sure, Cat. A little bit of water is actually normal.
Hi, what about this recipie grilled?
Will it work if I follow the same instructions?
Yes, absolutely.
The recipe calls for 3 tablespoons of olive oil and then and additional tablespoon of olive oil is mentioned later in the ingredient list. The instructions say to mix 2 tablespoons of oil with the mustard and then add 1 tablespoon of oil in the foil packets. Do you need 3 or 4 tablespoons of oil?
You need 3 tablespoons total.
I would like to try this recipe but the oven in our house is terrible, so I think a different cooking method would suit me better, could it be cooked in a slow cooker (crockpot)? I’m sure I could work out cooking time if you think it would still work this way?
Thanks 🙂
Unfortunately, it is very difficult to give exact conversion information to translate a traditional stovetop recipe to be used in a slow cooker without further recipe testing. However, here is an article worth checking out on a possible conversion guide. Hope that helps!
Yowza! This was so delicious. Only change I would make is cut my small red potatoes in quarters beforehand. The chicken was soooooo tasty. My husband is eating his second helping right now. He loves it, but then he loves lemon so anything with lemon is high on his list. Once again, you put together something damn delicious!
I don’t have any whole grain mustard handy but I do have horse radish… yes, no? Or just yellow mustard?
Either option will work just fine – it’s up to you!
375 for 30 minutes wasn’t long enough. I used small chicken tender cuts of meat too to hopefully avoid what some of the other reviewers said. They potatoes were still hard as well and I cut them even smaller than the recipe. It smells good though, I’m sure I will get to eat it eventually.
Absolutely delicious. Did make extra of the sauce and cooked in a 400° oven for 45 minutes. It came out perfect. The kids even licked their plates. Thank you so much
Your recipes are lifesavers when we are at our beach place, I have a limited kitchen, pantry, equipment and space-wise, plus who wants to waste time cooking on vacation?! Here on our portion of t
the NC coast, though, eating out is kind of limited – lots of fried seafood! So, thanks for giving us easy and healthy alternatives. I’ve made this a number of times, just a few changes: I sub Yukon gold potatoes if red potatoes are sad, cut up and tossed with olive oil, sea salt and pepper and roasted 10-15 minutes at 425 in a 9×13 Pyrex casserole dish instead of foil packet since I wanted to make sure taters were done at the end. Then I add in sliced zucchini (or some other green veg) and lay chicken breasts on top, cover the dish with foil then back in the oven for 25 minutes at 425 – I kind of combined this recipe with a similar one in the NY Times Cooking section. Otherwise as other readers point out, the potatoes and chicken aren’t done in time. Finished by broiling about 10 minutes uncovered to caramelize a bit. Yum!
Made this tonight. Even my picky middle schooler loved it! Thanks for a great recipe.
This took MUCH longer than 20-25 minutes. It took about 50 minutes, which kinda through off our planned dinner time. It was good, but also took longer than 10 minutes to prep.
Question…the nutritional information says something about asparagus, but there is no asparagus listed in the ingredients or directions. If I wanted to add that, would I need to change the recipe/cooking time much?
Shauna, the nutritional information has been updated. Thank you for letting me know. In the meantime, you can try this lemon chicken with asparagus and potatoes!
I tried this exactly as written (and I have a reliable in-oven thermometer, so the temperature in the oven was accurate). After 30 minutes the chicken (thin sliced breasts) was totally underdone and the potatoes hard…. I should have read the comments. It looks like Maureen has it right – far higher temperature for longer. Extremely frustrating….I have put it back in at 425 for another 20 minutes. I hope I will get dinner some time tonight…
I was thinking about using spicy brown mustard, since that’s what I have on hand. What do you think about that? Otherwise I could just coat the chicken in olive oil and herbs?
Yes, that sounds amazing!
I made this tonight and after following the recipe, and then putting it under the broiler for 30+ additional minutes w the foil opened, the Potatos were still raw & unedibale. The chicken was under done as well. This was s huge fail!
MMR, I worry that your chicken and potatoes are HUGE pieces that just cannot be cooked in the estimated time frame listed in the recipe. Also, cooking something under the broiler for 30 minutes is not realistically possible – everything would just burn.
I hope you get a chance to try this again with smaller chicken pieces and potatoes – it’s one of my favorite easy peasy recipes! 🙂
Ditto our try at this one. Cooked it an extra 30 minutes before we felt the chicken breasts were done. Some of the potato pieces were still a bit hard. But the flavor was good. I had added garlic green beans & that added moistness since the extra cooking time really made the chicken a little dry.
Maybe the suggestion by another to cook at 400F instead of 375 would work better. Ours was cooked in an electric oven.
Do leftovers freeze well? (assuming there are any, considering how delicious this looks)
Unfortunately, I cannot answer this with certainty as I have never tried freezing this myself – there were no leftovers left to freeze! Please use your best judgment for freezing and reheating.
This meal was quick and yummy! I didn’t have Rosemary so I used some other spices. I did cook it at 425 degrees for 35 minutes. The chicken was perfect and very moist. Thanks!
This was wonderful. My family thought this was really good and they have asked for it again, so I will do it again sometime soon. Thanks again for this recipe