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This Mediterranean Lemon Chicken recipe is a simple and delicious way to serve a hearty meal that’s bursting with fresh flavors! You’ll love the fresh citrus taste and how easy it is to put this dish together.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Graham’s getting creative in his kitchen again, this time coming up with another great chicken dinner. If you like lemon you will love this – the flavour adds a fantastic zing! Here’s his lemon chicken recipe.
We really enjoy using our homegrown chickens for this recipe. The taste is fantastic and we like knowing what goes into our food.
We also change up the type of our homegrown herbs we use in this dish. Most often we do use rosemary, but sometimes we substitute oregano or parsley instead.
Ingredients Needed
- lemon – gives this dish a burst of fresh citrus flavor!
- rosemary – a classic herb to pair with lemon and chicken.
- garlic
- olive oil
- salt and pepper
- chicken – I used pieces with the bone in, but the recipe can be altered for boneless chicken if you prefer!
How to Make Mediterranean Lemon Chicken
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees and gather up your ingredients.
- Grate the peel of half the lemon. Then cut the lemon and squeeze out 1/4 cup of lemon juice. We usually increase the amount, as we love lemony chicken.
- Snip the rosemary leaves from the stem and discard the stem.
- Add the rosemary leaves, garlic, salt and pepper. Stir well.
- Remove the skin from the chicken and coat chicken with the lemon mixture. Put in a 9 x 13 baking dish, bone side up.
- Cover and bake for 20 minutes. Reduce the oven to 400 and continue baking uncovered, for about 30 more minutes.
- Baste the chicken every 10 minutes with the lemon juices. Serve with the pan juices over top.
Serving Suggestions and Variations
- Enjoy this lemon chicken recipe alongside rice and vegetables like peas, broccoli, asparagus, or green beans.
- If you use boneless chicken, be sure to reduce the cooking time by 10-15 minutes as it will cook faster than bone-in.
- All kinds of herbs go great with this dish, so if you don’t have rosemary or want to include even more flavor, you could also use something like oregano or parsley.
- For a dish with a little bit of heat, you could also sprinkle some red pepper flakes over your chicken.
Why Lemons?
Lemons have wonderful qualities to improve your health and cleanse toxins from your body. I’ve been drinking two cups of hot water mixed with lemon juice a day!
We would love to be able to grow our own lemon trees outside here – what a treat that would be!
When we are lucky enough to spend time in California, we pick lemons and make our own lemonade!
More Recipes to Try
Our entire Country Living in a Cariboo Valley Recipe Collection can be found here, and here are some more recipes hand-picked for you!
- These Bacon Wrapped Garlic Bites are hearty and absolutely packed with flavor. A perfect appetizer!
- For another garlic-y dish, take a look at this Garlic Scape Pesto Pasta.
- And in case you’re craving more citrus fruit, this Lemon Loaf Cake with Rosemary is a delicious dessert that takes the lemon and rosemary pairing in a sweet direction!
Easy Mediterranean Lemon Chicken Recipe
If you enjoy this recipe for Mediterranean lemon chicken, please be sure to rate it 5 stars below! And print this off or save it to your recipes folder!
Mediterranean Lemon Chicken
Lemon, Garlic and Rosemary are the stars in this Chicken dinner recipe.
Ingredients
- 1 lemon
- 2 tsp rosemary
- 3 minced garlic cloves, or more!
- 1 tbsp. olive oil
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp pepper
- 6 chicken pieces, bone in
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
- Grate the peel of half the lemon. Then cut the lemon and squeeze out 1/4 cup of lemon juice. Add more juice if you love lemony chicken.
- Add the peel, oregano, garlic, salt and pepper. Stir well.
- Remove the skin from the chicken and coat chicken with the lemon mixture.
- Put in a 9 x 13 baking dish, bone side up.
- Cover and bake for 20 minutes. Reduce the oven to 400 and continue baking uncovered, for about 30 more minutes.
- Baste the chicken every 10 minutes with the lemon juices
Notes
Serve with the pan juices over top. Wonderful to have alongside rice and a few vegetables!
First Published October 2017; Updated May 2021
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