Chicken tenders are pan seared in a skillet on the stovetop and topped with a lemon, garlic, and parsley butter in the final minutes of cooking.
The lemon butter sauce makes for a flavorful, impressive, and easy sauce for simple pan seared chicken tenders, cutlets, or breasts.
Pan seared chicken tenders with lemon garlic parsley butter is an fast, light, and easy chicken tender recipe.
Serve pan seared chicken tenders with butter sauce over salad or with rice, mashed potatoes, or vegetables.
Use Chicken Tenders / Cutlets / Or Breast
Cutlets are chicken breast sliced through the middle horizontally to make thinner pieces. Chicken cutlets cook faster than breasts and are also a more manageable serving size. Expect around 3-4 minutes per side or around 6-8 minutes total cooking time.
Wanna use chicken tenders instead? Pan sear chicken tenders in a skillet on the stovetop in ~ 2-3 minutes per side. Tenders cook in about 4-5 minutes total.
Wanna use chicken breasts instead? Chicken breasts are so thick that they will take at least double the time to cook at a lower heat and potentially need to be covered to get the middle cooked through.
Stick with chicken tenders or cutlets if you've got them. They make an easier and faster dinner and are also a better serving size. They are also the perfect size to get a good lemon butter sauce ratio.
How To Make Lemon Butter Sauce For Chicken
Compound butters don't need to be shaped and chilled for this recipe. Skip forming the butter log and just add a dollop to the seared chicken cutlets if you're in a hurry.
Compound butters are made by mixing room temperature butter with other ingredients.
I wrote this recipe using parsley as the herb for the butter, but didn't have it when making the video so used fresh thyme instead.
Don't sweat missing ingredients too much (besides butter of course!), just substitute what you have.
- Mix the ingredients into room temperature butter.
- Place the butter on a piece of parchment paper and roll into a log (see video).
- The lemon compound butter needs to be cold enough to slice. Place in the freezer for 20 minutes or refrigerate for 1-2 hours.
Freeze leftover compound butter in tab size portions and use them later for another meal.
Compound butter stays good in the fridge for a couple days and freezes beautifully for a couple months.
Leftover frozen lemon compound butter makes a quick, fancy, and tasty sauce to a future dinner or side dish.
Lemon Butter Sauce Ingredient Substitutions
The magic of compound butters is that they are very versatile from sweet to savory and nearly anything can go in them.
Use rosemary, tarragon, dill, cilantro, sage, etc...
Add a favorite spice like chili powder, cumin, curry, cinnamon, or coriander...
Don't like garlic? Cool, leave it out.
Don't have lemon for this compound butter recipe? Try fresh lime, orange, or grapefruit zest and juice instead.
Easy Chicken Tenders with Lemon Butter Sauce
EatSimpleFood.com
Chicken tenders are pan seared in a skillet on the stovetop and topped with a lemon, garlic, and parsley butter in the final minutes of cooking, making a light butter sauce for the chicken.
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 35 minutes
- Yield: 6
- Category: Main Dish
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: International
- Diet: Gluten Free, Keto, Low Fat, Low-Carb, Paleo, Whole30
Ingredients
Ingredient List Chicken:
- 2 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 12 (~ 2 lb) chicken cutlets
Ingredient List Butter:
- 1 stick (8 Tbsp) unsalted butter
- zest from one lemon
- 2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
- ¼ cup parsley, minced
- 1 small garlic cloved, minced and smashed to a paste
- ¼ teaspoon salt
Instructions
Make Butter:
- Allow butter to soften at room temperature.
- Mince garlic and then press into a paste. Use a garlic press or microplane or use the back of your knife and carefully smash down garlic with a little salt.
- When butter is soft: add all butter ingredients to a bowl and mix (by hand or food processor) to incorporate.
- Lay out a piece of parchment paper and form a log with the mixed butter. You can also just use the butter as is and not form the log or refrigerate and slice into tabs.
- Tightly roll and twist to seal. There may be some excess lemon juice that won’t incorporate. Don’t worry about it, but put the butter log on a plate so it doesn’t leak on your refrigerator.
- Refrigerate for 1-2 hours or place in freezer for 20 minutes if in a hurry.
- Slice thinly once it's cold enough to hold it's form. One slice of butter for each piece of chicken.
For The Chicken:
- Dry the chicken with paper towels.
- Salt and pepper the chicken. You will need to fry in two batches if the pan is not big enough to hold all the chicken.
- Bring a large pan
to medium high heat and add enough oil to lightly cover the bottom of the pan. Pan fry the cutlets ~3-4 minutes per side or until juices run clear and internal temperature reaches 165F. - Turn off heat and add a tab or two of butter to the cutlets until melted.
- Swirl chicken around in pan to soak up any remaining butter and plate and serve.
- Add salt to taste.
to medium high heat and add enough oil to lightly cover the bottom of the pan. Pan fry the cutlets ~3-4 minutes per side or until juices run clear and internal temperature reaches 165F. Notes
- In a hurry? Cool, cook the chicken tenders first and then add all the butter ingredients straight into the pan.
Things In My Kitchen:
- 12" PFOA free non stick pan - I use this non stick pan for chicken & delicate seafood. PFOA free and comes with a glass lid.
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Serving Suggestion
Serve this easy pan seared chicken cutlet with lemon butter sauce with a complementary cold soup or salad like:
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