This chicken cutlet recipe is so tasty and simple, a quick and easy meal that tastes like more than the sum of its parts! Make lightly breaded cutlets with a simple mix of flour and spices, then pan fry them until golden.
Funny enough, even though we’re cookbook authors, we’re also often stumped with what to make for dinner. Here’s our latest favorite answer to “What’s for dinner?”—this easy chicken cutlets recipe!
It takes no time at all to whip up and is beyond tasty, coating the thin chicken cutlets in a light breading with savory spices. Throw it in a skillet and pan fry until golden, and there’s something both nostalgic and sophisticated about this simple meal. We took one bite and immediately knew this recipe was a keeper in the top easy dinner ideas file (aka note on our phones!).
Ingredients for this chicken cutlets recipe
Chicken cutlets is our favorite way to pan fry chicken. Slicing a chicken breast in half (or “butterflying” the breast) does two things: it results in a beautifully browned cutlet with tender, juicy interior, and it makes for a quicker cooking time! With the light breading in this recipe, it comes together into restaurant-quality flavor in minutes. Here’s what you’ll need:
- Chicken cutlets (or chicken breast): Look for chicken cutlets or boneless skinless chicken breast, and buy organic chicken if at all possible. If you’ve made our other chicken recipes, you’ll know you can butterfly the chicken first if you buy breasts.
- Olive oil: Olive oil is our cooking oil of choice for chicken, but you can use any neutral oil or even melted butter.
- Spices: A custom blend of garlic powder, onion powder, smoked paprika, and dried oregano infuse major savory flavor to the chicken breasts.
- Flour: Just a bit of flour helps to coat the exterior and make it lightly crispy. (Don’t expect it to be extremely crispy: it’s not deep fried!) Substitute gluten-free flour if desired.
How to make chicken cutlets (aka butterfly)
If you start with a chicken breast for this recipe, you can make chicken cutlets by butterflying the chicken yourself. It’s quick and simple, and it makes a huge difference when it comes to cooking chicken. Here’s what to do to butterfly a chicken breast:
Step 1: Place your hand over the top of the chicken breast. Use a sharp knife to carefully slice the breast horizontally, leaving the edge intact so it can open up like a book.
Step 2: Unfold the chicken breast, then cut along the fold to separate the two halves (each half is a cutlet).
Step 3: The chicken is ready to use in the recipe! If desired, you can pound it with a mallet to make it more tender, but we think that step is unnecessary here.
Side dish ideas to make it a meal
This chicken cutlets recipe comes together so fast, we like serving it with easy side dishes so that it makes a quick dinner. Here are a few of our top ideas:
- Broccoli: Make it with sauteed broccoli, boiled broccoli (we make this all the time!), or roasted broccoli. It’s even more sophisticated with roasted broccolini,
- Peas: Try this 5-minute peas recipe.
- Whole grains: Pair these chicken cutlets with lemon rice, orzo, couscous, farro, or quinoa.
- Grain salad: Get fancier and add something like quinoa salad, orzo salad, or lentil salad.
- Green salad: Mix up simple arugula salad or kale slaw, or pair with apple fennel salad, chopped salad, or endive salad.
A few sauce ideas
Last thing: these chicken cutlets are great with a sauce! Try tangy mustard sauce, creamy yogurt sauce, hummus dressing, or white BBQ sauce.
Dietary notes
This chicken cutlets recipe is a Mediterranean diet recipe that is dairy-free. It is also gluten-free with gluten-free flour.
Easy Chicken Cutlets
This chicken cutlet recipe is so tasty and simple, a quick and easy meal that tastes like more than the sum of its parts! Make lightly breaded cutlets with a simple mix of flour and spices, then pan fry them until golden.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Rest time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 6 minutes
- Total Time: 21 minutes
- Yield: 4 1x
- Category: Main dish
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: Chicken
- ½ cup all-purpose flour (or gluten-free flour)
- 1 tablespoon smoked paprika
- 1 tablespoon garlic powder
- 1 tablespoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 pound chicken cutlets (or 2 chicken breasts, butterflied to make 4 cutlets; see Notes)
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- In a shallow bowl, stir together the flour, smoked paprika, garlic powder, onion powder and oregano. Pat the chicken dry with a paper towel and sprinkle both sides with the kosher salt. Dredge both sides of the chicken cutlets into the flour mixture.
- In a medium skillet, heat the olive oil over medium high heat. Cook the chicken for 2 to 3 minutes per side, turning with tongs, until browned and the internal temperature reaches 165°F [75°C] when measured at the thickest point. Remove the cutlets to a plate. Rest 5 minutes, then serve. Leftovers store up to 3 days refrigerated.
A few more of our top chicken dinner recipes
If you liked this chicken cutlets recipe, try more of our favorite chicken dinner ideas! This Instant Pot shredded chicken and chicken thighs are lifesavers for weeknight meals. These honey garlic chicken thighs are full of bold flavors, and French onion chicken is fun as a dinner party idea.