Creamy Lemon Garlic Chicken with simple ingredients and half the fat of the usual creamy sauces, this lemon chicken is crispy and tender, so full of garlic and rustic flavours, it’s guaranteed to knock your socks off.
Lemon. Garlic. Sweet Paprika. Thyme (or even parsley). Cream. Everyone loves this one pan chicken dinner ready in under 20 minutes!
So many of you have made the Creamy Sun Dried Tomato + Parmesan Chicken Zoodles, tagging me in your pictures on Instagram, loving the flavours, but asking how to cut the fat content of the cream sauce without compromising on flavour.
The answer is chicken stock (or chicken broth). With most of the sauce made of stock, and only a small amount of cream, you can still have the creamy sauce with less than half the fat of a regular cream base.
And with the added bonus of crispy chicken.
Creamy Lemon Garlic Chicken
Ingredients
- 6 chicken thighs skin on and bone in * See Notes
- 2 tablespoons butter or olive oil
- 1 large brown onion finely chopped
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- 6 cloves garlic crushed with the back of a knife (not minced)
- 2 teaspoons sweet paprika
- 1 teaspoon lemon pepper or cracked pepper - optional
- ¾ cup chicken stock/broth
- ½ cup thickened/heavy cream or coconut cream
- ¼ cup lemon juice
- 1 pinch salt to season
- 4 sprigs fresh thyme or 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- Lemon wedges to serve
Instructions
- Wash chicken cutlets and thoroughly pat dry with paper towel. Season with salt. Melt the butter in a large oven-proof frying pan (or skillet) on medium heat. Place the chicken cutlets, skin side down, and fry until golden and crisp (place a lid on the frying pan to avoid the fat from the chicken spitting all over the stove). Turn chicken and continue to fry until browned. Take off the heat; transfer chicken onto a plate and drain most of the fat from the pan (leave about 2 tablespoons of the oil for flavour).
- Return the pan to the stove and reduce heat to low. Add the chopped onion, minced and crushed garlic, paprika and lemon pepper (if using) to the oil left in the pan, occasionally stirring until garlic is fragrant and onion is transparent. Season with salt to taste and add in the thyme.
- At this point, preheat your oven to grill/broil setting on medium heat.
- Pour in the stock/broth, cream and lemon juice and bring to a slow simmer. Return the chicken back into the pan; cover with lid and allow to simmer gently in the sauce for a further 10 minutes, or until cooked through.
- Place the pan into the oven and allow the skin to crisp up (it takes about 5 minutes).
- Serve with lemon wedges or slices and fresh sprigs of Thyme.
Sarah says
Do you have a side dish you would recommend with this?
Amber says
Made it for my family. Used garlic powder, onion powder, and Lawreys for the salt on the chicken. I also added mushrooms. It was amazing! Our plates were all scraped clean!
Ellie says
I made this today and it was really good my family and I loved it. Thanks for sharing the recipe!
Joyce says
I made this and used chicken tenders cause it was what I had. I doubled the sauce and poured it over fettuccine. We scraped the bowl clean. So good.