A bright, herbaceous skillet of simple-to-make goodness, this easy Lemon Butter Chicken with Herbs is one of my family’s favorite easy dinners, and it couldn’t be faster to whip up. Plus, we’ll use one of the very best ingredient hacks that guarantees massive sauce flavor without having to add a bunch of different ingredients. Read on to find out more.

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What is Lemon Butter Chicken?

It’s delicious! There’s that. But it’s also: a skillet of chicken that has been coated/covered and/or cooked in a sauce that has been mounted with butter and flavored with bright, fresh lemon juice. “Mounting” is a term that is used to signify that a sauce has been finished with butter. The addition of a big pat of butter at the very end of a sauce’s cook time will gloss it out spectacularly, creating a velvety richness to the texture that is best achieved when added at the very end, after everything else has had a chance to really do its thing.

This sauce is KILLER and a favorite of mine thanks to a few key elements:

The chicken stock concentrate. This stuff should be in every busy home cook’s arsenal, and it’s absolutely a go-to My Kitchen Little trick. It guarantees big, bold flavor without having to use actual stock and then wait for the reduction to fully happen. You get immediate payoff – which we love, yes? YES.
The acid you get from the lemon. Citrusy sauces are the best, for ever and ever. Amen. It pushes back Kat the salty flavor of the stock concentrate, and ends up being perfectly balances once you add the creamy butter at the end.
Sour cream. It also adds a brightness to the sauce and is really such a nice way to establish creaminess, instead of say, half and half or heavy cream.

There is a veritable treasure trove of dinner recipes on this site that follow this core method, and are anchored by flavorful, buttery sauces that perfectly complement the protein in question. My Tuscan Garlic Butter Salmon and Shrimp is incredible – a perfect example. Not to be outdone, my Tuscan Garlic Butter Chicken is also otherworldly good, and one of the easiest things to make. For a wonderful, and slightly smoky/charred flavor profile – you’ve got to try my Blackened Garlic Butter Catfish with Summer Squash. To. Die. For.

How do you Butterfly chicken breasts?

Mmmk. You’ll notice in my ingredients list I ask you to purchase two chicken breasts, halve them width wise and then pound them out. Essentially we’re butterflying the chicken – using our sharpest knife to open up the breast like a book, sliced right through the center, and then cutting clean through. This results in two pieces of chicken that will cook faster and it will stretch the chicken breast into two nice servings.

Lay the chicken breast flat on a cutting board.
Using your sharpest knife (this is the one I use every day. 100% worth the investment), cut across the breast, using deliberate, steady swipes until it will “open” for you, like a book.
Slice all the way through the breasts, creating two evenly sized halves.

You’ll notice that I use the pounding method in so many of my recipes that use boneless, skinless chicken breasts.

Like in my Unfried Chicken, my Cheesy Chicken with Balsamic Tomato Sauce, and my Creamy Dill Chicken. It’s the thing, y’all. Worth taking an extra 20 to 30 seconds to do, you know?

How to to pound out chicken breasts

Now that you’ve got your two cutlets, or halves, you can pound them out just a little bit to flatten them and to create a very even surface area. This also makes for juicier chicken after cooking, and it will help the chicken cook faster. Think of it this way – the thinner the chicken, the quicker the cook time. It also expands the surface area, thus giving you more bites of chicken and creating the illusion that you’re eating more meat than you really are.

This process doesn’t take much, and you can really just ball up your fish and use that (honestly that’s what I do every single time. Great for any pent up aggression!). But if you want to be more “professional” about it. Here’s what to do:

Place a piece of plastic wrap over the breast or cutlet.
Using a meat mallet or heavy-bottomed object such as a skillet or pint glass or rolling pin (excellent choice), pound the breast across the length of its surface, using forceful and steady THWACKS, until you’ve got a thickness of say, 1/2-inch or so.
Peel back and dispose of the plastic, and proceed with the chicken as directed.

Here is a great visual guide for you, from The Kitchn.

One chicken breast is a LOT of food and really can easily feed two people. I’m not sure if everyone treats them that way, but it’s true. I only take two chicken breasts out of the fridge or freezer to feed my family of four, and then I treat them this way to maximize their juiciness and minimize cook time. Win-win.

What you’ll need to make this Lemon Butter Chicken with Herbs

2 chicken breasts, halved widthwise and pounded to half-thickness (see post for additional details) OR 8 to 10 chicken tenderloins

Salt and pepper, as needed

1.5 to 2 TBSP Italian seasoning

½ tsp crushed red pepper flakes

Olive oil, for cooking

1 TBSP chicken stock concentrate (such as Better Than Bouillon)

Juice of ½ lemon

¼ cup sour cream

4 TBSP butter

Suggested toppings/garnishes: Chopped scallions, watercress, microgreens

How to make this amazing Lemon Butter Chicken

The printable recipe card is just down below, but here’s the general idea of what we’re doing today:

Pat chicken dry with paper towels. Combine the Italian seasoning with the crushed red pepper flakes. Season the chicken with salt and pepper, and generously cover the chicken on one side with the herb mixture.

Add about 1 TBSP olive oil to a large skillet set over medium high heat and, when it’s hot, cook the chicken (herb side down first) until done; about 3 to 4 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate to rest for now, and don’t wipe out the pan.

Reduce the heat to medium and add another small drizzle of oil (a teaspoon or so). Add the stock concentrate, ⅔ cup water, and the juice of half a lemon. Stir and allow it to simmer for about 3 to 4 minutes. Stir in the sour cream and butter, season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serve the chicken with the lemon butter sauce, either individually plated or family style, right from the skillet (as pictured). Top with chopped scallions and/or fresh watercress or microgreens for a fresh punch of flavor.