I really like having pre-cooked chicken in the fridge that I can use to quickly whip up a sandwich or wrap, or add protein to a bowl of pasta, salad, or one of my “leftovers” bowls. While I often use a rotisserie chicken for this purpose, they are sometimes just too salty and we have a hard time going through a whole chicken between the two of us. So, this week I experimented a bit more with the “low and slow” roasting method and made these incredibly tender and juicy Herb Roasted Chicken Breasts.
Roast Low and Slow for Tender Chicken
I first used the “low and slow” technique with my Oven Roasted Chicken Legs and was really pleased with not only the texture of the meat, but the delicious juices that were left in the dish after roasting.
This time I combined the butter with a trio of herbs and slathered it over two bone-in, skin-on split chicken breasts. The breasts were quite large, so I lowered the heat a bit and let them roast even longer before removing the cover to let them brown. The results were even more incredible. I pulled the meat from the breasts after cooking, drizzled the juices over top, and have been snacking on the meat all week.
Can I Make Herb Roasted Chicken Breast in an Instant Pot?
Yes! You can make this dish even faster and easier! Just follow the technique used in my Pressure Cooker Chicken and Rice recipe (pressure cook then broil to brown the skin). 👍
You ready for the most tender and juicy chicken breast EVER?
Herb Roasted Chicken Breast
Servings 4Ingredients
- 3 Tbsp butter, room temperature ($0.33)
- 2 cloves garlic, minced ($0.16)
- 1 tsp dried basil ($0.10)
- 1 tsp dried thyme ($0.10)
- 1 tsp dried rosemary ($0.10)
- 1/2 tsp salt ($0.02)
- Freshly cracked black pepper (about 10 cranks of a mill) ($0.03)
- 2 split chicken breasts* (about 3 lbs. total) ($6.85)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 275ºF. Remove the chicken from the refrigerator and allow it to warm slightly as you prepare the butter herb mix (5 minutes or so).
- In a small bowl, stir together the butter, minced garlic, basil, thyme, rosemary, salt, and pepper. Rosemary pieces can be quite large, so either chop or crumble the dried pieces with your hands before adding them to the mix.
- Place the chicken on a cutting board and pat it dry on both sides with a clean paper towel. Smear the butter herb mixture over both sides of the chicken. Drying the meat will help the butter herb mixture stick. If the meat is too cold, it will form condensation as you rub the butter mixture over the surface and the butter will not stick.
- Place the seasoned chicken pieces in a casserole dish that is deep enough to fully contain the chicken. Cover tightly with foil, or with the dish’s lid if there is one. Bake the chicken in the preheated oven for 90 minutes, basting once half way through.
- Ater 90 minutes, remove the foil, baste again, and adjust the oven’s temperature to 425ºF. Bake the chicken at 425ºF for 20 minutes without the foil, or until the skin is deep golden brown and crispy. Remove the chicken from the oven and let rest for 5-10 minutes.
- Slice the breasts or pull the meat from the bone. Reserve the juices from the bottom of the casserole dish for drizzling over top of the meat.
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Notes
Nutrition
Have you tried this recipe?Mention @budgetbytes or tag #budgetbytes on Instagram!How to Make Herb Roasted Chicken Breast – Step by Step Photos
Begin preheating the oven to 275ºF. Take the chicken out of the refrigerator so it has a few minutes to come up to temperature. In a small bowl combine 3 Tbsp room temperature butter, 2 cloves minced garlic, 1 tsp dried basil, 1 tsp dried thyme, 1 tsp dried rosemary, 1/2 tsp salt, and some freshly cracked pepper (about 10 cranks of a pepper mill). Rosemary pieces can be large, so I just crush them up in my hand before adding them. Stir this mixture up until it forms a paste.
Place two split chicken breasts (bone-in, skin-on, about 3 lbs. total) on a cutting board and pat them dry with a paper towel. They need to be fairly dry for the butter to stick. Also, if the chicken is too cold they will form condensation and become wet again, which is why you’ll want them to warm a bit as you mix the butter. Spread the butter herb mixture over both sides of the chicken, coating it in a thick layer.
Place the seasoned chicken breasts in a casserole dish that is deep enough to fully contain the chicken. Cover the dish tightly with foil (this is important to hold in the moisture), or if the dish has a lid that’s even better.
Roast the breasts in the 275ºF oven for 90 minutes, basting once half way through (replace the foil as tightly as possible after basting). After the full 90 minutes, remove the foil, baste one more time, and adjust the oven’s heat to 425ºF.
Return the chicken to the oven and roast for 20 minutes without the foil, or until the skin is deep golden brown and crispy. (I garnished with some chopped parsley to give the photos color, but it’s not necessary.)
Give it one last baste with those delicious juices for good measure and let the meat rest for 5-10 minutes.
Letting the meat rest a few minutes helps keep the juices inside and the meat nice and moist! Serve the chicken whole, or slice it up…
And don’t forget to pull any bits and pieces of meat left on the bones, like you would with a rotisserie chicken. It’s just too good to let any go to waste!
After I removed all the meat from the bones, I gave it another good dose of those delicious juices. SO GOOD.
It makes an impressive main dish, but I’m just adding a few pieces to everything I eat this week! Depending on how you serve it and how big your chicken pieces are, you’ll get 4-6 servings. Make sure to save those juices and pour them over top before stashing it in the fridge!
Made this last night, it was awesome. Served it with some sweet indian style rice and steamed vegetables and turned out amazing. Loving this site
Do you think i could exchange the butter for olive oil in this recipe? I’m concerned about the saturated fat.
I don’t think it would taste quite as good (the juices from the pan, especially).
Hi! Do you think the butter is critical to the results? I’m trying to lighten up a bit, so would olive oil do the trick?
I do think butter is definitely needed for the right flavor. Olive oil would be okay, but butter is 10x better here.
I made this today and I agree that the butter strikes just the right note for this delicious dish. Given that butter and oil have just about the same amount of calories per tablespoon, there wouldn’t be any significant “lightening” of this dish by subbing oil for butter. My suggestion for you would be to not eat the pan juices, and remove the skin before eating. Most of the butter gets left in the pan. I actually put about 1/3 of the butter mixture under the skin since I knew I would be discarding the skin, I wanted to make sure I still got the flavor.
This was really good. I’d never used bone in chicken before but I think I’m converted!
Lovely recipe! I added a touch of Dijon mustard to the herbs and slathered it all on the chicken for delicious results. Your post was perfectly timed, as I have been working on a copycat version of Panera’s wonderful ‘Ancient Grains, Arugula, and Chicken Salad’. I needed pre-cooked chicken breast on hand and the rotisserie version just didn’t offer the right flavor/texture.
For the salad, I cooked up your recipe, then thinly sliced 4 oz. of the chicken breast and added arugula, red grapes, apple and cabbage slaw (shredded cabbage, finely-chopped apple, and a couple of tablespoons of apple vinaigrette) and about 1/4 C of a freekeh/farro/barley blend that I make in batches and freeze. I topped it all with another tablespoon of the apple vinaigrette and a sprinkle of toasted pumpkin seeds. This was a copycat victory, and is one of those salads I can happily eat all week.
Thanks again for your great recipes. I am eyeing your Colcannon for next week – I think I’ll add some chicken sausage to it!
I made this last night and it was soooooo good! I don’t usually cook bone-in meat (I usually stick to boneless, skinless chicken breasts), but this was totally worth it and not any more difficult either.
I doubled the recipe and I’m gonna use a good bit of the leftover meat in some soup later this week, but I’m also considering having some for breakfast…
Thanks for the recipe! Would you consider posting an article with your top 3 or top 5 recipes from 2016? Or something with your all time favorites or most popular ? Thanks !
One step ahead of ya. :) I actually posted it during the last week of December, though. Here are my Top 25 Recipes of 2016.
So excited to try this method. Rotisserie chicken is good in an emergency (no time to cook) but it is a lot more expensive, and, like you said, salty. I’d like to double the recipe and freeze some meat. Also, the bones will make an excellent broth, I am sure. Love it!
I would need to do more than 2 breasts since I have a large family. Would it mean that I need to cook longer?
As long as they’re not too cramped in the dish, you shouldn’t need a longer cooking time.
I love Budget Bytes. This is an Excellent recipe. I followed it exactly. My only comment is I doubled the butter/herb/garlic part because the 2 splits breasts I purchased weighed a bit over 3.5 pounds and I didn’t want to skimp on ample rub mixture. I am glad I did, as it gave me a lot of juicy basting sauce as it roasted. For all those readers who may think “I only cook boneless breasts” – this dish is so succulent and juicy, I am SO glad I made it exactly as written. I too only use boneless breasts 95% of the time. But this recipe is perfect with the split breasts and I suspect it would be very hard to replicate the moist end result with boneless breasts. I served with quinoa and steam broccoli. 5 stars all the way.
When you put it back in the oven after basting, do you keep the foil on? Specifically the period of 20 mins at 425 degrees? Foil or no foil? Thanks!!!
There is no foil for the final 20 minutes at 425 degrees (because you want it to brown on top). I hope that helps! :)
These look delicious and healthy (thank goodness). Time to get back on track! Happy New Year
How would you go about modifying this for boneless skinless breasts? They’re all that I have one hand at the moment.
I’d have to experiment with it to get the right cooking times and temperatures, but it will probably never be quite as juicy and flavorful as the skin-on, bone-in version.
It’s easy to forget how delicious chicken can be when it’s prepared in a simple but delicious way.
Oh My Soul. You do take some LUSCIOUS looking pictures. I am cutting way back on my meat consumption for economic reasons but I don’t want to cut it out completely because I know I’ll miss it. I was telling myself yesterday, ‘just a little bit and make it count. Like you said, a rotisserie chicken can be yummy but not always satisfactory. I know I will be trying this very soon. I have a big bag of mixed dried green herbs which I’ll try on this. Do you know if fresh herbs work just as well in this recipe? Your recipes are giving me much more confidence in the kitchen. Today’s project is the Weekday Enchiladas. Your Colcannon recipe is one that I think ‘I should try that and see if I like it’ but I’m saying ‘Lead me on” to this one. Speaking of the Colcannon recipe, I wish you could develop a Bubble and Squeak recipe which would drive out the memory of my mother’s one attempt. Lord that was nasty. Love you, Beth and thank you so much. Hope you have a wonderful 2017.
I think fresh herbs would be even BETTER. :) Thank you for all of your kind words and I’m going to look into the bubble and squeak!