Easy Oven Baked Chicken Breasts

Whether you're cooking for just 1 or 2 people or need to feed a crowd, few recipes are as versatile as oven baked chicken breasts.

You can scale the recipe up or down depending on how many people you're feeding, switch up the seasoning blend to match your dinner plans, or bake extra chicken on purpose for easy meals later in the week.

I use this easy recipe all the time for salads, pasta dishes, casseroles, wraps, and quick meal prep lunches.

This classic recipe is one that every home cook needs to have. Once you master this simple method, you'll find yourself using it over and over again.

Ingredient Notes

This is such a budget-friendly recipe because your shopping list is super short:

• Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts: When I'm feeding our family of 4, I buy 2 chicken breast halves and plan 1/2 breast per person. This is a modest amount of meat for a serving so if you've got a bigger appetite you may want to plan for a whole breast half per person. I'll increase the amount if I'm planning for leftovers or meal prepping.
• Seasonings: There are wide variety of dried seasonings you can use for chicken. I'll share my go-to favorites below.
• Olive Oil: (Optional) This helps the seasoning stick and creates crispy edges.

Seasoning Suggestions

We cook baked chicken breasts so often that I keep several seasoning blends in my pantry to help mix things up in our dinner rotation.

I try to pair the seasoning blend with the rest of the menu I'm planning for dinner.

These are the ones I grab over and over again for baking chicken:

1. Lemon Pepper: This is such a versatile chicken seasoning and the one I pick more often than not. You can buy a sprinkle jar of McCormick lemon pepper seasoning or Kinder's lemon pepper seasoning (my new favorite). It goes with everything from potatoes and pasta to Asian dishes.
2. Greek Seasoning: This is what I grab when I'm making a Mediterranean style dinner with tomatoes. You can buy a basic jar of Greek seasoning here.
3. All-Purpose Chicken Seasoning: If you want a more neutral flavor, I frequently use this rotisserie chicken seasoning or Kinder's buttery garlic and herb seasoning.

Honestly, you can use just about any dried seasoning blend you want on plain chicken breasts or you can mix your own.

This recipe would work perfectly with a batch of my homemade blackening seasoning, Caribbean jerk seasoning, or chicken wing dry rub seasoning if you have just a few minutes to stir them together with spices from your pantry.

How to Prep the Chicken

Most boneless, skinless chicken breasts are distinctly thicker at one end than the other.

The perfectionist in me wants to tell you to gently pound the chicken to a more even thickness so that they cook evenly throughout. However, on a busy weeknight when I'm grabbing the chicken from the fridge, the last thing I want to do is fuss with that step.

Will my method mean that one end of the chicken cooks faster than the other? Yes.

Is it a huge difference? Generally not enough to take the time with a meat mallet.

If absolutely perfect chicken matters to you, just add the chicken to a zip-top storage bag and pound the thicker end with a mallet or rolling pin until it is evened out. But if you're like me and just trying to get dinner to the table, you can easily skip this step.

How to Season the Chicken

To keep my busy weeknight dirty dishes to a minimum, I generally season my chicken right on the pan where I plan to bake it.

Set out a sheet pan and line it with aluminum foil.

Arrange the chicken breasts in an even layer and then drizzle the olive oil over the top.

Use a fork or a pair of tongs to turn the chicken over to coat in the oil.

Sprinkle the seasoning over the top, turn the chicken and sprinkle seasoning on the other side.

I almost never measure the seasoning. I just eyeball it to our desired level of seasoning. Cook chicken often enough and you'll have a great sense for how much you like but when in doubt, start with just 1/2 teaspoon per chicken breast.

Baking Instructions

Preheat your oven to 400°F.

Bake the chicken for 30 minutes, turning the pieces over half way through cooking so it browns on both sides.

How to Know When Chicken is Done

The best way to know when your chicken is done baking, is to test it with an instant read thermometer probe inserted at the center of the thickest part of the meat.

Chicken should register 165°F at the center of the thickest part of the breast.

For years, I overcooked chicken because I was worried about food safety. An instant-read thermometer completely changed that. Once the center reaches 165°, the chicken is both safe to eat and stays so much juicier than it does at higher temps.

I've used my ThermoWorks thermapen probe for years for double-checking both our chicken and even our bread loaves for doneness! This thing works like a charm on just about anything. If you want to cook chicken at a lower temperature, just make sure you're working with an accurate thermometer.

Serving Suggestions

Chicken is such a popular dinner because it pairs well with countless side dishes and dinner ideas.

You could serve baked chicken with a dinner roll, a scoop of rice or pasta, and a vegetable side or salad.

Some of my favorite combinations are:

• Lemon pepper chicken with herb butter rice and air fryer green beans
• Greek chicken over a garden salad with tzatziki sauce and fresh tomatoes
• Herb butter chicken over a bowl of creamy lemon garlic pasta and roasted asparagus
• BBQ seasoned chicken topped with chunky corn salsa with ranch roasted potatoes on the side

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Meal Prep Tips

When cooked properly, baked chicken breasts make one of the best meal prep proteins you can find.

Even when I'm cooking for just 1 or 2, I'll bake the entire package of chicken breasts so we have some leftover for new meals another day.

If you'd like to do this, too, I recommend letting the cooked chicken completely cool so that the juices have a chance to redistribute throughout the meat.

Then slice or chop the chicken breast as desired and store in an airtight container in the fridge or freezer.

How to Store and Reheat

You can keep cooked chicken in the fridge for up to 5 days in an airtight container.

For longer storage, I recommend freezing.

To reheat the chicken, let it thaw in the fridge overnight so that you don't overcook it during the reheating process.

Then just microwave it for 30 seconds to 1 minute to warm through.

If you peeked in my fridge and freezer, you'd likely find several small containers of portioned cooked chicken for easy-to-grab single serving meals.

How to Use Leftovers

I frequently use leftover cooked chicken on lunch salads for myself the following day.

Small amounts of leftovers can be used to make a chicken pizza or flatbread if you need to stretch it to feed the whole family.

However, if you plan ahead and cook more than you know you'll need on purpose, you can save so much time when it comes to preparing a chicken casserole or pasta dish for another night.

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