30 Minute Lemon Brown Sugar Chicken

Any dinner recipe that begins with "30 minutes" bumps to the top of my recipe list.  There is such a feeling of relief when I know that dinner can be thrown together quickly and my kids won't "starve" to death during the process, because  you know waiting for dinner to cook is the same thing as "starving."

I found this recipe on Pinterest (of course), and I have made it several times with great success.  It is a great combination of sweet and sour that isn't too heavy.  I LOVE lemon and chicken together so the little bits of lemon rind in the sauce are little pieces of flavor just exploding in your mouth...YUM!  Plus, my husband isn't the biggest fan of chicken.  I sort of burned him out on chicken when we were first married because it was cheap, and I knew how to make it.  Now if I make chicken it has to be special and very full of flavor which this dish is.

The original recipe consists of a sweet glaze, but we like sauce in our house.  To get the sauce, because we are saucy people, I used more lemons and brown sugar than the original recipe called for and a some chicken stock.  The extra sauce was wonderful on the side of pasta we had, but wasn't too heavy.  I hope you ENJOY!

30 Minute Lemon Brown Sugar Chicken
Recipe Source: Modified Slightly from Eat Live Run



2 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts
juice of 6 large lemons
1/2 cup chicken broth
3 T lemon zest
1 cup flour
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp sea salt
1.5 T canola oil
6 T brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350.

Very carefully cut your chicken breasts in half to make two thin pieces of chicken.  Lay the pieces between two pieces of wax paper and pound with a meat mallet to make them about the same thickness all the way across. (Thin pieces of meat  cook faster than thick pieces do).

Combine the flour, paprika and sea salt in a cake or pie pan. Drop each chicken breast in the mixture and toss to coat completely.

Heat the oil over medium high heat in a large oven proof skillet. Drop each chicken breast in the oil and brown on both sides (should take only about four minutes). Remove chicken breasts and keep warm on a plate.

Pour the lemon juice and chicken broth into the pan and stir to deglaze. Place the chicken back into the pan and sprinkle with the brown sugar and lemon zest. (If your pan isn't oven proof, use a casserole dish to finish baking the dish.)

Bake for thirty minutes, or until internal temperature reaches 165.