This cilantro lime chicken simmers in a creamy flavor packed sauce and comes together in only 1 pan!
While I enjoy baking desserts the most (chocolate chip cookies > dinner), dinner is an everyday adventure. And if you’re like me, you’re constantly searching for quick and easy dinner recipes. Well, you’ve come to the right place today! This is my 1 pan creamy cilantro lime chicken, a consistent crowd-favorite!
Today I’m going to show you that one skillet is all it takes to transform chicken into something you and your fam will love. The process is a lot like my skillet apple cider chicken and this creamy lemon thyme chicken. The chicken is cooked on the stove and finished off in the oven with a flavorful southwestern-inspired cilantro lime pan sauce:
- creamy
- buttery
- slightly caramelized onions
- cilantro
- a little spice
- zesty lime
This meal reminds me of my days waitressing at Chilis! Good times. It also has me craving margaritas on the rocks, a mountain of chips and guacamole, and key lime pie for dessert. (In favor of trying to keep meals healthy and my shorts fitting, I settled for water and a side of asparagus.)
How to Make Cilantro Lime Chicken
The process is the same as my lemon thyme chicken and creamy garlic chicken and vegetables, so if you’ve made either of those before you know how easy it is! The first thing to do is grab skinless boneless chicken breasts. You can use bone-in chicken thighs instead if that’s easier. Cook the chicken in the skillet until both sides are browned and crisp—the chicken will cook again in the oven so if the centers aren’t cooked all the way through just yet, it’s ok. Remove the chicken for the time being.
Now, using the same skillet, make the pan sauce with the smorgasbord of tasty things mentioned above.
For the sauce’s liquids, you’ll use chicken broth and cream. Now, you’ll only need a little cream (3 Tablespoons for the whole recipe—that’s it!). Just the right amount to add richness to the sauce. You can use whole milk instead if that’s easier. Boil the pan sauce until it has reduced and thickened.
The sauce is easily the best part of this dish. And that makes sense because without it this would just be cooked chicken. So yeah. You’ll be spooning licking up the sauce from your plate. Whatever. It’s really good sauce.
Next step? Add the chicken back to the skillet and bake everything in the oven until the chicken is cooked through. Add extra cilantro (flavor! flavor!), another squeeze of lime, and that’s IT. Serve with veggies and smother them with the extra sauce. Have a batch of dinner rolls to soak up any extra, too! ♥
About 40 minutes start to finish. We both LOVED this meal.
More Favorite Dinner Recipes
- Homemade Macaroni and Cheese
- Walnut Crusted Chicken
- Honey Garlic Shrimp (only 20 minutes!)
- Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup
- Peanut Chicken Zucchini Noodles
- Chicken Meatballs
- Zucchini Fritters or Corn Fritters
Skillet Chicken with Cilantro Lime Sauce
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 40 minutes
- Yield: serves 4
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Cooking
- Cuisine: American
Description
This cilantro lime chicken simmers in a creamy flavor packed sauce and comes together in only 1 pan!
Ingredients
- 4 skinless boneless chicken breasts
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil
- 1 cup chicken broth (I recommend reduced sodium)
- 1 Tablespoon fresh lime juice (I use closer to 1.5 Tbsp)
- 1/4 cup finely chopped onion
- 1 Tablespoon chopped cilantro
- 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes*
- 3 Tablespoons heavy cream*
- 2 Tablespoons (28g) unsalted butter, cubed
- optional: lime wedges and more cilantro for garnish, steamed asparagus for serving
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°F (190°C).
- If the chicken breasts are uneven in thickness, pound them down so they’re all even. This way all the breasts will cook through simultaneously. Sprinkle each with salt and pepper.
- In a large ovenproof skillet, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the chicken and cook for 6-7 minutes, turning once. You want the chicken nice and browned on the outside. (It doesn’t have to be cooked all the way through yet.) Set chicken on a plate and cover tightly with foil until step 5.
- Remove skillet from heat and add the broth, lime juice, onion, cilantro, and red pepper. Return to heat. Cook and stir to scrape up the browned bits from the bottom of the skillet. Bring to a boil. Allow to boil gently, uncovered, for 10 minutes or until the liquid is reduced to around 1/4 cup. (During this time you can steam some veggies to have on the side, like asparagus.) Reduce heat to medium-low, then add the cream and butter. Stir until butter has melted.
- Add chicken to the sauce and place the skillet in the preheated oven. Bake uncovered until the chicken is completely cooked through, about 5-10 minutes.
- Serve chicken with sauce spooned on top and any of the listed optional garnishes. Leftovers keep well in the refrigerator for a few days. Reheat to your liking.
Notes
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Large Oven-Proof Skillet | Tongs
- Red Pepper Flakes: Adjust the amount of red pepper flakes to your liking. This amount made the chicken mildly spicy. The cream in the sauce mellows out the spice.
- Heavy Cream: You can use whole milk instead, but for the thickest, richest sauce I highly recommend heavy cream. If using whole milk, make sure it is at room temperature to help prevent curdling.
- Nutrition Information: Using SparkRecipes calculator, this gluten free chicken dish comes out to about 300 calories, 14g fat, 2g carbs, and 33g protein per serving. That includes all the extra sauce too! If your chicken breasts are smaller than 6 ounces each (about what mine were), these numbers will be lower.
Keywords: cilantro lime chicken
This recipe was outstanding. I used milk with a little cornstarch to make it creamy, also baked the chicken a little longer. My husband absolutely loved it!!
I’m not sure what I did wrong with the sauce. It had good flavor but it wasn’t creamy at all and way too thin to do anything to the chicken when poured over. It just ran onto plate. I can’t decide whether I will try it again to see if get better result or not.
This recipe was so delicious! I did sprinkle garlic powder along with the salt and pepper on the chicken and I also used extra cilantro. This will definitely be going in our dinner rotation. Thank you so much!
This was a wonderful recipe, I did add more cilantro, and after taking the chicken out of the pan I sautéed the onions first in some olive oil in the pan and then added everything else in. My husband LOVED it.
I am so excited to try this tonight! I am doubling the sauce recipe and trying it out in my crockpot since I don’t have a lot of time to make dinner tonight. I do plan on having us grill the chicken in a skillet while cooking the asparagus, though. It’ll just be pre-cooked and hopefully will have absorbed all of the yummy sauce flavor while cooking, too.
This is delicious! Made this last night, and we loved it! Definitely making this again!
Made this tonight! Pureed the finished sauce in the vitamix and poured onto the chicken! Was absolutely delicious. Thanks for the recipe!
Love this recipe. This is my 2nd time making it but for a family of 6. I moderately increased the proportions. I cant wait until its finished. This time im using chicken thighs with the bone. And with pasta. The 1st time i made it, i used the boneless chicken breast like it said and served it with cauliflower pureed and spinach.
Made this for the 3rd time for dinner tonight and it’s so stinking good!!!!
Made this tonight and served it over baby spinach, was delicious! Though I cut down on the red pepper cause I can’t handle spicy food, was still a bit too hot for me but the hubby loved it 😀
I made this tonight for my family, was devoured
Making this tonight, but quick question: do you cover the skillet when you place in the oven to bake?
I always bake it uncovered.
Dear Sally,
Thank you for sharing this awesome recipe. I made this today but I added fresh garlic as an extra ingredients and that gave your recipe more flavor. My family love it. Definitely I will made this again.
I have to say I have never wanted to write a review about something I’ve made before. But this one I just had too!!
It was absolutely amazing!!!
I did how ever read the review from others and def added more spice to it we like our food way spicey. Added way more of everything to it. So it was packed with flavor.
I also didn’t serve with veggies , I made jasmine rice and smothered it with the sauce which was also amazing!
I cannot wait to make this again!
Thanks for sharing!!
This was an amazing dinner!! The sauce is so delicious and ingredients so simple! Perfect amount of heat. This be part of my regular collection of dinners! Thank you!!!
I made this today for dinner. I used other seasoning besides salt and pepper on my chicken. It turned out good to my liking. Just wanted to try something different.
My daughters ask for this for dinner all the time! Thanks for the recipe!
I made this tonight and we loved it! It was so easy to make and we already had almost all of the ingredients in the fridge already. I’m definitely making this again.
I made this last week and we loved it.
I made this tonight and was somewhat disappointed. Despite the red pepper flakes and onions and cilantro, this chicken was pretty bland. Hubby and I both thought the chicken was moist but lacked depth of flavor. It did “grow on us” and we agreed it was good, but not good enough to make again. I say this only because I always read the reviews before making a blogger recipe and feel it’s only fair that others know this dish does not have a lot of flavor.
Just made this. I used boneless skinless chicken thighs instead and it turned out awesome!! I served mine with basmati rice and it was great. I’m glad I found this one. Will be using it a lot with different sides! Thanks 🙂
Chicken is not my favorite to cook but this dish is THE BEST. I’ve cooked it once a week since finding this recipe. The sauce is divine. And it’s soooo easy!! Thank you thank you for this recipe!!!!
I made his tonight-yum!! Had to do a few substitutions because I didn’t have heavy cream-whole milk & some cream cheese, & salsa, and served with roasted baby new potatoes. The potatoes were even better in the sauce! The whole family loved this one!
I made this for dinner last night. I did add a clove of garlic minced to the onions and cilantro mix, and doubles the sauce as others suggested. I used heavy cream, but the sauce never really got thick, so I made a slurry with equal parts cornstarch and chicken stock and added it until desired consistency. My husband and step sons enjoyed it, everyone had seconds. I’ll make this again.
Made this for dinner tonight and was pretty disappointed especially after all the amazing reviews. I opted to use whole milk to help cut some of the useless calories but it never really made it the creamy consistency. I also added the cilantro when your recipe called for which made it dark and murky and based on your pictures it looks like you added it into the sauce fresh at the end. Might try it again with the heavy cream and only adding the fresh cilantro at the end.
Great flavor! My whole family had a second plate full!
This is soooo good even my picky eaters love it. I paired with thin spaghetti and tossed all together. It was a huge hit! Thanks again
Man, oh man. Let me tell you: this recipe is sooooo good that after my girls ate (8 & 4) they went straight to sleep. They were so happy and full, I actually got to catch up on my DVR shows in peace!! It was amazing! I made it with baked potatoes, veggies and honey butter biscuits. I will definitely be making this again 🙂 Thank you!!
I made this dinner the other night. Absolutely fantastic!
I just found your website while looking for Christmas cookie recipes. I made MANY of your cookie recipes, and all were a huge hit with my family, especially snickerdoodles and Nutella chocolate chip cookies. Sally, you are now my go-to site for recipes! Thanks for sharing such wonderful recipes with us.
I made this tonight for my boyfriend and I. Followed the recipe exactly using my Dutch oven, although I added about half an onion. Made garlic mashed potatoes and Brussel sprouts as my sides, with the cilantro cream sauce drizzled over top. So good!!!! My boyfriend was addicted to the sauce…he kept asking my what the secret ingredient was. This dish was easy, came together in 30 minutes, and didn’t disappoint. Thank you so much for this recipe, it’s a keeper!