Honey Pecan Chicken is sweet, crunchy, flavorful and FAST. It’s five ingredients and 20 minutes worth of everything you want in dinner recipe and nothing you don’t.
I’m going to challenge myself and try to keep it under 300 words today. I’ve been nearing the 750 mark and, in the immortal words of Sweet Brown, “ain’t nobody got time fo’ dat”. I know that you are trying to get dinner on the table here, not read War and Peace, so on to the recipe.
This is a superb way to add a ton of flavor to bland chicken breasts. Even though there are only four additional ingredients, each one makes a giant contribution.
Honey
Adds sweetness and ‘glue’.
Soy Sauce
UMAMI BOMB!
Pecans
One of my favorite nuts, but they are pretty soft compared to say, almonds so that’s why…
The Crunchy Thing
I used a generic store brand of rice Chex. You can use any kind of crunchy Chex/knock-off cereal, cornflakes, panko or even potato chips. Potato chips, why didn’t I think of that?!
While the oven preheats, you can get the chicken all coated and ready to go. When the oven’s hot pop this in and in 20+/- minutes it’s ready. Low prep, hands-off cooking, fast and big flavor. Plenty of time for a glass of wine.
If you like this recipe, check out Crispy Chicken with Balsamic Tomatoes which does double duty as a kid dinner too!
Honey Pecan Chicken
Ingredients
- 4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 1 cup raw pecans finely chopped
- 2/3 c crushed crunchy thing put in ziplock back and mash with a rolling pin or bottom of a jar cereal, panko (don’t crush), potato chips etc)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°.
- Mix soy sauce and honey and pour into paper plate or whatever you use when coating/battering food.
- Mix pecans and crunchy thing in another paper plate.
- Roll one chicken breast around in liquid mixture to completely coat and then press firmly into crumbs to coat top and bottom. If there's extra left in plate when you're done, press it onto the tops of the chicken.
- Transfer to baking sheet (lined with foil makes easy cleanup) and bake 20 minutes or until cooked throughout.
Crushed pecans sound FANTASTIC!!! I bet this would be amazing on salmon too.. what a yummy idea!!!
Great idea, it would be good on salmon!
Quick and simple, exactly what I need tonight! 🙂 What temp do we bake this at?
Thank you for asking Clarice, I see I put the temperature to lower to if needed but not the starting temp! 350° and I updated recipe to reflect. Thanks for the catch!
What is a UMAMI bomb?
Umami is the fifth taste, the other four are sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. Umami is especially present in fermented foods (soy sauce), dried mushrooms, smoked fish etc which is why I referred to the soy sauce as an umami bomb of flavor. Hope this helps!
Hi, what’s crunchy thing?? Like crackers??
Yes, in the ingredients I suggest cereal, panko, potato chips but you can use anything crunchy that you prefer. Especially if you need gluten free or prefer whole grain you can use what you like best.
I’m all over this, Shelley. Thanks for bringing it to Saucy Saturdays.
And thank you for Saucy Saturdays! I love checking out all the fun things people post at https://www.midlifecroissant.com/category/saucy-saturdays/ !
Calories please?
It depends on what you’re using for the crunchy component and what size chicken breasts you have. Could be 300 (6 oz chicken with panko) to 400 (potato chips).