Lemon Rosemary Chicken is an amazingly flavorful and easy one pan recipe that you’ll love making. It’s perfect for a weeknight dinner or weekend date night!
This post is sponsored by Klarbrunn.
Lemon Rosemary Chicken
If you’ve been here before, you know that every meal is about the sauce for me. This sauce, this sauce is EVERYTHING.
You make the sauce using all of the flavorful bits leftover from pan frying the chicken and combine it with white wine, rosemary, shallot, and garlic.
That gets reduced into a concentrated sauce base, and then you stir in butter until you have the most dreamy smooth sauce you could ever imagine.
It’s amazingly easy to make and brings this crispy lemon rosemary chicken to a whole new level.
I love how decadent this meal is, but I also love pairing it with healthier and lighter sides. That’s why it pairs so perfectly with Klarbrunn’s Lemon Sparkling Water.
Their sparkling water has the most incredible flavor and the perfect amount of fizz. Be sure to buy some to serve with this meal! You can find it here.
How to Make Lemon Rosemary Chicken
The magic in this recipe is in the combination of the flavors from the lemon rosemary chicken marinade and the sauce. The marinade is light, bright, and fresh, while the sauce is creamy and rich.
Start by making your marinade and marinating the chicken in the refrigerator for 2-3 hours.
Next, you’ll pan fry the chicken for up to 50 minutes.
Finally, pour off the excess fat and make the white wine butter sauce for an incredible one pan meal.
How to Pan Fry Bone In Chicken Thighs
The most important tip is to start with a hot skillet to get perfectly crispy skin. If your skillet and oil are too cold when you start cooking, the skin will stick to the pan.
I recommend using a heavy-bottomed skillet (like a cast iron skillet or a stainless steel skillet), but you could also use a nonstick skillet.
If you use a nonstick skillet, you won’t need as much oil, but the skin won’t get as crispy.
After a couple of minutes of cooking the chicken in hot oil, without moving the chicken at all, turn the temperature down a bit so that you don’t burn the skin.
Patience is key with this recipe.
You need to pan fry the chicken long enough for it to get crispy and cooked all the way through.
The chicken is cooked when the meat closest to the bone measures a minimum of 165 F on a meat thermometer. When measuring the temperature, be sure not to touch the bone with the meat thermometer.
In addition to temperature, the size of the skillet also matters. You want the thighs to have some room to cook evenly, so I recommend using a 12” skillet.
What Goes Well with Lemon Rosemary Chicken?
Since this recipe includes a deliciously decadent sauce, I like to keep the sides a bit on the healthier side. Try serving it with simple burst cherry tomatoes, sauteed asparagus, or mashed cauliflower.
If you’d like something a little heavier, try serving it with roasted potatoes or mashed potatoes.
Depending on what you serve this dinner with, it can be the perfect low carb or keto meal.
How Many Calories Are in Lemon Garlic Rosemary Chicken Thighs?
The majority of the calories in this dish are from the sauce. One chicken thigh with the sauce is roughly 495 calories, and one chicken thigh without the sauce is roughly 245 calories.
What You’ll Need
Like so many of my favorite recipes, one of the reasons this recipe is so easy is because you need so few tools to execute it. The only tools you need are a nice large heavy-bottomed skillet, a good splatter screen (preferably with a carbon filter), and tongs.
Lemon Rosemary Chicken
Lemon Rosemary Chicken is an amazingly flavorful and easy one pan recipe that you’ll love making. It’s perfect for a weeknight dinner or weekend date night!
Ingredients
Marinade:
- 2 Tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice (the juice of about 1 lemon)
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- 2 medium cloves garlic (minced)
- ½ Tablespoon finely diced fresh rosemary
Chicken:
- 4 chicken thighs (bone in and skin on)
- ¼ - ½ teaspoon fine sea salt (depending on preference)
- 1- 3 Tablespoons olive oil (depending on the fry pan you use - use 1 Tablespoon for a nonstick fry pan, and 3 Tablespoons for a stainless steel fry pan)
Sauce:
- ⅔ cup dry white wine
- 3 Tablespoons diced shallots
- ½ Tablespoon finely diced fresh rosemary
- 1 medium clove garlic (diced)
- 6 Tablespoons cold unsalted butter (cubed)
- Fine sea salt (to taste)
- Pepper (to taste)
- ½ teaspoon lemon zest (optional, if you want a stronger lemon flavor in the finished dish)
Toppings:
- Rosemary (optional, for garnish)
- Lemon (optional, for garnish)
- Klarbrunn Lemon Sparkling Water (for pairing)
Instructions
- Add the marinade ingredients (lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, and rosemary) to a small bowl. Stir to combine. Set aside.
- Wash and thoroughly dry the chicken. Salt both sides of each chicken thigh.
- Lay the chicken thighs out in a single layer in a 9” x 11” dish. Pour the marinade over the chicken. Cover with aluminum foil or saran wrap. Refrigerate while marinating for 2 - 3 hours.
- Heat a large heavy-bottomed skillet over medium heat. Once the skillet is heated, add oil and swirl to coat the pan.
- Add chicken, skin side down, to the oiled pan. Cover with a splatter screen. Saute until the skin is crispy and golden brown and the fat has rendered. This could take up to 30 minutes. Keep an eye on them and turn the temperature down if the skin is starting to blacken. The temperature that you use to saute the chicken is largely dependent on your element. If your element runs hot, you’ll likely need to saute the chicken at medium-low, or even low.
- Flip each piece and continue to cook until the chicken is cooked through. This can take up to 20 more minutes. The chicken is cooked when the meat closest to the bone measures a minimum of 165 F on a meat thermometer (being sure not to touch the bone with the meat thermometer).
- Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside. Drain the excess fat from the skillet, being sure to reserve the flavorful bits at the bottom.
- Return skillet to heat and turn heat to low to begin making the sauce. Add the white wine and deglaze the pan, scraping up and mixing in any of the flavorful bits at the bottom of the fry pan. Add in the rosemary, shallots, and garlic. Simmer until the wine is nearly dissolved, stirring about once a minute. Once the wine is mostly dissolved, turn the heat off. Add in the cubed butter a little bit at a time. Stir until the butter is fully melted and incorporated before adding more butter. Once all of the butter is incorporated into the sauce, remove the pan immediately from the stove to stop the residual heat from overcooking the sauce. Taste and add salt, pepper, and optional lemon zest to your taste preference at this point.
- Serve immediately. Spoon the sauce onto a plate and serve the chicken on top of the sauce.
Notes
If you want to elevate this dish even further, you can top the chicken with either pan fried rosemary or caramelized lemon slices.
Don’t oversalt the chicken. All of the flavor from the chicken become the base of the sauce, so if you oversalt the chicken the sauce could be too salty.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
4Serving Size:
1 chicken thighAmount Per Serving: Calories: 495Total Fat: 37gSaturated Fat: 14.3gTrans Fat: 0.7gCholesterol: 185.8mgSodium: 407.6mgCarbohydrates: 3.6gNet Carbohydrates: 3.2gFiber: 0.4gSugar: 1.2gProtein: 29.9g
Nutrition information isn’t always accurate.
If you try this recipe, please let me know what you thought in the comments or on Instagram! @keytomylime
Be sure to pin this recipe for later!
The next time you’re looking for an elegant dinner made with simple ingredients, try making these Lemon Rosemary Chicken Thighs.
