Garlic Butter Chicken
Garlic Butter Chicken is a family friendly easy recipe that combines chicken breasts and baby potatoes with fresh garlic, butter and mozzarella.
Garlic Butter Chicken is a family friendly easy recipe that combines chicken breasts and baby potatoes with fresh garlic, butter and mozzarella.
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 cup shredded mozzarella
- 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
- 2 teaspoons dried parsley
- 4 cloves minced garlic
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick)
- i lb. baby potatoes (if larger than one inch slic
- 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper (or less to taste)
- 1/2 cup shreddedâ italian blend
- Carbohydrate 3.38866791666667 g
- Cholesterol 97.29425 mg
- Fat 32.0786283333333 g
- Fiber 0.188729160944621 g
- Protein 14.37385125 g
- Saturated Fat 20.3153313333333 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Serving (90g)
- Sodium 356.087083333333 mg
- Sugar 3.19993875572205 g
- Trans Fat 2.08745633333334 g
- Calories 356 calories
Step-by-step
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Salt and pepper both side of the chicken breasts and place in single layer in casserole dish. Top with with baby potatoes.
- In large skillet melt butter over low heat. Add garlic and cook until fragrant; about 1 minute. Remove from heat and allow to cool for 5 minutes.
- Pour garlic butter over chicken and potatoes. Sprinkle with half the crushed pepper and half the dried parsley.
- Bake for 20-22 minutes or until chicken is almost cooked through. Top evenly with both cheeses and the rest of the crushed pepper and dried parsley. Bake an additional 3-5 minutes or until cheese is melted. Turn broiler on the last minute of cooking to lightly brown the tops.
Freezing dairy-heavy casserole dishes before baking often results in a broken emulsion, but this combination tolerates low-temperature storage remarkably well if assembled raw. Raw poultry and starch-dense baby potatoes hold their cell structure during freezing better than pre-cooked variants, preventing the watery purge that ruins the sauce when thawed. Wrap the unbaked casserole dish tightly in two layers of plastic wrap and aluminum foil, keeping it in the freezer for up to one month. Thaw the dish completely in the refrigerator for twenty-four hours before baking at four hundred degrees to ensure the center reaches safe temperatures without burning the exterior. Cooking dairy fats alongside high-moisture vegetables requires careful temperature control to avoid separation. Unsalted butter contains water that boils out during the initial one-minute garlic sauté; letting that mixture cool for five minutes prevents the hot fat from prematurely tightening the chicken proteins on contact. Mozzarella and Italian blend cheeses contain high moisture and fat ratios that scorch easily if exposed to dry oven heat for too long. Adding the cheese during the final five minutes of the twenty-to-twenty-two-minute bake protects the dairy solids from burning while allowing the surface to melt evenly. Activating the broiler for precisely the final sixty seconds browns the cheese without overcooking the lean chicken breasts underneath.
