This lemon dill chicken breast recipe is so juicy and flavorful! We love serving this with a quick cucumber, tomato, and feta salad for a fresh, healthy meal.
This is one of my favorite chicken breast recipes! The secret is to marinate your chicken in our simple lemon and dill marinade, then cook them in a skillet. From there, you can make my quick cucumber feta salad and have a meal in one.
I use my no-fail method for cooking the chicken breasts for this recipe, so your chicken will turn out tender, juicy in the middle, and never dried out. We use the same cooking method to make our juicy skillet chicken breasts! It’s the best method, trust me!
Key Ingredients
- Chicken: This recipe works beautifully for chicken breasts, but you can use chicken thighs. If your chicken breasts are huge, you can use a mallet or rolling pin to pound them to an even thickness, which speeds up the cooking time and produces evener results. That said, I skip this step if I am in a rush!
- Lemon Dill Marinade: You’ll combine fresh lemon juice with olive oil, garlic, fresh dill, salt, and pepper. It’s so simple and adds so much flavor! If you don’t have dill, use another fresh herb like mint or basil. Just 20 minutes in this marinade will make a difference.
- Cucumber Feta Salad: The dressing is simple and made with lemon juice, olive oil, Dijon mustard, and honey. Then, we toss in more fresh dill, cucumbers, tomatoes, and cubes of feta cheese. It’s easy and so delicious! For the cucumbers, I love Hothouse or Persian cucumbers since they have thinner skin and don’t have any seeds. As the salad sits, the cucumbers and tomatoes release some juices into the dressing, so don’t forget to spoon extra dressing from the bottom of the salad bowl on top of you chicken — that’s gold!
Find the full recipe with measurements below.
How to Make Lemon Dill Chicken Breast
Tip 1: Sear your chicken. When you are ready to cook your chicken, remove it from the marinade and pat it dry, which helps get that golden sear. If the chicken were still wet from the marinade, the chicken breasts would steam, not sear.
Tip 2: Finish with lid on. To guarantee juicy, tender chicken, you want to sear your chicken breasts on one side, flip, turn the heat to low, and then cover the skillet with a lid. It’s so easy, and I promise your chicken will turn out juicy, tender, and delicious!
Lemon Dill Chicken
- PREP
- COOK
- TOTAL
These lemon dill marinated chicken breasts are so juicy and flavorful. We love to serve them next to a quick cucumber, tomato, and feta salad for a fresh and healthy meal. This is also excellent with a spoonful of homemade tzatziki sauce.
Just 20 minutes in our lemon dill marinade will add plenty of flavor, but feel free to go longer (up to 6 hours). When you are ready to cook your chicken, remove it from the marinade and pat it dry, which helps get that golden sear. (If the chicken were still wet from the marinade, the chicken breasts would steam, not sear).
You Will Need
Lemon Dill Chicken Breasts2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, 6 to 8 ounces each
¼ cup fresh lemon juice
½ tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for cooking
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill or other fresh herbs
¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Cucumber Feta Salad2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 ½ tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
½ teaspoon Dijon mustard
½ to 1 teaspoon of pure honey, depending on how sour lemon is
1 teaspoon chopped fresh dill or other fresh herbs
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
Half of a hothouse or seedless cucumber, chopped
2 ounces feta cheese, cubed
Salt and fresh ground black pepper
Directions
1Marinate the chicken: Combine lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, dill, salt, and pepper in a small bowl. Use the back of a small spoon to press garlic and dill into other ingredients, releasing more flavor from the dill and garlic. Add marinade to a resealable plastic bag or small-rimmed dish, then add chicken breasts. Marinate for 20 to 30 minutes at room temperature or in the refrigerator for up to 6 hours.
2Make cucumber feta salad: Whisk lemon juice, olive oil, mustard, honey, and dill in a medium bowl, then add tomatoes, cucumber, and feta cheese. Toss gently, season to taste, then refrigerate for at least 20 minutes and up to a day.
3Cook chicken: Brush the garlic from chicken and pat dry. Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a medium frying pan (with a lid) over medium-high heat.
4When the oil is hot and looks shimmery, add the chicken. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes until golden. Flip, reduce heat to low then cover with lid. Cook for 10 to 15 minutes or until an instant-read thermometer reads 165°F when inserted into the thickest part of the breast.
5Transfer chicken to a plate, then cover loosely with aluminum foil. Let the chicken rest for 5 minutes, slice, and then serve with salad.
Adam and Joanne's Tips
- The nutrition facts provided below are estimates.
Had this today and it was absolutely delicious, in particular the salad dressing and all so easy. Thank you. I had tried a few of your recipes before signing up for your newsletter and more recipes but having found you several weeks ago, I had given up using any other websites as what you offer is so perfect in every way and all your recipes a guaranteed success and so easy to follow. You really do deserve so much credit. Again, thank you. Pork chops next on my list. My attempts had always been such a disaster, I gave up a long time ago so will be a treat and I know, if your other recipes are anything to go by, they will most certainly be a success 😋
This review made our day! We are so happy that you found us and love our recipes! 🙂
I tried the Lemon Dill Chicken Breasts to cook Pork Chops. The recipe was perfect, however, I did add a halp teapoon of smoked paprika. Great. Thank you.
This was so simple and delicious! We served it with a side of roasted asparagus! Will definitely make again!
Asparagus would be delicious on the side. Glad you loved it 🙂
The marinade was so incredibly tasty that I ended up using it again for rock Cornish game hens. I totally forgot to cover the chicken breasts, but they were so plump that they were still moist when removed from the oven at about 40 minutes. I did use an oven thermometer and it read 170° at 40 minutes, so next time with the same size breasts (about 8 ounces each) I will check the temperature at 35 minutes. Thanks so much for the recipe!
You are very welcome! Glad you liked the recipe 🙂
Everything looks so good and fresh. Can’t wait to make the lemon chicken and cucumber salad!
Do you have the nutritional information calculated? Protein, Carbs, Fat?
Hi Lena, Great news! We just added nutritional information to this recipe. You can find it at the bottom of the recipe in the Notes section.
Hi Daniel, the measurements for the marinade are shared within the recipe on this page.
This was absolutely amazing. My boyfriend and I are doing really good with eating healthy and this was definitely right up our ally. We want to put this in our repertoire every week. He loved it too. Great recipe! (Five stars – please subscribe me to newsletter)
DELICIOUS!!!! I had to quadruple the recipe for my family size but it was soooo tasty and refreshing on a hot summer day!!
Will definitely make this again!!
And my son said it tasted “fancy!”
i am looking forward to making this tonight..I’ll let you know how it goes!
this was amazing it is going to be rotated into being one of our weekly dinners
Hi, there have done this recipe a couple of times and I love it – easy and very tasty. Brilliant recipe – only thing I have changed it that after quickly given the breast a great golden grill finish I finish it off in the oven, because I think the breast stay more moist that way. 15 min on 180C under cover. Had to this evening again – with +27C on my balcony 7pm – this dish was perfect again.
Looks good…always looking for new recipes.
looking forward to making this next week – any sweepstakes coming up soon?
Great Nancy. Yes, we do have a few. You should see them in the next week or so.
This was amazing! I drizzled a little bit of balsamic vinegar in the salad which turned out great!
This recipe definitely improves with age. I had the leftover a day or two later and it was better than the first day. Great for single people who have to eat leftovers.
Made this tonight and it was really light and delicious! Served with some grilled whole wheat pita brushed with olive oil. Will definitely make again!
Wonderful. Love your idea of grilled pita bread as a side.
This looks delicious and light yet satisfying! We might have to try this one.
This was excellent. I made this using a locally made sheep’s milk feta for the salad. As I made this for dinner one night during the recent heatwave I cooked the chicken on the grill outside. It came out wonderful and my family really enjoyed it. We will certianly be making this again during the summer.
What can be used instead of fresh dill? I live in a small town and can’t find it anywhere.
Basil, parsley or even cilantro work well.
I made this and it was great! I’m on a diet so I substituted the Feta with Tofu so I can only imagine how good the salad is with Feta. I purposely enough for left overs and cut up the chicken and threw it in with the salad and it made for a great lunch the next day.
this was good.
This looks so refreshing and like the perfect summer meal! Thanks for sharing!
This recipe looks awesome! So light and fresh for the summer. I especially like that the recipe calls for fresh dill!