The Best Cast Iron Chicken Breast

This French-style cast iron chicken breast recipe is incredibly easy to make & delivers tender, juicy & crispy-skin chicken. The chicken breasts are cooked in a cast iron skillet in the oven until golden and delicious. Pair this easy dinner with your favorite sides for a complete meal.

This juicy and easy-to-make cast iron chicken is a game changer for how to cook chicken breasts. This French style of cooking chicken is my favorite way to make them because the chicken comes out so juicy and so delicious.

This recipe starts with skin on chicken breasts that are pan-seared skin side down on the stovetop and then finished off in the oven for the crispiest skin.

Unlike a roasted chicken, this recipe only takes about 30 minutes to make which is my kind of recipe.

If you do not have skin on your chicken breasts, I have included instructions below on how to make this. I do hope this recipe gets you to start buying skin-on chicken breasts when you see that delicious crispy skin!

Ingredients needed

This recipe is for skin-on chicken breasts. If you are not familiar with this, you can always find bone-in chicken breasts (also called split chicken breasts) which always have the skin on them, and just cut the meat off the bone when you get home.

Here is what you will need:

1. Skin on boneless chicken breasts. Or bone in chicken breasts and you cut the meat off the bone yourself.
2. Kosher salt and pepper
3. Chicken stock (for pan gravy)
4. Fresh herbs. I prefer using fresh oregano and fresh sage. You can also use fresh rosemary and thyme.
5. Unsalted butter
6. Vegetable oil. You need vegetable oil for this recipe since vegetable oil has a high smoking point that can hold up to the high heat of cast iron.

That is it. This chicken has a delicious pan gravy that is made at the end so there are a couple of added ingredients in the list to do this.

I highly recommend you do not skip this step because there will be so much delicious flavor at the bottom of the pan when the chicken is done cooking.

How to cook skin-on chicken breasts in cast iron

Pre-heating the cast iron pan

1. Preheat the cast iron pan in a hot 400-degree oven for 10 minutes.

When working with cast iron, is one of the most amazing materials for conducting heat evenly. The only caveat is that cast iron is very slow to heat up.

You always want to pre-heat cast iron in the oven for about 10 minutes to ensure the entire cast iron pan is evenly heated through.

Cooking the chicken

2. Carefully remove the pan from the oven and place on the stovetop over medium heat.
3. Add vegetable oil to the pan. The oil will immediately glide across the hot pan.
4. Place the chicken skin side down in the hot oil and allow the chicken to sear for about 6-7 minutes to crisp up the skin nicely.
5. After the skin has crisped up, flip it over, so it is skin side up, add the fresh herbs and butter to the pan, and finish cooking it in the oven.

That is all there is to it! The cooking time in the oven is only 10 minutes with another 5 minutes of resting when the chicken comes out of the oven.

The Best Sides To Serve With This

There are so many great side dishes that you can serve with this simple pan-seared chicken. Because there is a pan gravy made at the end, I like to serve side dishes that soak up the juices really well.

Here are some of my favorites.

• Roasted cauliflower and potatoes
• Roasted potatoes and broccoli
• Green Beans with Tomatoes
• Yogurt biscuits
• Yukon gold mashed potatoes
• Southern Green Beans
• or you can browse more side dish recipes.

More Cast Iron Recipes

• Cast Iron Oven Baked Salmon
• Italian Baked Meatballs
• Juicy Boneless Pork Chops
• Pan Seared New York Strips