Simple yet tasty dinner ideas are a lifesaver on busy weeknights. Luckily, thyme, lemon, and garlic create a delicious balance in flavors to making chicken taste too good to be true.

Our Thyme Lemon Garlic Chicken recipe is a great go-to dinner idea for those busy weeknights where you just want something flavorful and filling yet healthy and whole. It just takes 6 simple ingredients! Chicken and herbs, you really can’t go wrong with a combo like that.

It’s a simple recipe for an aromatic and flavorful chicken dish, emphasizing the fresh and aromatic earthiness of thyme, the zing of lemons, and the boldness of garlic.

Just 6 simple ingredients and you’ve got yourself a main dish. Add some rice, pasta, a veggie dish or a salad and you’ve got yourself a balanced and wholesome dinner.

6 simple ingredients

Recipe Notes

TOTAL TIME: About 30 minutes.

SERVES: 4

EQUIPMENT: A good sauce pan

Ingredients

Chicken thighs (boneless)
Thyme
Lemon (meyer preferred, for their juice to acid ratio, i.e., less abrasive juiciness)
Garlic
Wine (white or rice)
Butter
Oil
Salt & Pepper

Instructions

Turn stove onto medium-high heat.
Drizzle just a dab of oil on sauce pan, add thyme, and add butter and let butter melt until you see some sizzling going on.
Place in the chicken thighs and let cook for 15 minutes. This is when your thighs get their golden brown finish, so resist the urge to flip over.
Flip chicken and continue to cook for another 10-15 minutes, or until firm and cooked inside
Once chicken is cooked inside and nicely golden brown, place aside in a serving dish
Go back to the sauce pan and splash in the wine. You can measure, but I just splash — enough to coat the bottom of the pan. Scrape up the chicken goodness in the pan as the alcohol evaporates
Turn down heat to medium and squeeze in lemon and add in garlic. Let simmer for another 5 minutes.
Stir together and add salt and pepper to taste – I like mine a little saltier, paired wih the lemoniness for an extra zing.
Pour sauce over plated chicken

Kitchen Notes

Garlic – I add in the garlic towards the end it could burn if left in for too long, and would create a bitter taste to the sauce – great if you like a little burnt flavor though!
Wine – White or rice (shout out to all the Taiwanese kitchens who always have a bottle of rice wine sitting in their kitchen cabinets!) is fine. I usually only use white wine if there’s been an unfinished bottle in the fridge that’s passed its prime for drinking —- why waste it down the drain???? Keep it for cooking for weeks on after!
Lemon – I prefer to cook with meyer lemons for their juiciness to sour ratio — in that they are more juicy and less acidic, so are great for making sauces, especially with chicken. But any lemon will do. Just keep in mind the acidity levels and modify based on your liking.

What's your juiciness-to-sour ratio?

Goes Great With...

Steam some rice, boil some pasta, or bake or mash a potato, and cook up some veggies or a salad to make this a complete and balanced healthy dinner. Better yet, combine this with some Roasted Root Vegetables (recipe) for both veggies and starch in one simple baking sheet.

Or pair this with soup. Try our Miso Pumpkin (recipe) for a clean and healthy soup starter, or go bold with the Tom Kha (Lemongrass Coconut) (recipe), or mix it up with a classic Hot & Sour Soup (recipe).

If you like chicken and herbs, try our Meyer Lemon Rosemary Chicken Rosemary (recipe). It’s even more aromatic than this recipe, thanks to the powerful aroma of rosemary.

Enjoy!