Chicken Recipes

Chicken recipes are the backbone of weeknight cooking, and also the easiest thing in the kitchen to get wrong. Dry breast meat, pale skin, sauce that breaks — all of it comes down to a few decisions made in the first five minutes.

What follows covers the full range: creamy skillet dinners that come together in one pan, slow cooker meals you start before work, soups built on leftover roast chicken, and sheet pan dinners where the vegetables cook in the drippings. Garlic parmesan, sun-dried tomato, honey mustard, cabbage and chicken for the lighter nights.

Three things matter more than the recipe you pick. Pat the chicken dry before it touches the pan, because wet meat steams instead of browning. Let it come closer to room temperature rather than going in fridge-cold, which is what causes a cooked outside and a raw middle. And pull it off the heat at 165°F measured in the thickest part, not by the clock, since thickness varies far more between two chicken breasts than most people expect.

Thighs forgive mistakes that breasts do not. If you are cooking for a crowd or distracted by other dishes, use them.