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We’re always looking for new ways to make chicken breast, and this Garlic Butter Chicken Bites recipe was a super simple to make boring old chicken breasts taste fresh and delicious!
At Lake Geneva Country Meats, we sell jumbo sized chicken breasts that are usually around 1.75 – 2.25 pounds each. Those are some big breasts! They’re great to feed an entire family and have a great flavor, but they take a while to cook. When you’re looking to get dinner on the table in a hurry, it’s necessary to take some steps to get the chicken to cook faster than leaving them whole.
One of the easiest ways to get the chicken to cook faster is to cut it into bite sized pieces and cook them. Plus, by cutting it up, there’s an additional benefit of being able to get seasoning on more surface area of chicken. It’s a win win! This cooking method would also work with any of our pre-marinated chicken breast flavors – just skip the seasoning parts and follow the cooking instructions.
My family really enjoyed the flavors in this recipe (Mom, Dad, and 2-year old), as the meat was well seasoned but not overly garlick-y or buttery. Just the perfect amount of rich and savory flavor balanced out by a touch of bright lemon juice. We’ll be adding this recipe to our rotation of chicken recipes for sure!
Check out the answers to a few questions you may have about this recipe or just keep scrolling to see the recipe.
After cutting up your chicken breast, we add the cubed chicken to a glass baking dish and add the following ingredients:
You can use your own favorite garlic salt or Italian seasoning mix instead of the mix we have laid out above to same time, but most people have the ingredients at home, and we thought the seasoning blend was spot on!
While we thought this worked great in our trusty 13″ x 9″ Pyrex glass baking dish, you could also make this recipe on a sheet pan. The glass baking dish allowed the lemon juice, oil, and butter to pool during cooking and then be scooped up as a sauce, which was awesome.
However, if you use a sheet pan, you can also add vegetables to the sheet pan and roast them at the same time as the chicken, which is a nice bonus. You can also hit the chicken with a bit of broiler to crisp up the top a bit more if you use a sheet pan instead of a glass baking dish – it’s up to you, either way works!
If you like the idea of a sheet pan chicken and vegetable dinner, check out our Sheet Pan Italian Chicken and Potatoes recipe!
There are two ways that we thought you could put a bit of a twist on this recipe depending on your taste, and we’re sure there are other ideas as well – let us know if you made any by leaving a comment. Here are our thoughts:
We had a really delicious meal of rice with roasted carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower with our garlic butter chicken bites, but if I had my way (and didn’t cave to the two year old), I would have served this with a parmesan risotto instead! You can put the chicken over any type of rice, noodle, or risotto and they will taste delicious. Having something for the extra “sauce” to seep into is key. A little garlic bread on the side wouldn’t be a bad idea either!
We really enjoyed the flavors of the roasted vegetables with the garlic butter chicken bites. We tossed the vegetables in olive oil and lemon juice then seasoned with salt and pepper and roasted them on a sheet pan while the chicken was in the oven. It worked out perfectly!
Yes, this is a great recipe to cook and freeze for meal prep! If you’re going to make these ahead, we’d recommend doubling this recipe to make a bigger batch. The chicken will still fit in the same size baking pan, and you’ll have plenty of chicken to portion out. Once it’s done cooking, portion the chicken into serving sizes and add to individual containers. Seal them up and freeze. They’ll be good to use for the next month. You can defrost them and use for recipes like the ones below!
If you have leftovers (or meal prepped like we recommended above), here are some ideas on how you can use the chicken:
There are plenty of ways to use this chicken – let us know what you come up with!
We hope that answers all of your questions. If you have more questions, or if you have feedback on the recipe, please leave us a comment below – we appreciate it. Enjoy!
Add the cubed chicken to a mixing bowl and then add all ingredients except the butter. Toss to combine and make sure chicken is evenly coated. Add the chicken to an oven safe 9″ x 13″ glass baking dish and add the pieces of butter on top of the chicken, evenly spaced out. Place into an oven preheated to 375ºF and bake for about 20 minutes, until the chicken reaches 165ºF, stirring the chicken halfway through for even cooking.
Once the chicken reaches 165ºF, remove from oven and serve over rice with roasted vegetables. Enjoy!
