Easy Baked Garlic-Fennel-Rosemary Chicken
This Garlic-Fennel-Rosemary Chicken will make you fall in love with fennel, rosemary, and garlic! This topping gives a perfect Mediterranean flavor and light crunch to chicken breasts, while keeping them moist during baking.
Ingredients
- 4-5 cloves garlic peeled
- 2-3 tablespoons rosemary
- 1 tablespoon fennel seeds
- 2 tablespoons parsley
- 1 teaspoon ground fennel up to 1 tablespoon if you like fennel as we do
- ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
- ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper optional
- 1 teaspoon salt optional if eating low-salt
- 3 to 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 to 1½ pounds chicken breasts 2 or 3 pieces
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
- Use your mini-food processor to chop the garlic, rosemary, fennel seed and parsley OR use the hand-chopping method shown.
- Transfer the chopped ingredients to a small bowl and add the fennel powder, pepper and salt.
- Stir in the oil.
- Use a flexible spatula to pat the paste evenly onto the surface of each chicken breast.
- Bake for 20-25 minutes (20 at sea level, 25 at high altitude) or until a meat thermometer inserted at the thickest part of the breast reads 165 F.
- Serve with roasted Yukon gold potatoes and a favorite vegetable such as these roasted beets and rutabagas.
Notes
About baking chicken breasts. Even with the moisturizing effects of the garlic paste, chicken breasts can easily dry out. Roasting them at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes allows them to cook quickly to tenderness and remain moist. At high altitude we’ve learned to use a meat thermometer to be sure, though we expect that the longer time is needed!
If your chicken pieces are very thick, allow at least 10 extra minutes of bake time.