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A simple one skillet chicken recipe with fiesta cream sauce. What’s fiesta cream sauce you ask? It’s the most delicious cream sauce made with cilantro, lime, a hint of cumin, garlic, and jalapeños! SO good!
Am I becoming the one skillet chicken lady or what?
We’ll get to that in just a second. How was your weekend friends? Did you do anything special? The hubby and I had a MAJOR sushi craving this week that we finally were able to satisfy, well kinda. If you live in Houston, give Oishii a try. I literally stuffed my face with the yummiest stuff ever for lunch and was still craving sushi for dinner. It’s not that it wasn’t satisfying, it’s that it was sooooo good I wanted more. Kinda like this tasty chicken recipe topped with a fiesta cream sauce.
What the what sauce? FIESTA CREAM SAUCE. A sauce loaded with all the flavors, like cilantro, lime, cumin, garlic, red pepper flakes, and a hint of minced jalapeños. It’s been a while since I’ve cranked out one of my skillet chicken recipes and so here is one with a super tasty, Cinco de Mayo inspired recipe. Yes, I know, the 5th of May was last week. You guys. This recipe is a winner. You know how the saying goes. A simple 30-minute recipes that uses pantry staples and can be served with pasta, rice, quinoa, bread, farro, grilled veggies or even a salad! We’ve got another week of rain here and this is the epitome of good comfort food.
One of my most popular recipes to date on the site, is this one right here. And so I thought, why not do a few different spin on it so we can enjoy it every week with a new flair? You likey?
I am a big, let me say it again, BIG fan of easy chicken dinners that take around 30 minutes to make from start to finish. These recipes are especially handy when you’re like me — suffering from a pre-summer, head spinning cold. I’ve sneezed so many times that i’m surprised my brain hasn’t popped out through my nose yet. ?
There is something to be said about the fiesta cream sauce aka jalapeño cream sauce aka cilantro lime cream sauce. Clearly the inspiration for this recipe was the lemon garlic cream sauce but with a more south of the border feel to the whole recipe. This skillet chicken recipe is perfect for those nights when you finish work late or in my case are as sick as can be and still want a healthy and nutritious meal and NO TAKE OUT.
I can feel the cold meds kicking in now so I’ll leave you with this — this is the simplest one skillet chicken recipe ever.
You want this, you really really do.
One Skillet Chicken with Fiesta Cream Sauce
Ingredients
- 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts or thighs
- salt and pepper
- 1 cup chicken broth
- 2 tablespoons lime juice
- 1 tablespoon EACH: olive oil AND minced garlic
- ⅛ teaspoon cumin powder
- ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes or more to taste
- ⅓ cup finely diced yellow onions
- 2 tablespoons EACH: minced jalapeños butter, AND chopped cilantro
- ¼ cup heavy cream
Instructions
- Using a mallet, pound down the chicken breasts/thighs into ½ inch thickness. Sprinkle a pinch of salt and pepper on both sides of the chicken.
- In a 2 cup measuring cup or a small bowl, combine the chicken broth, lime juice, garlic, cumin and red pepper flakes.
- Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 375ºF.
- Heat the olive oil in a large oven-safe skillet over medium high heat. Add the chicken and allow to brown on both sides for 2-3 minutes per side. Don't worry if the chicken isn't cooked completely, we'll finish it in the oven. Remove the chicken to a plate.
- Reduce the flame to medium, add the diced onions to the skillet along with the chicken broth mixture. Using a whisk, scrape the bottom of the pan so all the brown bits are loosened. Let sauce reduce for about 9-12 minutes or until about ⅓ cup of the sauce remains. Add the minced jalapeños and stir to combine.
- When the sauce has reduced, remove from the flame, add the butter and whisk until it melts completely. With the skillet off the flame, add the heavy cream, whisk to combine. Place the skillet back over the flame for just 30 seconds, DO NOT allow the sauce to boil. Remove from heat, add the chicken back into the pan and drizzle the sauce over the chicken. Place the skillet in the oven for 5-8 minutes or until the chicken is completely cooked through. Top with chopped cilantro and serve warm with additional lime wedges.
Notes
- Use boneless skinless chicken breasts/thighs that about the same thickness. I pounded mine down to about ½ inch.
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*Please note: the nutritional facts calculated are an estimate based on the ingredients i’ve used. If you’d like a more accurate count, please calculate them using the ingredients/brands you’ve used to prepare the recipe. The nutritional facts provided is for ¼ of the recipe, assuming you use a total of 1 1/2lb. boneless, skinless chicken total.
Made this tonight for my family and it was DELICIOUS!!!! We substituted green chiles for the jalapeño. So yummy!!! Thank you!
There was a while where I would make this like twice a week with cooked rice and stir-fried onions and peppers. In place of the heavy cream, I would use a spoonful of plain greek yogurt and it worked great every time. I think I used red onion or shallot in place of the yellow onion.
This was SOOOOOO good! I am not a fan of cilantro, but it is vital to this recipe and turns a very good sauce into a spectacular sauce. I could barely stop eating. My sister made it and added 1/4 cup cream cheese to the sauce after it had reduced. Beautiful. It is really good with rice, but I think I’ll try it with oven roasted cauliflower next time to see how that goes. Thank-you for sharing – this is my new favourite.
While this recipe was delicious, it definitely takes more time than 10 minutes to prep, I’m 45 min in with chicken still going.
If you add shrimp to this how would you season and cook it? Just salt and pepper as well?
Made last night as a low carb/high fat carb cycle day over a bed of spinach sautéed in the sauce!! So dang good!!
Okay – am I going blind? Instructions say to “add the butter” once the sauce is reduced but no butter in the ingredients??? Help! Making this NOW!
2 tablespoons of butter is what you need, it’s listed with the jalapeños and chopped cilantro!
Absolutely delicious!! Doubled the sauce, made corn on the cob and coated it in the sauce. The whole family loved it!!
Happy to hear it was a hit, Aly!
Made this tonight…hubby loved it. Next time will double the sauce! Really great! Will be one of my go to recipes because it is easy, fast and delicious!
This recipe is amazing! I made it so I can bring it to work. It was so good, my wife ate some and she is a very picky eater. It was very simple to make with min ingredients. Highly recommend!
I made this recipe after a long day and it made me so happy! Even though I didn’t pound out the chicken, it turned out so good! (It just a but longer in the oven.) Thank you!