55 Healthy Chicken Recipes To Keep in Your Back Pocket

When you need a family-friendly meal idea, chicken is always a winner. It’s incredibly versatile and pairs perfectly with just about any seasoning or spice blend. Plus, you can prep it advance and use it in a variety of ways: salads, grain bowls, tacos and more. Is there anything chicken can’t do? It should come as no surprise then, that chicken is a great choice when you want to put a healthy meal on the table, too.

There are lots of ways to use this powerhouse protein (you'll find all our best healthy chicken breast recipes and chicken thigh recipes here) but we can’t get enough of these homemade chicken fingers. The store-bought version is often loaded with all kinds of can’t-pronounce ingredients. This better-for-you take relies on simple ingredients — and is still freezer-friendly, making healthy eating that much easier.

Boneless, skinless chicken breasts are perfect for rounding out a healthy meal but can easily overcook or end up slightly pale. To solve these issues, we press the chicken breasts under a foil-wrapped cast-iron skillet (or brick) which allows them to cook evenly and achieve a beautiful, deep golden-brown brown exterior that’s difficult to get without the skin. Serve with a simple pan sauce and a dilly bean salad for the win.

This healthy and easy spin on Buffalo chicken brings all the flavor but is lower in sodium and fat than the original. We start by using chicken breasts instead of wings and combine them with sweet, shredded carrots and store-bought Buffalo sauce in a slow cooker. Once cooked through, the chicken gets shredded and some of the cooked carrots are blended with protein-rich cottage cheese to create a sauce that has a cooling creaminess that’s always welcome with Buffalo spice. Toss everything together and it’s delicious on its own, but to make it a complete meal we serve it over a tender baked potato and load it with celery and a dollop of yogurt. This recipe makes a generous eight portions, perfect for a crowd or easy to store and reheat later in the week.

This French-style classic is rich with Bobby’s creamy, wine-tomato-and-mushroom sauce. Perfect for a night in.

This skillet chicken and basmati rice dish is anything but plain and humble. A homemade seasoning mix, preserved lemon and spiced and pan-seared chicken breasts give the dish bold flavor that’s hard to resist. It’s quick enough to make as a delicious weeknight dinner but tasty enough for entertaining or a special-occasion meal.

Poaching chicken thighs in coconut milk with lots of aromatic ingredients imparts lots of flavor and keeps the chicken super juicy. For a well-balanced meal, we serve it with fluffy whole-grain quinoa and tender broccolini which add a lovely textural contrast. Fresh herbs and toasted sesame seeds are the perfect finishing touches to this healthy dinner.

The simple Chinese American stir-fry of sliced chicken (gai pan in Cantonese) and mushrooms (mo gu in Cantonese) has been popular almost as long as there have been Chinese restaurants stateside. Versions of the dish vary, but most offer a supporting cast of veggies that often include snow peas, sugar snap peas, sliced carrots, water chestnuts and bamboo shoots to name a few. Our recipe puts an emphasis on a satisfying amount of vegetables and features a flavorful sauce that’s lighter than some but still gets extra depth and umami from oyster sauce. As with most restaurant versions of the dish, we use velveting, a process that briefly marinates chicken strips in cornstarch to preserve their juices during stir-frying. The result is chicken that stays moist and irresistibly tender even as the high heat deliciously browns the outside.

Don’t know what to do with your canned chickpeas? They’re the perfect ingredient for bulking up this chicken curry.

Eddie's gorgeous lemony chicken pasta feels like spring with the addition of green peas, spinach and snap peas, plus fresh parsley and basil.

This pickle-spiked chicken salad is far from bland. After mixing the shredded chicken with dill pickles, orzo and herbs, the salad comes together with a yogurt sauce flavored with garlic and red wine vinegar. The best thing? It keeps well in the fridge for a few days so you can enjoy it throughout the week.

Having an arsenal of foolproof recipes you can effortlessly whip up in minutes is key to eating healthfully even on the busiest days. Here, Tex-Mex flavors meet Indian in a chicken fajita naan pizza that's easy to make. Throw it in the oven and in less than 15 minutes you'll be sitting down to a tasty meal.

The chicken and broccoli you find at your favorite Chinese restaurant is usually covered in an intensely flavored brown sauce often based on oyster and soy sauces. This recipe showcases a milder but equally delicious Chinese white sauce that might be familiar to you from dishes like shrimp in lobster sauce. It’s clear and savory, thickened with a cornstarch slurry. This recipe also highlights the traditional Chinese technique of “velveting,” a marinating process that coats proteins to tenderize, lock in the juices and promote browning. We tested a variety of velveting processes that use egg, egg white and even just water. Our conclusion? Chicken covered in salt and water (similar to brining) then coated with cornstarch produced the best texture. We also eliminated the common step of boiling or deep-frying the chicken before stir-frying; a quick sear in the wok produced tender results. If velveting seems daunting, don’t let it be; it’s essentially a marinating process and takes just a few minutes of work and 30 minutes of hands-off time. And it’s worth it: Your velveted chicken will be juicy and tender with tons of savory flavor.

These blended burgers give you the best of both worlds: All the protein and meaty flavor of a chicken burger along with the moisture, fiber and plant-based nutrients of the tastiest veggie burger. We combine lean ground chicken with ingredients like barley, broccoli and black beans for a juicy patty that has 7 grams of fiber (a conventional meat burger contains none at all), while adding a whole-grain bun and veggie garnishes brings it up to 13 grams. Plus, these healthy burgers give you 23 grams of protein while keeping the amount of saturated fat low. Not only are they nutritious and delicious, but layer on the classic burger fixings (plus avocado!) and you’ve got a tall burger that’s as picture-perfect as it is mouthwatering.

An easy way to incorporate more greens into your diet? Mix tender baby spinach with salty feta cheese and stuff it inside lean chicken breast before cooking.

Recipe developer Rick Martinez says, “In Mexico, dishes can be interpreted in so many different ways depending on your sazón (personal taste), what part of the country you live in and what fruits and vegetables grow there. Pozole verde is a dish that I have always loved, and anywhere I travel in Mexico, I need to try it.”

This Chinese chicken corn soup includes bites of tender chicken breast, ribbons of egg and a creamy broth of puréed corn. Sometimes called creamy corn soup, it’s a restaurant favorite that’s similar to egg drop soup and is quick and easy to make at home. Many versions use canned cream-style corn, but we preferred the brighter corn flavor of kernels. This recipe uses canned whole kernels, convenient for making the soup when sweet corn isn’t in season, but you can use fresh corn on the cob as well; just use the kernels from two ears instead.

A sweet-and-savory glaze is the perfect way to dress up plain chicken thighs. This one only requires a handful of ingredients: sweet soy glaze, rice vinegar and garlic.

Alton bakes chicken with 40 (yes, 40!) cloves of garlic and fresh thyme. The sharp flavor of the garlic mellows as it cooks and the resulting meat is ultra-flavorful.

No one will be missing the gluten when they get a taste of these crispy wings, which include all the signature elements of a classic chicken Parm.

Who ever said that healthy eating had to be boring? This dinner is a tropical treat, flavored with mango, lime and jerk seasoning.

Each ingredient adds flavor and depth to this comforting, aromatic soup: Ginger provides warming flavor, ginseng and dried tangerine peel add lightly bitter notes, red dates and goji berries contribute different levels of sweetness and balance, and shiitake mushrooms provide umami. A luxurious black silkie chicken — a small chicken with distinctive black skin found at Asian butcher or grocery shops — adds deliciously concentrated chicken flavor, although you can also use a Cornish hen.

Have to feed a crowd? Craving something comforting? Need a quick and easy weeknight meal? Looking for a recipe that freezes beautifully? This veggie-packed chicken lasagna checks all the boxes.

The classic Hungarian dish becomes a one-dish dinner in this healthier take, which is made with skinless chicken thighs and brown rice. A dollop of reduced-fat sour cream goes on top.

A dish worth every bit of work, this chicken cutlet is stuffed with bread and provolone and wrapped in savory pancetta. There’s no better way to eat healthy!

This saucy chicken parm-inspired dish skips the breading, opting to add some toasted focaccia breadcrumbs to the dish near the end of the cooking process. It’s a genius way to get all the classic flavors into the dish.

Tender chicken, asparagus, snow peas and carrots get sauteed with apricot preserves and fresh tarragon for a fresh and healthy dinner that's ready in just 35 minutes.

A small dose of allspice and curry powder in the honey mustard basting sauce brings robust flavor to Rachael's tender barbecued chicken.

There are some days when you need a comforting chicken dish that doesn't require too much cooking time. Chicken Parmesan certainly fits that criteria. This version uses red lentils as part of the breading mixture, for extra nutrition.

"Fit Chef" Eddie makes a herb-roasted whole chicken with carrots, turnips and rutabaga that will make your entire house smell delicious.

Season chicken tenders with this Asian-inspired marinade. When you cook them in parchment paper with snow peas and shitake mushrooms, you seal the flavor and moisture inside without added fat and calories.