15 Easy Chicken Recipes for Dinner

Fifteen chicken dinners from my own farm kitchen, sorted by how much time and energy you have tonight: 20-minute skillets, dump-and-bake casseroles you can walk away from, and cozy soups that taste like you fussed. Skim the quick guide below and you’ll know what’s for dinner in about 30 seconds.

Which Chicken Dinner Should You Make Tonight?

Skim this first. If one of these sounds like your night, jump straight to it.

If tonight is…	Make this
A 20-minute kind of night	Honey Garlic Chicken
One pan, and I mean one	Honey BBQ Chicken & Rice Skillet
Special, but still a weeknight	Marry Me Chicken
Too tired to stand at the stove	Chicken Noodle Casserole (10 minutes of work, then the oven takes over)
No trip to the store this week	Chicken & Biscuit Casserole or Chicken Enchiladas
Somebody’s under the weather	Feel-Better Chicken and Rice
Cooking now to eat later	Homemade Chicken Pot Pie (freeze it before you bake it)
Game day or a crowd	Baked BBQ Chicken Wings

Fast Skillet Chicken Dinners (20 to 40 Minutes)

These four are the ones I reach for when dinner has to happen fast. Each one comes together in a single skillet, with a sauce that does most of the work.

Easy Honey Garlic Chicken

This is the fastest dinner on the whole page, and it’s a regular in our rotation here on the farm. Bite-size chicken gets a light dusting of flour, sears in butter, and then simmers in honey, garlic, and soy sauce until it’s sticky and glossy. It’s the kind of meal we like to carry out to the porch on a summer evening.

Pick this one over the BBQ skillet below when you want something lighter and more takeout-style. It’s saucy chicken you spoon over rice, not a casserole-y skillet dinner.

My take: Keep the heat moderate once the garlic goes in. Garlic turns bitter fast, and that’s the only real way to mess this one up.

Honey BBQ Chicken & Rice Skillet

If you hate doing dishes as much as I do, start here. The chicken and the rice cook together in one skillet, so the rice soaks up the honey barbecue sauce instead of sitting plain in its own pot. It started as a way to use up a jar of our homemade BBQ sauce, and it stuck around because it’s so easy.

What makes it different from the honey garlic chicken: the rice is built in. You’re not cooking a side, and it’s heartier and more stick-to-your-ribs.

My take: Use regular long-grain white rice, not instant. Instant turns to mush in the long simmer. And don’t skip the tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, because it keeps the honey from tasting one-note.

Marry Me Chicken (Our “He Married Me Chicken”)

This one has a story. We got married right here at the farm in July, and instead of celebrating with a fancy dinner cooked by someone else, we cooked ourselves. The classic dish is called Marry Me Chicken, so once the rings were on, mine became He Married Me Chicken.

Choose it when you want dinner to feel like an occasion without a lot of extra work. It’s one skillet and about 30 minutes, with seared chicken breasts in a creamy garlic Parmesan sauce with sun-dried tomatoes. The recipe makes 2 to 3 servings, which makes it the best pick on this list for a dinner for two.

My take: The sauce finishes spoonable, not gravy-thick, so serve it over something that will catch it. We usually do mashed potatoes.

Easy Chicken Alfredo with Homemade Sauce

This is the pasta pick on the page. It’s seared chicken breast and fettuccine in a from-scratch sauce of butter, cream, and real Parmesan. No jar of sauce, and it’s done in about 30 minutes.

It’s creamy like the Marry Me Chicken, but milder and more classic. If sun-dried tomatoes aren’t your thing, this is your creamy chicken dinner.

My take: I’m a supertaster, and a grainy sauce drives me crazy. Pre-shredded Parmesan is the usual culprit. Grate your own and use a little pasta water, and it turns out glossy every time.

Chicken Casseroles You Can Walk Away From

Casseroles are how I cook on the nights I don’t want to babysit a stove. You stir things together, put it in the oven, and go do something else. Here’s how these four are different from each other.

Easy Chicken Noodle Casserole (Dump and Bake)

This is the least effort on the entire page. You don’t boil the noodles, you don’t cook the chicken, and you don’t make a sauce on the stove. The dry egg noodles, canned chicken, and sauce all get stirred together right in the baking dish, and the noodles cook as it bakes. It’s about 10 minutes of hands-on work.

It also makes a LOT. One pan gave us 10 generous servings, and several of them went straight into the freezer so we’d have dinner ready during our busy fall event season.

My take: Stir it at the 30-minute mark. The edges cook faster than the middle, and that one stir is the only step you can’t skip.

Chicken Pot Pie Casserole (No Crust)

This is my go-to when I want pot pie flavor without making pastry. It’s the creamy filling of potatoes, carrots, herbs, and chicken, topped with drop biscuits you just spoon on. No rolling pin needed.

Choose it over the full pot pie further down when you have leftover or rotisserie chicken to use up and no patience for pie dough tonight. I bake mine in a cast iron skillet, but a regular skillet plus a baking dish works fine.

My take: Give the roux its full minute before the liquid goes in, and let the casserole rest 10 minutes after baking. Those two waits are what make the filling thick instead of soupy.

Chicken & Biscuit Casserole

This is the dinner I make when I haven’t been to the store. Nearly everything comes off the pantry shelf: canned chicken, canned vegetables, cream of chicken soup, evaporated milk, and biscuit mix on top. It takes five minutes of prep.

It looks a lot like the pot pie casserole above, so here’s the difference. This one is all pantry and almost no chopping. The pot pie casserole uses fresh vegetables and leftover roast chicken, and it tastes more from-scratch. Greg loves this one as leftovers (and, apparently, so do our dogs).

My take: Drain the canned chicken and vegetables really well. Extra liquid is the one thing that can make this too thin.

Easy Chicken Enchiladas

This is the one to make when you want a change from creamy comfort food. The shortcut is canned chicken, so there’s no poaching and shredding before you start rolling. That’s usually the slowest part of enchiladas.

I use my own mild red enchilada sauce because I’m a supertaster and not a fan of a lot of heat, but a store-bought can you like works just as well. Flour tortillas roll without cracking and soak up the sauce until they’re soft. The first time I made these they were SO easy, and one pan left us plenty of leftovers.

My take: Warm the tortillas for 30 seconds before you roll them, and make sure sauce covers the ends. Any bare tortilla dries out and gets stiff in the oven.

Chicken Soups and Cozy Bowls

We eat a lot of soup once the weather turns. These five are more different from each other than they look, so here’s what sets each one apart.

Chicken Gnocchi Soup (Better Than Olive Garden)

Greg and I stopped going out to eat a while ago, mostly because we’d rather cook at home. This is the soup we make instead of driving to Olive Garden, and honestly, ours is better. The difference is that we sear the chicken ourselves in the same pot and use real broth and fresh thyme from the garden.

It’s the creamiest soup on this list and feels the most like a restaurant meal. Everything happens in one Dutch oven, and the gnocchi come right out of a shelf-stable package in the pasta aisle.

My take: The gnocchi only need about four minutes. Any longer and they go soft at the edges and stop looking like gnocchi.

Chicken Soup From Scratch

This is the brothy, get-well kind of chicken soup, with garlic, fresh ginger, turmeric, and herbs. I made it for Greg when he was under the weather. I was out of egg noodles that day, so I grabbed pearl couscous, and I’ve never gone back. Those little round pearls hold up in the broth better than noodles do.

Choose this over the gnocchi soup when you want something light and clean instead of creamy.

My take: Keep the chicken breasts under the broth while they simmer. Chicken that pokes out of the liquid dries out.

Chicken Noodle Soup Without the Can (Soup in a Jar)

This one is really two things: a quick dinner and a pantry project. You layer dry milk, potato flakes, bouillon, herbs, and egg noodles in a quart Mason jar, and it keeps for up to a year. When you want soup, you dump the jar into a pot with water and have creamy chicken noodle soup in about 15 minutes. Add canned or leftover chicken if you have it.

It’s the fastest soup here, and it’s the only recipe on this list that also makes a good gift. Tie on a tag with the cooking directions and hand it to a neighbor.

My take: Let the soup sit for five minutes once it’s done. The broth thickens up and the flavors come together.

Easy Chicken & Dumplings

This is old-fashioned comfort in a bowl. It’s a creamy chicken stew with soft drop dumplings steamed right on top. Sour cream in the dough keeps the dumplings pillowy. I made our last batch on a chilly game night, and Greg kept wanting to peek under the lid.

These are drop dumplings, not the flat, rolled Cracker Barrel kind. They’re the most forgiving type: no rolling, no cutting, and no floury counter to clean up.

My take: Don’t lift the lid while the dumplings steam. The trapped steam is what makes them puff, so no peeking, Greg.

Feel-Better Chicken and Rice

I wrote this one on a day Greg wasn’t feeling well. It’s meant to go down easy and stay down: small pieces of poached chicken, white rice, carrots, and broth, with just a little butter and very gentle seasoning.

It’s the plainest recipe on this page, and that’s on purpose. Save the bold flavors for another night. This is the one for sick days, recovering tummies, or anyone who needs something soft and simple.

My take: Keep a little moisture in the pot. If the rice starts looking dry, add a splash more broth. You want it soft and a little brothy, not stiff.

Weekend Classics and Crowd Food

These two take a little more time, and they’re worth it.

Homemade Chicken Pot Pie

This is the real deal: a flaky double crust with a creamy chicken and vegetable filling baked inside. It’s the recipe to make when you have an hour and want the one everybody remembers. The leftovers are just as good the next day, maybe better.

Pick it over the no-crust casserole when the crust is the whole point for you. You can use homemade pie dough or a store-bought one.

My take: Keep your dough cold the whole time. That’s my golden rule for a flaky crust. If you’d like to make your own, my homemade pie crust is the one I use.

Baked BBQ Chicken Wings

I’ve made wings this way for years, since long before the farm, back when a big plate of them was our whole Friday night. There’s no deep fryer and no pot of hot oil. A light toss in baking powder and a wire rack get the skin crispy in the oven. Then you toss them in BBQ sauce until they’re sticky.

This is the only finger food on the list, so it’s the one for game day, parties, or a movie night on the couch. Greg is a meat-and-potatoes guy, and these are one of the few things he’ll happily eat with his hands over a paper towel.

My take: Use baking powder, NOT baking soda, and don’t overdo it. Too much leaves a soapy taste. (Ask me how I know.)

Tips for Cooking Chicken for Dinner

Which of these freeze best? The chicken noodle casserole is my favorite freezer meal, and the chicken pot pie freezes beautifully as long as it goes in unbaked. For the pot pie casserole, the biscuit casserole, and the chicken and dumplings, freeze the base and add the biscuits or dumplings fresh when you bake or reheat.

Can I use canned chicken? Three of these are built on it: the chicken noodle casserole, the chicken and biscuit casserole, and the enchiladas. For all three, drain it really well. Leftover rotisserie chicken works in any of those, and in the pot pie casserole, too.

Breasts or thighs? Most of these work with either. Thighs stay juicier in anything that simmers a while, like the honey BBQ skillet and the chicken and dumplings. Breasts are easier to slice neatly for the alfredo and the Marry Me Chicken.

What about the broth? Every soup here is better with homemade broth. If you ever have a chicken carcass left over, my easy chicken stock can simmer overnight on the stove or in a slow cooker. Store-bought broth is completely fine for weeknights, though.

Looking for something besides chicken? You’ll find everything else in my recipe index, and all of my chicken dinners live together in the chicken recipes category. I’m always adding more, too!

I hope one of these becomes a regular at your house. If you try one, come back and tell me which one won!

Love,
Jennifer