Brown Sugar Italian Chicken
Tender and juicy chicken breasts are baked in brown sugar and Italian seasonings to create a tasty glaze once cooked. It’s a sweet-and-savory dinner takes only three ingredients and three steps to make and is perfect for a busy weeknight.
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Table of Contents
About Brown Sugar Italian Chicken
When you’re cooking for other people, you have to face an inevitable truth:
You’re going to run into conflicts over what someone does or doesn’t like to eat.
And because it’s just not possible to please everyone all the time, sometimes you make compromises. In my house, “compromise” means I have to balance my need for flavorful food (not spiciness, but just lots of taste) with an old friend of mine’s preference to keep everything bland.
Well, okay, I call it “bland,” but he’ll say he “just likes the flavor of the food.” He doesn’t need a ton of herbs and spices because he simply likes the taste of chicken (or fish or steak or whatever meat that we’re cooking).
All of this means that I can’t get too crazy with my idea of taste, like all the elaborate spices or sauces or whatever else I would normally add to my cooking if I were the only one eating it.
And this, my friends, is what brings me to today’s recipe, because it was one of those rare moments when we found a dish we both not only liked, but loved.
Plus, bonus points are awarded to this recipe because it’s ridiculously easy to make, seeing as it only takes three ingredients!
How do you make brown sugar Italian chicken?
As mentioned above, this recipe only requires three ingredients to make:
- Italian dressing mix
- Brown sugar
- Chicken breasts
And as for preparation, you only need five minutes to complete these three steps:
- Mix the Italian dressing mix and brown sugar.
- Coat the chicken breasts in the mixed seasonings
- Bake!
How do you bake chicken?
In order for your chicken breasts to bake tender and juicy, the key is to cook the chicken for a short amount of time at a high temperature.
For example, if a recipe states to cook chicken breasts for more than 40 minutes at 350 degrees F, you’ll likely end up with a dry meat.
In most cases, when baking chicken in a dish, you want to cook it around 450 degrees F for about 20-25 minutes. This should yield a perfectly cooked chicken breast every time.
What do you serve with brown sugar Italian chicken?
When it comes to great side dishes for chicken, you can almost never go wrong with simple veggies, rice, or salad. Below are a few of my favorite options.
- 10 Minute Egg Fried Rice
- Garlic Parmesan Broccoli
- Maple Brussels Sprouts with Bacon
- Cheesy Herb Stuffing
- Waldorf Salad
- Buttermilk Cornbread
- Creamy White Mac and Cheese
More great chicken recipes
This recipe was originally published on September 11th, 2014. It was updated on August 31st, 2016 and February 8th, 2018.
Brown Sugar Italian Chicken
Ingredients
- 2-3 pound chicken breast
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
- Spray a large
9x13 baking dish (9x13 or comparable size) withcooking spray . Set nearby. - In a
large bowl , add brown sugar and dry Italian dressing mix andwhisk together until thoroughly combined. Set nearby. - Prepare the chicken for cooking, such as rinsing with or cutting off excess fat. Dip chicken in sweet Italian seasoning until both sides are coated, then place in prepared baking dish. Once all of the chicken is in the dish, pour any remaining seasoning on top of the chicken.
- Bake chicken, uncovered, for 20 minutes or until chicken is opaque and no longer pink in the middle.
- Serve chicken immediately.
Nutrition
I do my best to provide nutrition information, but please keep in mind that I'm not a certified nutritionist. Any nutritional information discussed or disclosed in this post should only be seen as my best amateur estimates of the correct values.
