This easy Garlic Baked Chicken is a great dish to add to your weekly rotation for cooked chicken breasts to toss into lunch salads, sandwiches, or on top of veggie bowls.
Guys, let’s real talk for a minute. As much as I love creating fun and creative recipes for you, I always try to stay realistic. In my head, I’m always thinking: What will inspire you to pick up the ingredients to try my recipes? What techniques can I share with you that you can make your own, and incorporate into weekly meals?
That brings us to the most basic of meal prep recipes today – my favorite Garlic Baked Chicken. All you need is to buy chicken, friends, and you’ve got the 4 flavor enhancers (garlic powder, salt, pepper and olive oil) at home ready for ya.
So: what makes this recipe special?
Not only is it super hands free, but the high oven temperature helps seal in moisture while the chicken bakes and the garlic rub on the outside seasons it perfectly.
A quick trip in the oven and you’ve got 4+ meal toppers ready to go for the week. If you’re feeding more mouths at home, this recipe is simple to double or even triple – just ensure that the chicken doesn’t overlap in the baking pan.
Once the chicken is baked through, I allow it to sit, tented in foil, for a few minutes before slicing it to ensure that the juices don’t escape, keeping the meat juicy instead of dry.
- 1.5 lbs boneless skinless chicken breast (2 large)
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1/16 teaspoon fresh cracked black pepper
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and remove the chicken from the refrigerator.
- In a small bowl, mix together garlic powder, salt, and fresh cracked pepper.
- Place chicken breasts in a greased baking pan and rub with olive oil. Sprinkle seasoning mixture on both sides of the breasts.
- Bake for 25 minutes or until the internal temperature reaches 170 degrees and the inner breasts are no longer pink.
- Loosely cover the baking dish with foil and let the chicken rest for 10 minutes before slicing and serving.
I hope you guys enjoy this simple recipe as another way to make a simple batch of chicken breasts.
Looking for other simple food prep ideas? Try these:
- Baked Lemon Pepper Chicken
- Steel-Cut Oatmeal for the week
- Slow Cooker Shredded Chicken
- Freezer Green Chile Black Bean Burgers
- My Top 4 Food Prep Strategies
Be well,
Marisa
Christine@ Apple of My Eye says
Hooray for simple and easy recipes! One of my favorite chicken recipes is pretty similar. I just take chicken wings, douse them liberally in Lawry’s garlic salt (<— seriously the best thing in the world) and bake. So easy and so delicious! I love that this recipe can be used as is or to plump up salads or other recipes. So versatile! 🙂
Marisa says
Sounds delicious, Christine – I will have to try this with wings too!
Hannah @CleanEatingVeggieGirl says
Totally going to have to try this since you know how I feel about easy chicken recipes! 😉
Marisa says
Yes! I hope you love it, Hannah! 🙂 Thanks for always sending love to my lemon pepper chicken recipe, too – glad it’s been one you’ve put in your dinner rotation!
Kiki says
Hey! I think I’ve seen something similar on Tasty’s Facebook page, and I thought it was super easy too! But a lot of the commenters worried about the chicken being too dry because it’s not marinated, or not flavored on the inside since the spices don’t touch it! Do you have a solution to this/can confirm this isn’t the case?
Marisa says
Hi Kiki – Thanks for your comment. This chicken is not dry, and the rub on the outside will be in each bite. If you’d rather add a marinating step, feel free, but I wrote this as a simple and quick recipe since my readers usually don’t have time to marinate. As I mentioned in the text of this post, the high heat helps to seal in moisture, as well as tenting the chicken with foil after baking to allow it to finish cooking and retain its own juices. Hope that helps persuade you to try it, and enjoy!