Skinny Herb Lemon Chicken blows your mind with its flavors and juiciness. The lemon flavor is accompanied with garlic and herbs such as parsley, green onion and dried thyme and chili powder. You will be surprised how easy to make it.
This lemon chicken is made in skillet over the stove. It is so GOOD that you don’t need extra chicken stock, heavy cream or butter, which makes the recipe skinny yet amazingly tasty. Don’t want to cook it over the stove? You can make an easy lemon chicken recipe in oven.
We don’t even need much oil for this skinny herb lemon chicken. 2 tablespoons olive oil is what you need as we don’t fry these chicken thighs. We first let them release their juice and fat by cooking them in a pan covered with lid for a while. We need to rub the chicken thighs with lemon juice and zest before throwing them into the pan. Then add a little water on them to help them release juice and stop them from burning. You will see how the juice in the pan increases after a few minutes. You will naturally get your chicken stock this way. This is how my mom cooks chicken no matter what type it is. This method always works and you always end up with juicy and flavorsome chicken.
So the method is simple and easy. Let the chicken thighs cook for a while in the pan with a lid. They will first release juice and then starts to absorb it. Don’t let all the juice be absorbed, leave some to use when serving. Remove the lid, drizzle olive oil, pour lemon juice, sprinkle the spices, add herbs, mashed garlic and lemon wedges. Cook both sides of chicken thighs until they get golden brown. This is a wonderful pan roasted chicken recipe that you can make any time. If you are looking for and oven recipe though, see our roast chicken thigh recipe, which doesn’t require any cooking skills at all.
Skinny herb lemon chicken is a recipe inspired by mom’s all time winner chicken recipe. She uses just little lemon juice to suppress the scent of chicken. So she was surprised when I told her I used ¼ cup lemon juice besides the lemon wedges in this recipe. You can imagine how I felt proud of myself when she got the first bite and told me this was even better than hers. She almost gobbled everything on her plate including the herbs, lemon wedges and juice.
Make this very easy and skinny herb lemon chicken on a busy weekday and see how the whole family will ask for more.
PrintSkinny Herb Lemon Chicken

Skinny, juicy and flavorful chicken thighs.Burst with lemon, herb and garlic flavors.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 40 minutes
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: 4 1x
Ingredients
- 1 and ½ lbs chicken thighs
- 1 and ½ tablespoons grated lemon zest
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- ¼ cup water
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 teaspoons dried oregano
- 1 and ½ teaspoons chili powder
- 2 teaspoons salt
- ¼ cup lemon juice
- 1 lemon, sliced
- 3 cloves garlic, mashed
- 2 tablespoons chopped parsley
- ¼ cup chopped green onion
Instructions
- Rub chicken with grated lemon zest and lemon juice. Place them in a pan. Pour ¼ cup water over them. Cover the pan with its lid and cook over medium high heat for about 5 minutes. Then bring it to the lowest heat and cook until chicken thighs releases their juice and starts to absorb it back. Don’t let it absorb all of it, leave some to use when serving.
- Remove the lid and drizzle olive oil over thighs. Add spices, lemon juice and slices, garlic and herbs.
- Cook until the thighs get golden brown on both side, occasionally turning them.
- Serve with chopped fresh herbs.
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