75 Healthy Chicken Recipes Everyone Will Love

Chicken and fish are considered to be one of the healthiest types of meat, per The Washington Post, and with chicken you don't face the risk of high mercury levels or whatever other contaminants are lurking in the water. In addition to being good for your body, chicken tends to be pretty easy on your wallet, as well. Even with rising prices lately, it's still one of the cheapest types of meat available, according to Leite's Culinaria.

Oh, and here's some good news for those who prefer dark meat: Not only do thighs and drumsticks tend to cost less than breasts and wings, but they are also high in nutrients like zinc, iron, and B vitamins, per Healthline. That being said, we've got plenty of recipes for all types of chicken here: dark, light, and even one for the often-overlooked, but super-healthy liver.

Salad can be a fun way to integrate leafy greens into you lunch. Cobb salad, though, is an entire meal on a plate, and a rather satisfying one at that. The lettuce leaves stand in for rice, bread, or pasta, while the star of the show is hearty, yet healthy, boneless skinless chicken supported by a sprinkling of bacon bits, blue cheese crumbles, and chopped hard-boiled eggs. For an even healthier and more flavorful version of this salad, you can swap out the ranch dressing for a lighter, tangier vinaigrette.

Recipe: Cobb Salad

Got chicken? Got veggies? Got soy sauce and a few other spices and seasonings on hand? Well, in just a few minutes you can have yourself a tasty stir-fry for dinner. While this recipe calls for bell peppers, broccoli, carrots, and snow peas, feel free to substitute any vegetables you happen to prefer. You can also tweak the seasonings to suit your preferences and cut down or omit the sugar used here to reduce the overall calorie count.

Recipe: Chicken Stir Fry

This chicken adobo recipe, while Latin-inspired, also uses some elements common to Asian cuisine such as soy sauce and coconut milk. It's made with budget-friendly chicken drumsticks and coconut milk, which, while high in saturated fat, is rich in iron and may offer other health benefits. You could, though, swap the canned stuff out for the lighter coconut milk that comes in a carton and just cook the sauce a little longer or use a bit more cornstarch to thicken the sauce.

Recipe: Best Chicken Adobo

While fast food gets a bad rap, nutrition-wise, many fast food chains are now adding healthier options to their menu. At Chick-fil-A, one of the best bets for not busting your diet is a grilled version of their famous chicken sandwich. You know how you can make this sandwich even better? Make your own copycat version. That way you can control exactly what ingredients go into it, skip any condiments you don't like, and use your favorite type of bun or even a lettuce leaf.

Recipe: Copycat Chick-Fil-A Grilled Chicken Sandwich

While the city of Buffalo, New York may have made chicken wings famous, Frank's Red Hot Sauce doesn't hold the sole monopoly on how you can flavor them. Here we're marinating the wings in soy sauce and honey flavored with garlic and five-spice seasoning (bet you already guessed that last ingredient from the title). Then, in lieu of deep-frying them, we're baking them in the oven for a treat that is as nutritious as it is delicious.

Recipe: Easy Chinese Five Spice Chicken Wings

Kabobs are a food that's as fun to make as it is to eat. All you need to do is simply thread together alternating chunks of meat and vegetables on a skewer, then cook the kabobs until everything is done. Here we're using chicken breast meat, but thighs would work just as well. As for the vegetables, bell peppers and onions typically work well, but you might also want to use mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, or even pineapple. To make this recipe even easier, we're also baking the kabobs in the oven so there's no need to bother with setting up an outdoor grill.

Recipe: Easy Chicken Kabobs

Rotisserie chickens are a go-to favorite with anyone who wants a healthy meal in a hurry. The best part is, they're also pretty budget-friendly, since not only do you get dinner tonight, but you also get leftovers for tomorrow! Among the popular ways to repurpose rotisserie chicken is using it to top salads or make sandwiches or quesadillas, but we're pretty partial to this rotisserie chicken soup that even makes use of the bones. In fact, you can skip the step where you de-bone the chicken prior to cooking it. Instead, just toss the leftover chicken in the pot, bones and all, then shred the meat off the bones once the soup's done cooking.

Recipe: Leftover Rotisserie Chicken Soup

Sheet pan cooking has been having a moment lately, and for a good reason. After all, who isn't looking to save a little time by fixing a complete dinner in a single step? To make this meal even simpler, just use a bag or two of pre-prepped vegetables of your choice in addition to the boneless, skinless chicken breasts. While this recipe calls for broccoli and carrots, you might prefer mushrooms, onions, or chunks of potato instead. Sprinkle the meat and produce with olive oil, lemon juice, and your favorite seasonings, then set the timer and wait for dinner to cook itself.

Recipe: Easy Sheet Pan Chicken Breasts

In summertime, many people pull out their charcoal or gas grills, and suddenly cooking goes from being a chore to an outdoor sport. While hot dogs and hamburgers are typical backyard barbecue fare — except in high-rent neighborhoods where they can afford to serve steaks — grilled chicken makes for a satisfying and affordable meal that's quite a bit healthier than anything typically served on a bun. Pair this simple grilled chicken with a green salad and you'll have a light, summery meal that any nutritionist would give two thumbs up.

Recipe: Grilled Chicken

When we think of chicken, we tend to imagine that it comes in just two varieties: light (breasts and wings) and dark (thighs and drumsticks). Well, chickens have other edible parts, too! Thrifty cooks have been known to make good use of everything from beaks to feet to tailbones (aka the pope's nose), but chicken livers are something you shouldn't overlook if you want a more nutritious diet. They're chock full of vitamins and minerals, and as far as their flavor goes, they're actually surprisingly mild and, well, less livery-tasting than beef liver. These herbed baked livers can be eaten as-is, or you could puree them to make a tasty pâté.

Recipe: Simple Baked Chicken Livers

While fast food isn't always the healthiest choice, there is a way to enjoy these dishes without having to worry so much about what goes into them. How? Well, you simply make them yourself. With our version of a Chick-Fil-A Cool Wrap, you can pair a healthy, low-fat wrap with plain grilled chicken and lettuce and just a sprinkling of grated cheese. If you leave off any fatty sauces or condiments in favor of low-cal ones like mustard or hot sauce, you'll have a light and healthy lunch that will fill you up for under 300 calories.

Recipe: Copycat Chick-Fil-A Cool Wrap

Brunswick stew is a southern classic, although the debate still rages on as to whether Brunswick County, Virginia or Brunswick, Georgia can claim it as their own. While the original version very likely included whatever lil' critters came within range of a hunter's shotgun (squirrels, bunnies, possums, that sort of thing), these days we prefer to make ours with chicken. In fact, this very modern version even utilizes an Instant Pot, so this dish of chicken, corn, and lima beans in a tomato-based broth should be ready to eat in under half an hour.

Recipe: Instant Pot Brunswick Stew

One classic Greek dish that Mediterranean food connoisseurs are familiar with is avgolemono, which is a sauce or a soup made with chicken broth and lemon juice and thickened with egg yolks. In the U.S., however, versions of this dish typically include chicken meat as well, plus some rice to bulk them out a bit. This soup recipe is an American-style version of avgolemono and can be thrown together pretty quickly by using leftover rotisserie chicken. Oh, and no worries about separating the yolks and re-purposing the whites here, since we're using the entire egg.

Recipe: Creamy Chicken Lemon Rice Soup

If you're in the mood for chicken noodle soup, whether because you feel a cold coming on or you just want some good old-fashioned comfort food, you may be tempted to just open a can so you can get a quick fix. If you've got the patience, though, this slow-simmered chicken soup is well worth the hours it takes to cook in the crockpot. The best thing about it is, you only need to spend a few minutes' prep time, especially if you buy the vegetables pre-chopped. That means you can start it in the morning before work and have a nice bowl of soup to look forward to by the time you get home.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Chicken Noodle Soup That Requires Little Hands-On Time

Honey and garlic may seem like they lie at opposite ends of the taste spectrum. Honey, after all, is smooth and sweet, while garlic is sharp, pungent, and, well, garlicky. Surprisingly enough, though, these flavors work quite well together — it must be an opposites-attract-type thing. Try pairing them in this quick and easy chicken dish and you'll see just what we mean. Be sure to serve this honey-garlic chicken with a side of rice or noodles, too, so you don't lose a drop of the delicious pan sauce.

Recipe: Easy Baked Honey Garlic Chicken

For a fast casual chain restaurant, Panera Bread actually has some pretty healthy items on its menu. If you want to make a DIY version of the chain's Baja Bowl, ours calls for the same ingredients they use: quinoa, black beans, corn, tomatoes, feta cheese, yogurt, and salsa verde. Ours comes complete with baked chicken, as well, which is an upgrade at Panera. The one thing our Baja Bowl is missing is Panera's cilantro-lime rice, but you can doctor up the plain brown rice used here with some chopped cilantro and fresh lime juice and you'll be good to go.

Recipe: Copycat Panera Bread Baja Bowl

Are fast food salads really a healthy option? Maybe so, maybe not since it all depends on the toppings. Too many croutons, too much cheese, and fatty and/or sugary dressings can make for a salad that's more calorie-heavy than any burger on the menu. Wendy's is particularly notorious for their not-so-healthy salads, with Eat This, Not That! nominating the chain's Apple Pecan Salad as one of the worst ones out there.

The problem with Wendy's salad is its super-sweet dressing, plus the excessive amounts of sweetened dried cranberries and blue cheese crumbles they use. With this DIY salad, however, you can cut down on the high-calorie add-ins and either choose a less-sugary dressing or use a smaller amount cut with some balsamic vinegar.

Recipe: Wendy's Apple Pecan Salad Copycat

Got an Instant Pot, and looking for a way to put it to good use? As you've probably discovered by now, this appliance isn't suited to cooking every type of food you can think of –  Instant Pot fried chicken makes for a soggy mess, while the appliance isn't the right way to cook filet mignon. These pots do have their uses, however, and they do a great job of cooking up chicken breasts you can keep on hand for meal prep purposes. The chicken takes just a few minutes to cook and even after waiting for the pressure to build and release, you've still saved a little time over baking it in the oven.

Recipe: Instant Pot Chicken

Biryani is a traditional Indian dish that is prepared in different ways depending on the region. Our chicken biryani recipe does not attempt to recreate any specific version, but is instead an Americanized version using ingredients readily available in this country. It starts with chicken pieces marinated in yogurt, then spices things up with the addition of bay leaves, cinnamon, coriander, cumin, garam masala, garlic, and ginger, While the recipe also calls for super-pricey saffron, you can get a similar yellow color for a lot less money by using turmeric instead. With all of the other seasonings at work in this biryani, you probably won't notice too much difference.

Recipe: Chicken Biryani

Wendy's Southwest Avocado Salad may not be the worst fast food offering out there, but it's not exactly a lightweight offering when it comes to calories, either. Thanks to the guacamole, bacon, and cheese, it comes in at 420 calories and 9 grams of saturated fat even without the ranch dressing. Add that, and you're looking at a 560-calorie salad with 11.5 grams of saturated fat (39 grams of total fat). While this copycat recipe as-is makes for a dish with a similar nutritional profile, you can always streamline the salad by using turkey bacon and part-skim cheese, cutting back on the amount of guacamole, and passing up the heavy ranch dressing in favor of a light, tasty lime vinaigrette instead.

Recipe: Wendy's Southwest Avocado Salad Copycat

While chicken noodle soup from a can is pretty meh, the chicken noodle soup they dish up at Panera Bread is actually quite tasty. This may be because they use a lot more meat and vegetables, plus the noodles are of the wide egg variety rather than overcooked bits of broken spaghetti. That being said, Panera's soup is not all that cheap. As of the time of writing, the stuff is selling for over $7 per bowl, which is kind of expensive for fast food even if you do get a mini baguette. With our copycat recipe, however, you can have a reasonable facsimile of Panera's chicken noodle soup at a price that won't preclude going back for seconds (or even thirds).

Recipe: Copycat Panera Chicken Noodle Soup

Crockpot coconut curry cashew chicken is a dish that is as flavorful as it is alliterative. It's also jam-packed with all kinds of healthy stuff. Not only do you get protein from the chicken and healthy fats from the coconut milk and cashews, but there are also vitamins and minerals galore from the chiles, green beans, bell peppers, onions, and potatoes. Serve this curry over rice for a delicious, nutritious, one-bowl meal.

Recipe: Simple Slow Cooker Coconut Curry Cashew Chicken

If you go hunting for chicken curry recipes, you'll likely find a zillion or so, but you may get discouraged when they all seem to call for a lengthy list of ingredients. It seems some recipe developers just love to show off the entire contents of their well-stocked spice cabinets, but sometimes you just want a curry in a hurry without having to wonder where the fenugreek got to or run out to the store for cardamom pods.

For this simple curry recipe, you only need three spices, and one of them is salt (the others are curry powder and crushed red pepper). Add a package of chicken legs, a can of coconut milk, a drizzle of oil, and some chicken broth or a bouillon cube, and you'll have all you need to make a pretty darn good curry.

Recipe: Easy Chicken Curry

If you've never spatchcocked a chicken, it might sound like a difficult and rather painful process. It's the type of thing that older cookbooks will tell you to have your butcher do, but unless you habitually shop at a bespoke meat boutique, you may not be able to track down a supermarket butcher who'll be able to spatchcock your plastic-wrapped bird on the spot. Luckily, the process is simple enough to DIY, since all it involves is using shears and a knife to remove the backbone and displace the breastbone. This procedure effectively flattens the chicken, thus allowing it to roast in less time than if you'd left it in its original form.

Recipe: Oven-Roasted Spatchcocked Chicken

There's a good way and a bad way to blacken chicken. The latter is easy enough to do, even if inadvertently: Simply cook your bird at high heat and forget to take it out of the oven before it burns to a crisp. Simple, yes, but not too appetizing. A better way to make blackened chicken, though, is to use this recipe where only the exteriors of the spicy chicken breasts get charred while the insides remain tender.

Recipe: Blackened Chicken

Foods from the Mediterranean region have the reputation of being super-nutritious, and this Greek-inspired chicken dish is no exception. It starts with boneless, skinless chicken breasts, piles on lots of vegetables like bell peppers, tomatoes, onions, and artichokes, then drizzles the whole thing with heart-healthy olive oil. Everything gets sprinkled with feta cheese and baked on a single sheet pan to make for a complete meal that tastes good and is good for you, too.

Recipe: Greek Sheet Pan Chicken

This Mexican-spiced chicken stew is something that can be served on its own, perhaps in a bowl over rice, or you could add some beans to turn it into a chili of sorts. It could also be wrapped in a tortilla to make for a burrito or enchilada filling. This recipe keeps things very mild, with the spiciest thing you'll find here being a teensy bit of chili powder. If you want it hotter, though, you can always spice things up with chopped chiles, dried red peppers, and/or hot sauce.

Recipe: Mexican Chicken Stew

Country captain chicken is a dish whose origins were long shrouded in mystery, which may have been a good thing. It's often considered to be a southern dish, although the inclusion of curry powder and currants cooked in the sauce speak to some South Asian (or perhaps British) influence, as well. As it turns out, though, country captain chicken was actually created in the City of Brotherly Love, so it's as Philadelphian as a cheesesteak! Our slow cooker version of this not-so-southern classic is light and healthy, with plenty of veggies and chunks of chicken simmered in a tomato-based broth. 

Recipe: Slow Cooker Country Captain Chicken

If you've got a smoker, then you are ready to take your chicken to a whole new level. This recipe calls for bone-in chicken thighs, which may be one of the cheaper meats in the market. The chicken is marinated overnight in a blend of sweet vermouth, herbs, and aromatics and is then slow-cooked for a few hours while the scent of wood smoke fills the yard. Once they're done, you'll have a dish that tastes as good as it smells.

Recipe: Smoked Chicken Thighs

How does Ina Garten roast a chicken? Well, she starts with a "good" chicken, of course, and rubs it all over with "good" butter. This recipe is our twist on the Barefoot Contessa's version, however, so instead you'll be rubbing the chicken with mayonnaise (whatever kind you have in the fridge, since we're not too judgmental about condiment brands). Our version also calls for stuffing the chicken with oranges and rosemary in place of Garten's preferred thyme and lemons. Despite what Garten might think about these alterations, we feel the end results here are very good, indeed.

Recipe: Ina Garten's Roast Chicken

Why do chicken thighs get no love? Go looking for chicken recipes, and it seems like most of them start with "take a pound of boneless, skinless chicken breasts." Well, for every chicken breast out there, there are two legs and hence two thighs. There is an upside to this particular galline body part being in less demand, though, since you can often find thighs on sale at low, low prices. If you're wondering how to prep your bargain bounty, try this recipe for an easy oven-baked version. It comes complete with potatoes that cook alongside the chicken to make for a one-pan meal.

Recipe: Easy Oven-Baked Chicken Thighs

Tandoori chicken gets its name from the clay oven in which it is meant to be cooked. As most of us do not have such a thing in our kitchens, we can instead achieve a reasonably tandoori-esque chicken through the use of a yogurt/spice marinade alone. The spices used here are all ones you'll easily be able to buy in most supermarkets, too: black pepper, cayenne, coriander, cumin, garam masala, garlic, ginger, and turmeric. When the chicken has soaked up sufficient marinade, simply bake it in your regular oven, then serve it over rice with a squeeze of lemon.

Recipe: Easy Tandoori Chicken

The problem with so many so-called easy meals is that while the dish itself may take just minutes to prepare (stir fries spring to mind), you reach the end of the recipe and it says "serve over cooked rice." Well, that darn rice won't cook itself, so that's another pot to dirty up and another 20 minutes or so to tack onto the cooking time. Not with this dish, though. The chicken, vegetables, and rice all cook up together in the same pot, so when it's done, it's done. In fact, you can even skip the final step of making garlic butter in the microwave. Instead, just toss the garlic and butter into the pot with the hot rice dish, as the residual heat will melt that butter in no time.

Recipe: One-Pot Chicken And Rice

Oyakodon is a Japanese dish that translates to mean "parent and child rice-bowl," referring to the fact that it contains both chicken and egg. In fact, it may be a Japanese version of the Chinese Mother and Child Reunion, a menu item that inspired the Paul Simon song of the same name. With that kind of backstory behind it, you know you want to try it. One caveat, though: you may need to find a grocery that carries Japanese items since you'll need some dashi powder in addition to the sake and mirin used to flavor the dish.

Recipe: Easy Oyakodon Bowl

Tteokbokki is a dish that's harder to spell than it is to cook. This Korean one-pot meal is made with rice cakes cooked with chicken, onions, and plenty of the tasty chile paste known as gochujang. A bowl of this hearty concoction will fill you up nicely and may even have you reaching for seconds.

Recipe: Zesty Tteokbokki (Spicy Rice Cakes)

This chicken soup has got a whole lot going on in one pot. Yes, there's a certain amount of heat to it, thanks to some ancho powder, enchilada sauce, and jalapeño, but those are only 3 of the 19 — yes, 19! — ingredients called for here (and that's not even counting the laundry list of optional garnishes). It also calls for a few more spices, these being cinnamon, garlic, and cumin, as well as vegetables galore: beans, carrots, corn, hominy, onions, and tomatoes. Oh yes, and there's chicken, too.

Recipe: Spicy Chicken Soup

While many casseroles are based on rice, pasta, or potatoes, this one is based on sweet potatoes, instead. If you want to tweak the recipe to make it even healthier, you can make sure you're using a low-sugar barbecue sauce or else try making your own. You might even want to replace all or part of the barbecue sauce with a less-sweet condiment such as salsa. If you're looking to cut down on the fat, you can reduce the amount of cheese and/or replace the cream cheese with Neufchâtel and the cheddar with parmesan.

Recipe: Veggie-Packed Barbecue Casserole