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This One Pan Creamy Lemon Italian Chicken and Asparagus Skillet is a rich and flavorful dish full of hearty creamy chicken flavors – perfect over pasta, rice, vegetables, or straight out of the pan! A rich and creamy Italian chicken and vegetables one pot dinner in under 30 minutes!
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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
Simple Chicken and Veggie Skillet
If you’re looking for a creamy, rich, and delicious chicken thigh recipe – look no further. This one pot creamy lemon chicken asparagus and mushroom skillet is a complete keto or paleo diet meal in one pan that everyone in the family will love!
This rich and delicious creamy lemon chicken is great over pasta as well – simply ladle over fettuccine, spaghetti, or linguine for a delicious dinner the whole family loves. Orzo, cous cous, and rice are also fabulous options to serve with or under this dish for a creamy lemon chicken and vegetables dinner!
This creamy Italian chicken recipe is bursting with flavor from just one pan – and the best part is that this recipe is both keto and paleo diet friendly so you can still enjoy it on a low carb diet!
When you’re eating creamy lemon Italian keto chicken with veggies, who even feels like you’re on a diet?
Tips and Tricks to Perfect One Pot Creamy Italian Chicken and Asparagus:
Let the chicken thighs crisp and brown, regardless of listed cook time. All stoves are different, and one woman’s medium-high is another woman’s low. You want crisp, delicious chicken to really make this dish stand out – and getting lovely browned chicken is a major part of that. High heat to help crisp chicken thighs (they won’t be completely cooked when you pull them from the pan, but will finish cooking when put back in the sauce) is ESSENTIAL. Nobody wants flabby chicken.
Unravel your chicken thighs. If you want fooproof crispy chicken thighs with NO weird texture or extra fat, simply unroll them! If you’re using bone-in chicken thighs, you might have to remove the bones for this, but if you roll the chicken thigh out so it lays almost flat, the fat will render evenly and help your chicken thigh crisp up a lot better, giving it an even, delicious flavor. It can look a little funny since you don’t often see chicken thighs displayed that way, but it TASTES amazing.
Turn heat OFF when adding cream. This is the easiest way to make sure your cream sauce doesn’t break – turn off heat while adding cream to pan! Then, whisk that vigorously and slowly add heat back. Works like a charm!
Ideal Swaps for this Recipe
If you love the idea of this dish, but you’re not totally on board with some of the ingredients, here are some of my favorite swaps!
Instead of chicken thighs, use small chicken breasts. Cooking time will vary, but the same process will be used to cook the chicken breasts. When the outside is lovely crisp and golden brown, remove from pan to make sauce. When sauce is made, add chicken back to pan, and cook until it’s reached 165 degrees internal temperature. Thinner chicken breasts work better here – so if you have very fat chicken breasts, simply “butterfly” them and cut them in half, to make two chicken breasts who aren’t so thick they will take forever to reach 165 degrees internally.
Swap mushrooms or asparagus for other veggies. The sky is the limit here – some of my favorite swaps include broccoli, bell peppers (cut into 1″ bites), snap peas, English peas, cauliflower,
Serve over cauliflower rice for a creamy keto chicken power bowl that will fuel your whole day.
Other One Pot Dinners You’ll Love:
If you love this One Pot Creamy Italian Chicken and Asparagus be sure to check out my other one pot chicken dinners! Be sure to click to watch me make some of the popular dishes to see just how easy they are to make!
If you are looking for more one pot chicken dinners try: Low Carb Paleo Buttery Crackle Chicken Thighs, One Pot Garlic Butter Chicken Thighs and Mushrooms, Easy One Pan BBQ Chicken Thighs, and Baked Ranch Chicken Thighs.
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One Pot Lemon Chicken Mushroom Asparagus Skillet
Equipment
Ingredients
- 4 tbsp butter, divided
- ⅛ tsp sea salt*
- 4 chicken thighs, bones removed (skinless or with skin OK)
- 8 cloves garlic, finely diced
- 8 oz cremini mushrooms, stems removed and wiped clean
- 1 bunch asparagus stalks, trimmed
- 1 cup chicken stock
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream or half and half
- ¼ tsp red pepper flakes, less if you dont want any spice
- ½ cup diced cilantro or parsley, optional
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- ¼ cup parmesan cheese
Instructions
- Heat a heavy pan on medium high until very hot.
- Add butter, swirl around pan, and let melt.
- When butter is foamy and melted, add chicken thighs.
- Salt the chicken thighs.
- Cook chicken thighs 5 minutes on each side, until lovely golden brown.
- When chicken thighs are well browned, remove from pan.
- Add garlic to pan, stir well.
- Add mushrooms and asparagus to pan, stirring occasionally to keep mushrooms and garlic from burning.
- When vegetables are browned, remove from pan and set aside.
- Drain excess fat from pan, but don't clean out.
- Return heat to high and add stock and lemon juice to pan (watch out for steam), and scrape up any browned bits from bottom of pan.
- Turn heat to medium high.
- Add second half of butter to pan, let melt.
- Turn heat off, and slowly add cream and parmesan cheese, whisking vigorously as you add it.
- Return heat to medium high.
- Add chicken thighs back to pan, let sauce reduce another 5-8 minutes, flipping chicken occasionally, until thick and chicken thighs are 165 internal temp.
- Before chicken is all the way to 165, add vegetables back into pan and mix well to ensure it is evenly coated with sauce.
- Top with red pepper flakes and fresh diced parsley or cilantro if desired.
- Remove from pan and serve immediately!
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Delish
Wondering what to do with the optional cilantro? Thanks!
That is an optional garnish, you can use cilantro or parsley just to add a fresh green bite!
I plan of using half stock, half wine. It’s going to be delicious!!
Love it I just left out the mushrooms and very finely chopped up some onionons. I love onions in just about everything I cook.
Making this tonight. Looks wonderful. Wondering what to do with the lemon juice and parmesan cheese.
I changed recipe plugins and a couple of things must have broken in the change over – it is all fixed now! Thanks for letting me know.