Baked chicken is great for busy nights or when you have guests and don’t want to be spending the whole evening in the kitchen babysitting your meal. It’s also one of my shortest method recipes, because the oven does all the work on this one.
Starting with the chicken breast – thicker breasts work better here, with something at least 1 inch in thickness. A smaller/thinner piece will work too, but you will need to take it out of the oven sooner.

You’ll need to coat each side evenly with spices and herbs, or if you prefer, you can marinate your chicken for a few hours.

Place the chicken evenly in a baking dish large enough so that you do not have any overlap. If you’ve used a marinade, pour the rest of the liquid over the top of the chicken, making sure that at least half of the chicken remains unsubmerged. If you’ve used spices and/or herbs, mix 1 tablespoon of these with 1/4 cup of olive oil or melted butter and pour into the bottom of the tray.

Cooking at 200C (400F), place the chicken on the rack furthest away from the heat coil (for me this is the bottom shelf), and set a timer for 20 minutes. Turn your chicken breast over after the 20 minutes is up, and return it to the oven for 10-15 more minutes, depending on the thickness of your chicken.

When this time is up, remove from the oven and cover with tinfoil or a baking sheet for about 5 minutes – the point here is to trap the steam and heat in while the chicken rests, keeping the chicken juicy and tender. If you have a meat thermometer and want to check the doneness, it should be at 75C (165F) to be safe for consumption.

And there you have it, a delicious and quality meal ready to serve for dinner with barely any time actually spent in the kitchen.
Enjoyed this recipe? Check out our Perfect Pan-Seared Chicken method and keep you eye out for our next installment on cooking fried chicken two ways.