Honey Garlic Chicken is an epic 12 minute chicken breast recipe with a magic 5 ingredient Honey Garlic Sauce! This is a terrific back pocket quick dinner idea for busy nights that’s made with pantry staples. It’s quite amazing how so few ingredients can transform into such a tasty sauce for chicken!
BONUS: This can be made with any protein – beef, pork, lamb, shrimp/prawns, even tofu!
Honey Garlic Chicken Breast
This sauce for chicken breast is a variation of my Honey Garlic Salmon which has been popular with readers for many years.
If I were ever to do a summary of my top 5 Most Used Sauces, Honey Garlic Sauce would probably be right at the top of the list. I love it because it requires so few ingredients that are pantry staples, and when simmered with a seared protein in a skillet so it becomes all bubbly and syrupy…. oh WOW.
It’s just DA BOMB!!! ( <– Who talks like that at my age???! I do. Only in extenuating circumstances. Excitement over crazy delicious secret-weapon sauce falls under this category. 😎)
Terrific quick chicken breast recipe
Though I personally have a preference for chicken thighs over chicken breast (better flavour, juicier!), I find myself putting chicken breast in my shopping trolley week after week.
Thus over the years, I’ve built up a wide variety of quick and easy chicken breast recipes – and this Honey Garlic Chicken is one of my favourite quick dinners that I find myself making over and over again.
What you need
See? I told you that you’d have everything! 😉
How to make Honey Garlic Chicken Breast
Split chicken breast in half – so 2 breasts makes 4 pieces;
Dust chicken with flour (gives the chicken a slight crust so the sauce clings to it better!)
Sear chicken, add butter, garlic, vinegar, soy sauce, honey.
Simmer until the sauce thickens. Turn chicken to coat in the amazing honey garlic sauce.
And THAT’S IT!
Want to BBQ it? Use this Grilled Honey Soy Chicken recipe instead.
Notice how the sauce is clinging to the surface? That’s because we dusted the chicken with flour so when it’s pan fried, it creates a crust.
What to serve with Honey Garlic Chicken Breast
There’s enough sauce to drizzle over veggies and soak into rice or whatever you serve it with. The flavour is strong enough such that you don’t need loads – a bit goes a long way!
It’s pictured above with Cauliflower Rice (tossed with a squeeze of lemon, parsley, salt and pepper) with Cucumber Salad on the side.
Even though it’s got soy sauce in the Honey Garlic Sauce, this doesn’t taste specifically Asian-y. But it’s versatile enough that it will go just as well with Fried Rice as it will with a Macaroni Salad or even Mac and Cheese. Yes really! Try it once and you’ll understand (it only takes 12 minutes, you’ve got the time!!) – Nagi x
Honey Garlic Chicken breast recipe
WATCH HOW TO MAKE IT
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Honey Garlic Chicken Breast
Ingredients
- 500g / 1 lb chicken breast , boneless and skinless (2 pieces)
- Salt and pepper
- 1/4 cup flour (Note 1)
- 3 1/2 tbsp (50g) unsalted butter (or 2 1/2 tbsp olive oil)
- 2 garlic cloves , minced
- 1 1/2 tbsp apple cider vinegar (or white or other clear vinegar)
- 1 tbsp soy sauce , light or all purpose (Note 2)
- 1/3 cup honey (or maple syrup)
Instructions
- Cut the breasts in half horizontally to create 4 steaks in total. Sprinkle each side with salt and pepper.
- Place flour in a shallow dish. Coat chicken in flour and shake off excess.
- Melt most of the butter in a large skillet over high heat – hold back about 1 tsp for later.
- Place chicken in skillet and cook for 2 – 3 minutes until golden. Turn and cook the other side for 1 minute.
- Turn heat down slightly to medium high.
- Make a bit of room in the pan and add garlic and top with remaining dab of butter. Stir garlic briefly once butter melts.
- Add vinegar, soy sauce and honey. Stir / shake pan to combine. Bring sauce to simmer, then simmer for 1 minute or until slightly thickened.
- Turn chicken to coat in sauce. If the sauce gets too thick, add a touch of water and stir.
- Remove from stove immediately. Place chicken on plates and drizzle over remaining sauce.
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
Honey Garlic Chicken breast recipe originally published February 2018, it has since been improved with new photos and video but no change to recipe (I wouldn’t dare, readers love it as it is!).
More quick and easy chicken breast recipes
Life of Dozer
The fish down at the beach taunt Dozer endlessly, splashing around and leaping out of the water. Sometimes he’ll be in the water swimming non stop chasing fish for an hour! It’s brilliant – no effort required on my part!
Brilliant – An easy recipe to make, a hard one to beat. I will make this again. Thank you
Super quick and easy recipe! Tripled the garlic cloves though and cut the chicken into tenders. Recommend using Potato Starch for gluten free, this works best for crispy pieces.
Hi Nagi, I tried your Honey Garlic Chicken Breast recipe tonight and it was delicious. I will definitely add it to my repertoire of chicken dishes. I think the light dredging of the chicken breasts in flour really made the difference for me as they fried beautifully and were very tender. They cooked in no time due to cutting them in half. I served with cauliflower rice and broccoli/carrots. What a great dinner for a Thursday night 😆!
I just made this for dinner tonight, oh my goodness it was delicious! The ingredients are super simple, I didn’t have vinegar so I used rice vinegar and worked great. My toddler ate it up and she is super picky. Thank you! I’m definitely going to continue to cook this in the future!
I just made this tonight and omg it was absolutely delicious!! I usually don’t cook chicken breasts since it’s so thick and could become dry if not cooked just right. But this recipe was easy and took no time to cook. I will DEFINITELY make this again and again!!
Nagi, I found myself tonight with a package of chicken breasts in the fridge – not one of my favorite proteins to cook. Came to your website to see what you would do with them. This recipe looked simple enough and had very good reviews. Thank you so much for publishing a recipe that makes chicken breast a fast, easy and delicious protein that I will consider making over and over again!!
So good!!! For the books. Thank you
Considering the minimal ingredients and effort required to cook this, it punches well above its weight. I’ve made with halved chicken breasts and also, recently with turkey tenders. They were both delicious and grandson approved. This is important!
What a keeper! quick, easy and so delicious. Thanks
The recipe is so simple, but it’s literally explode in your mouth flavor. I like to do half maple syrup and half honey and its chef’s kiss. The sauce is addicting. Hard to believe it’s just honey/maple syrup, soy sauce, and garlic. Will make again and again. The flour on the chicken makes a big difference. Try not to skip that step.
So easy and very delicious
This has become a go to recipe in our house 💗
Really amazingly good receipe that comes together well with pantry items on hand! Definitely will be making again thank you for sharing!
So easy & super delicious! I cooked chicken tenderloins in Instapot for 6-min & natural released for 5-minutes, dredged in flour & then fried, added sauce ingredients, accidentally spilled in more like 1/2 cup soy sauce, still turned out great.
DA BOMB 😁😁
It really was Nagi!
So easy and tasty. I served it with your Paris mash yummy. 😋
Amazing flavor!! And so easy to make. I will definitely be adding this to my rotation.
This was very good. Had it along with Nagi’s buttery seasoned rice for dinner this evening. Even my husband, who has got to the point that he dislikes me trying something new (which I love to do) said it was good. So flavorful.
AMAZING
This was so delicious. It reminded me of General Tso chicken. Will definitely make this again.
This is so good. I used thighs and it was delicious!
I know anything from Nagi is going to be a slammer. This was so easy and was AMAZING! I used cornstarch to make gf and doubled the sauce as I had a lot of chicken. Will be added to the rotation. Thank YOU!!