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Easy Creamy Garlic Chicken Recipe – delicious keto chicken breasts in a delicious garlicky sauce that is rich, creamy, and so delicious you’ll want to lick the pan!
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At Sweet C’s, I add lots of tips in all of my recipes – because I am a home cook without any formal training, and I find I am more confident making dishes when I understand why it works, and what each ingredient means to the flavor of a recipe – my goal is for even the most beginner home cook to feel empowered in the kitchen.
I want each reader to walk away with a solid knowledge of each recipe, with all of the tips I’ve gathered from extensive testing of each recipe. I also answer questions my friends and family have asked about my recipes, to help everyone better understand the processes we use – and why!
Table of Contents
Easy Creamy Garlic Chicken
We love rich, delicious sauces over chicken – especially when they come together quickly, in just one pot!
This dish is phenomenal with broccoli, asparagus, green beans, or roasted potatoes – it’s naturally low carb and keto diet approved, without flour as a thickening agent.
If you’d like to swap the chicken breasts for chicken thighs, it’s really easy. You’ll cook a bit longer, but use the same method – just like our creamy chicken thighs and mushrooms recipe.
We hope you love this recipe as much as we do!
To see our web story for this recipe, click here.
Garlic Chicken Marinade
While we’re not calling for a marinade in the recipe below, we recommend using one for the absolute best results (we just realize many people – ourselves included – forget to marinate before cooking, so we designed the recipe to be great without marinating chicken but it does help you get even more delicious results.)
- 4 tablespoons olive oil
- 6 cloves garlic, crushed
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
We recommend marinating chicken in marinade for at least 30 minutes but prefer over 4 hours.
Chicken can marinate in an airtight container in the refrigerator overnight.
Perfect Juicy Pan Fried Chicken
For perfect chicken, let the breasts brown in the pan and then remove them – they will not be fully cooked, but it will give your sauce time to come together before adding chicken back into the pan.
Overcooking chicken is the easiest way to dry it out – chicken should be cooked to 175 degrees internal temperature – which means you should check the temperature while cooking to monitor it’s progress.
I finish cooking chicken when it reaches 170 degrees, since the chicken will continue to cook about 5 degrees after turning the heat off under the pan.
You can also help make sure your chicken is tender and juicy by marinating beforehand, and cooking chicken quickly with a higher heat.
It’s also essential to let chicken rest at least 10 minutes before cutting to help lock in the juices.
Creamy Garlic Sauce
- ¼ – ½ teaspoon of salt
- 5 tablespoons of butter
- 5 cloves of garlic, peeled and cut in half
- 1 sprig of fresh thyme, with the leaves removed from the stem
- ½ cup of heavy cream
- 1/3 cup of low-sodium chicken broth
This rich creamy garlic sauce is great on chicken, but be sure to try it with pork tenderloin, pork chops, steaks, salmon, and even cauliflower steaks!
What to Serve With Creamy Garlic Chicken
We love serving this chicken with roasted broccoli or air fried broccoli, garlic butter roasted potatoes, and the most delicious air fried french fries ever!
Try these sides:
For more of our favorite side dishes, please visit our complete side dish recipe archive here.
And if you’re keeping low carb, be sure to click here for our delicious keto side dishes!
FAQs
This chicken can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days.
Yes! Chicken thighs can easily be swapped for chicken breasts – either bone-in or bone out, skin-on or skin-off.
Start by browning the chicken thighs in the pan as you would the chicken breasts in the recipe below. Be sure to get a good, deep brown color on the thighs and let them crisp. Chicken thighs will take a few minutes more to cook, but the process is the same as using chicken breasts, except for crisping up the skin if using skin-on thighs. Don’t skip crisping the skin – nobody wants flabby chicken thighs!
I personally like to unroll chicken thighs for best results, but that is entirely optional.
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Easy Creamy Garlic Chicken
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 4 thinly sliced chicken breasts, about 1 ½ pounds
- ¼ – ½ teaspoon sea salt
- 5 tablespoons salted butter
- 5 cloves garlic, peeled and cut in half
- 1 sprig of fresh thyme, with the leaves removed from the stem
- ½ cup heavy cream
- ⅓ cup low-sodium chicken broth
Instructions
- Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat.
- Add the chicken, season with salt and let each side cook for 3-4 minutes then remove them from the pan.
- Add the butter, garlic and thyme to the pan, stir and let it cook for 1-2 minutes or until the garlic starts to turn a light, golden color.
- Pour in the heavy cream and chicken broth and stir to combine.
- Reduce the heat to low medium and stir every so often as it cooks down for about 5 minutes.
- Remove the pan from the heat and add the chicken to the pan and pour some sauce on top.
- Serve with mashed potatoes or whatever side that you prefer and garnish with freshly chopped parsley.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
