30 Fast Chicken Recipes for Speedy, Tasty Meals (2024)

When you want dinner fast but don't want fast food, turn to this collection of quick chicken recipes to create satisfying, flavor-packed dishes in less than an hour. Craving a crispy cutlet? We recommend Roy Choi's katsu, Thomas Keller's schnitzel, or cheesy chicken Parmesan if you've got an air fryer to help your cause. Feeling fancy? You can't go wrong with pan-roasted chicken in a classic white wine-crème fraîche sauce or Angie Mar's recipe with roasted grapes, garlic, and rosemary. With these 30 chicken recipes, you're sure to find something to tantalize your tastebuds pronto.

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Chicken Breasts with White Wine Pan Sauce with Crème Fraîche and Spring Herbs

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This simple white wine pan sauce enriched with crème fraîche and a generous handful of tender fresh herbs like tarragon, dill, and chives makes smart use of the drippings from pan-roasted chicken breasts. The sauce comes together in about 10 minutes and delivers an elegant, silky texture.

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Pan-Roasted Chicken with Grapes, Garlic, and Rosemary

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Dinner doesn't get simpler or more elegant than this pan-roasted chicken from 2017 F&W Best New Chef Angie Mar. To make it, a whole chicken is cut into eight pieces, then roasted with grapes, garlic cloves, and sprigs of rosemary to yield crispy-skinned chicken in a schmaltzy pan sauce that begs for a crusty piece of bread.

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Lu Jitui (Braised Soy Sauce Chicken)

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This classic comfort dish often found in Taiwanese bento boxes features chicken legs cooked with soy sauce, dark soy sauce, and Shaoxing rice wine. All the ingredients go into the pot at the same time, and with a cook time under an hour, it’s a fantastic weeknight dinner. This recipe serves two people but can be easily doubled as needed.

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Peppery Greens Salad with Avocado, Chicken, and Tortilla Croutons

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Crispy, pimentón-dusted tortillas stand in for the flatbread traditionally found in the Lebanese bread salad fattoush. Make this recipe with easy homemadeTex-Mex Tortillasor use your favorite store-bought version.

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Creamy Chicken Stew

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On those hectic chilly weeknights when all you want is something quick, warm, and comforting, this refined creamy chicken stew is all you need. The combination of light and dark chicken meat, earthy mushrooms, and tender potatoes feels like a big hug in the form of dinner.

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Auntie Georgia's Dakgangjeong (Korean Fried Chicken with Soy Sauce)

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A sticky glaze of soy sauce and brown sugar gets subtle heat from fresh jalapeños to give these fried wings the perfect level of spice, sweetness, and salt. Potato starch creates a shatteringly crisp exterior on the wings and stays crunchy for hours — even after they've cooled.

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Chicken and Shrimp Laksa

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Top Chef winner Buddha Lo's homemade laksa paste — made with fresh lemongrass, pungent shrimp paste, and nutty peanuts — forms the base of this fragrant noodle dish, while coconut cream adds a velvety mouthfeel to the aromatic broth. Top it with poached shrimp and chicken, fresh herbs, and fried shallots, then slurp with joy.

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Chicken Fricassee Stir-Fry with Asparagus

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This quick-cooking recipe from cookbook author Grace Young showcases the technique for a simple stir-fry, where ingredients are continually added to the wok, layering flavor as each cooks perfectly. "Once you understand the basics of stir-frying, you don't have to limit yourself," Young says. Here, tender asparagus joins carrots and chicken in a speedy stir-fry seasoned with white wine instead of rice wine; cream enriches the sauce.

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Sheet-Pan Baked Chicken, Feta, Tomatoes, and Kale with Pasta

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Tangy feta and juicy tomatoes roast together in the oven, creating a creamy sauce that clings to ruffly campanelle or corkscrew-shaped cavatappi pasta in this easy bake sheet-pan dinner. The whole dish comes together in under an hour as the chicken, cheese, and aromatics bake in the oven while the pasta and kale quickly cook on the stove.

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Air Fryer Chicken Parmesan

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If you haven't made Chicken Parmesan in an air fryer yet, consider this your invitation to get started. This recipe yields crispy, juicy chicken and ultra-melty cheese, which pairs beautifully with the acidity of tomato sauce. As for serving? You can pair the chicken with a salad, such as a classic Caesar, or go for garlicky broccoli, Broccolini, or broccoli rabe.

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Krapow Khai Yat Sai (Thai Stuffed Spicy Basil-Chicken Omelet)

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In this eye-catching omelet from Jazz Singsanong, owner of Jitlada in Los Angeles, a thin blanket of folded egg is cut open to reveal a filling of ground chicken and Thai basil that’s been lightly caramelized and flavored with oyster sauce.

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Quick Skillet-Roasted Chicken with Spring Vegetables

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Tender vegetables simmer in a mixture of chicken drippings and butter in this simple, speedy dish. The attached drumette gives these airline chicken breasts more flavor; though bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs make a good substitute.

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Gnocchi with Roast Chicken, Bacon, and Kale

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This comforting gnocchi recipe with chicken, bacon, and kale has it all. Cook the kale and onion in the rendered bacon fat, imbuing them with that smoky flavor while saving the bacon bits for topping. Store-bought gnocchi and rotisserie chicken do much of the heavy lifting here, making this cozy dinner easy to pull off on a weeknight.

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Chicken Scarpariello

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Scarpariello is a classic Italian-American dish that's easy to pull off at home with jarred pickled peppers and sweet Italian sausage. This one-pot meal requires no chopping at all — just dump and stir.

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Florentine Butter Chicken

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This recipe is inspired by F&W editor in chief Hunter Lewis' trip to 150-year-old Trattoria Sostanza in Florence. Cultured butter has a slightly higher smoke point and, when combined with olive oil, provides enough cooking time to finish the chicken and the sauce simultaneously.

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Garlicky Lemongrass Chicken

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Lemongrass is known for its citrusy and herbal flavors, and it works beautifully here paired with garlic to amp up the flavor of chicken breasts. This spicy lemongrass paste is also wonderful rubbed on pork tenderloin or any firm, white-fleshed fish, such as snapper, sea bass, or halibut.

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Skillet Chicken and Mushroom Pot Pie

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We prove that making pot pie doesn’t have to take a long time with this one-skillet version, prepared with store-bought rotisserie chicken and buttered white bread in place of the usual labor-intensive puff pastry crust.

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Vermicelli with Chicken Skewers and Nuoc Cham

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In this version of a Vietnamese dish, individual piles of cucumber, fresh herbs, and grilled chicken are arranged on a platter of vermicelli and bean sprouts. Tangy nuoc cham sauce is poured over all. As each diner takes a portion, the components intermingle.

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Chicken Katsu

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For chef Roy Choi, these crispy egg and panko-coated chicken cutlets, generally made with pork in Japan, represent something major. “People think frying chicken cutlets is simple, but it’s like cooking pasta,” says Choi. “It’s a dish that seems remedial, but when you get it right, it changes the whole ball game. I call it the cult of katsu.”

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Maple-Glazed Chicken Breasts with Mustard Jus

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Chef David Slater glazes chicken breasts with maple syrup, sherry vinegar, and orange juice infused with anise and other spices. Then he serves them with a confited chicken leg, caramelized root vegetables, braised kale, and crisp Benton's bacon. For ease, glaze the chicken breasts with a sweet-tangy blend of syrup and vinegar and skip the confited leg and root vegetables.

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Chicken and Sun-Dried Tomato Meatballs

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With the help of the food processor and using just one skillet, these flavorful meatballs (and sauce!) are ready in just half an hour. They're great served with pasta or crusty bread.

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Classic Chicken Teriyaki

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Famed chef Nobu Matsuhisa’s easy teriyaki sauce is made with chicken broth, soy sauce, sugar, mirin, and sake. It’s great over tender chicken breasts and charred frying peppers.

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Pulled Chicken Barbecue Sandwiches

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Classic eastern North Carolina barbecue sauce has a vinegar — not a tomato — base. It’s delicious tossed with pulled chicken instead of the usual pork, and served the traditional way: piled onto soft buns and smothered under cold, creamy coleslaw.

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Chicken Flautas

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Rotisserie chicken, shredded cheese, and corn tortillas make these flautas an easy, quick dinner.

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Panko-Coated Chicken Schnitzel

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Chef Thomas Keller uses panko breadcrumbs to give chicken a crunchy crust. “Pounding chicken breasts to a uniform thickness cuts down on cooking time,” he says.

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General Tso's Chicken

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This version of the Chinese-American restaurant staple is lighter than takeout because the chicken is only lightly coated in cornstarch and is pan-fried rather than deep-fried.

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Chicken Dijon

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Cookbook author Melissa Clark likes using only drumsticks in this mustardy stew — thickened with tangy crème fraîche — so that all the meat cooks at the same rate.

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Sheet-Pan Chicken and Mushrooms with Parsley Sauce

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Cookbook author Julia Turshen amps up the flavors in her simple chicken and mushroom pan roast with lemons and a bright and fresh parsley sauce that takes just minutes to make.

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Sautéed Chicken Breasts with Fennel and Rosemary

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The Mediterranean flavors of fennel, garlic, and rosemary are perfect with chicken. The fennel and chicken are sautéed and then briefly braised in chicken broth, which becomes a tasty light sauce.

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Curried Chicken on Pita

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This quick weeknight chicken recipe gets a kick from curry powder and jalapeños. Serve with grilled pita, lettuce leaves, tomato wedges, and cucumber slices.

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