These easy and delicious glazed lemon glazed chicken come together quickly for a perfect weeknight meal. Lovely served with rice or mashed potatoes.
I have been making this delicious lemon-glazed chicken for a long time. I love the delicious lemon sauce, made easily by starting with store-bought apricot jam and fresh lemon juice, zest and slices. The jam provides the perfect glaze, while being subtle enough to allow the lemon flavours to shine.
If you’re a lemon lover and looking for a tasty new way to enjoy chicken thighs, I hope you’ll give this one a try!
Ingredients and substitutions
Chicken – I love skin-on/bone-in chicken thighs for their flavour and moistness, but bone-in/skin-on chicken breasts are fine here as well. The cooking time may be slightly longer with for the chicken breasts. Boneless/skinless chicken will also work, though the oven time would definitely be less.
Apricot Jam – Yes, apricot jam! It may seem strange to make lemon chicken with apricot jam, but the subtle flavour of apricot jam works perfectly for providing the “glaze” part. Add to it the lemon juice, zest and slices and the result is lemon flavour, not apricot flavour. I love Bonne Maman Apricot Jam myself, but any Apricot Jam will work just fine here.
Mustard – You’ll just need regular, prepared yellow mustard here.
Lemon juice and zest – Fresh lemon is always best and of course, you won’t be able to get the zest without fresh lemons. You will need 2 lemons – 1 for the zest and juice and a second one, for the lemon slices to put on top of the chicken pieces.
Step-by-step photos
Step 1: Cook the chicken thighs, skin side down, until golden. This will set the skin and cook off some of the fat, that we can remove and discard before adding the sauce. Meanwhile, mix up the easy sauce.
Step 2: Flip the chicken over to cook the underside slightly, then remove and discard the fat, add the sauce and pop in the oven. Meanwhile, cut some lemon slices and after 15 minutes of baking, remove the chicken from the oven, top with a lemon slice and return to the oven for an additional 15 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through. Garnish with some fresh thyme leaves or some chopped fresh parsley, if you like.
Recipe tips!
- You can tweak the amount of added lemon juice a bit up or down to suit. Some jams are sweeter and need a little more lemon juice to balance it, or if you just like a more forward lemon flavour.
- I like to sear the chicken in a non-stick skillet on the stovetop (because it’s non-stick!), then I transfer the chicken (leaving the fat behind) to a baking pan or dish to do the oven-cooking.
- Placing the lemon slices on top of the chicken will soften the skin underneath them, but the upside is that the lemon juice will cook down into the chicken. If you really want to preserve the glaze and skin on top of the chicken, you can place the lemon slices a little askew, leaning on the side of the chicken (between the pieces), instead.
- It’s always good to check the chicken with an instant-read thermometer before removing it from the oven. Make sure it has reached at least 165F internal temperature.
What to serve with lemon chicken
I love to serve this dish with rice or try mashed or roasted potatoes and a green vegetable.
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Get the Recipe: Glazed Lemon Chicken
Ingredients
- 5-6 bone-in/skin-on chicken thighs, or 3 bone-in breasts or *see Note 1 for boneless chicken
- 1/3 cup apricot jam
- 1 Tablespoon prepared yellow mustard
- 4 teaspoons lemon juice, fresh
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest
- 1 teaspoon garlic, minced
- Pinch salt and freshly ground pepper
- 3 lemon slices, thinly sliced
- Fresh thyme leaves, or chopped parsley, for garnish
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375F.
- Heat a skillet (preferably non-stick) over medium-high heat on the stove-top. Pat dry the skin of the chicken thighs and season with a bit of salt and pepper. Add the chicken thighs, skin side down, and cook until nicely golden, about 5-6 minutes.
- Meanwhile, prepare the sauce by mixing together the jam, mustard, lemon juice, lemon zest and garlic in a small bowl. Add a pinch of salt and freshly ground pepper and stir in.
- When chicken skin is golden, flip over and cook the underside for a minute, then remove chicken to an oven-safe baking pan or dish (not too large – just enough to hold the chicken with a little space between). Spoon the sauce over the chicken pieces.
- For bone-in chicken thighs, bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes, then remove from oven and place the lemon slices either on top of the chicken or alongside then. Return to the oven and bake 15 minutes more, or until the chicken is cooked through and reaches at least 165F internal temperature. For bone-in chicken breasts, increase oven cooking time to about 40 minutes total. For boneless chicken thighs, reduce oven time to 15-20 minutes. For boneless chicken breasts, reduce oven time to 25-30 minutes or in all cases, until chicken registers 165F internal temperature.
- Serve garnished with fresh thyme leaves.
Notes
- You could also use boneless chicken thighs or boneless chicken breasts. Reduce the oven time by 10-15 minutes or until they register 165F internal temperature.
More lemon chicken recipes to love!
Hi! I’m Jennifer, a home cook schooled by trial and error and almost 40 years of getting dinner on the table! I love to share my favourite recipes, both old and new, together with lots of tips and tricks to hopefully help make your home cooking enjoyable, stress free, rewarding and of course, delicious!
I was on the fence about this recipe, as Im not a fan of cooked fruit but I gotta say it was so delicious! Ill be making it again for sure!!!
So glad you enjoyed it, Jaye :) Thanks so much!
Another wonderful recipe. Thanks Jennifer.
The lemon sauce was perfect; not too sweet and not too bitter. I used Myer lemons
for the juice, for the rind, and for the slices. I served the chicken dish with mashed potatoes and French green beans.
I will heat the leftovers for another meal.
This is a “keeper.”
So glad you enjoyed it, Carole Ann! Thanks so much :)
This was fabulous! The ease and taste were awesome. I did heat the sauce slightly before putting on the chicken. Thank you!!
So glad you enjoyed it, Sue! Thanks :)
Just made this for dinner with rice pilaf and steamed broccoli. Easy, quick, and very delicious. The family would definitely eat this again. Thank you for another recipe to add in to the rotation.
So pleased to hear, Judy! Thanks so much :)
I made this today using my air fryer and it turned out perfectly. I will be making this again, it was so delicious and easy. Thank you Jennifer!
I’m so glad you enjoyed it, Amy :) Thanks so much!
This was great, thank you!!
So glad you enjoyed it, Jola :) Thanks!
We always have lemon on hand and this is such a great use for it! Love that you used both the zest and juice. I can only imagine just how flavourful and delicious this recipe is! Perfect meal for any day of the week. :)
Thanks so much, Dawn :)
Tonight will be my second go at this tasty dish. I still have the rest of the apricot jam from first time which was soooooooo tasty gone in minutes. I served it with rice. I wondered how you figured out that lemon chicken would be so tasty with this kind of jam. I thank you for letting us in on these secrets. Thank You.
Enjoy (again :) Pat! Apricot jam is one of those super useful products that work so well as a glaze on pastries … and meat.
This sounds delicious! Would it be okay to use an oven-safe skillet instead of cooking the chicken in a skillet and then transferring it to a baking dish?
Hi Kelly and yes, you can definitely save an extra pan :) You’ll just want to spoon off the fat in the pan after you’ve cooked the chicken thighs on the stove-top, before adding the sauce. (The reason I tend to go the two-pan route, is to avoid my chicken skin from sticking and becoming messy, which sometimes happens with my oven-safe pans, but never with my non-stick pan :) Enjoy!
Every recipe you have with this cut of meat has worked perfectly for me. I will try this one tonight since I have a bag of lemons. Just need to go buy the chicken and jam. Pictures are wonderful!
Thanks Pat and enjoy!
Great tip about using the apricot jam as a vehicle for the lemon flavors to create a glaze. Absolutely love the results!
Thanks Milena :) Apricot jam is a handy thing to have around for glazing all kinds of things. Works great on pastries, too.