Best Chicken Breast Recipes – Chicken Schnitzel, Chicken Stroganoff, Chicken Kiev and More

Our best chicken breast recipes are some of our best chicken recipes and include comforting retro classic dishes such as chicken schnitzel, chicken Kiev and chicken Stroganoff, as well as healthy chicken breast recipes with shredded chicken breast, such as recipes for chilaquiles, chicken congees, chicken noodle soups, and breakfast tacos.

Some of our best recipes with chicken breast comprise some of our best chicken recipes and include a couple of the classic comfort food dishes I shared in our Sunday dinner ideas compilation, such as our chicken Schnitzel and chicken Stroganoff recipes, below, along with a succulent chicken Kiev recipe, and a handful of shredded chicken breast recipes for everything from chilaquiles and tacos to congees and noodle soups.

While I have to confess that I do prefer the taste of chicken thighs, which are fantastic in chicken curries, chicken soups, chicken stir-fries, such as this cashew chicken, and there are few things I enjoy more than munching on fried chicken drumsticks, it’s hard to beat juicy poached chicken breasts when they’re perfectly cooked or soft shredded chicken breast in a congee, soup or taco.

Chicken breasts are also very healthy as they’re higher in protein and lower in fat than other parts of the chicken. Although any piece of chicken is healthy, as it’s a very nutritious meat, which is high in vitamins and minerals, as well as amino acids, such as tryptophan, which can increase levels of serotonin, and boost your mood.

These chicken breast recipes are some of my favourite recipes on the site and some of the most popular recipes with Grantourismo readers. Before I tell you more about our best recipes with chicken breast, I have a favour to ask.

Grantourismo is reader-funded. If you’ve cooked our recipes and enjoyed them, please consider supporting Grantourismo by supporting our epic Cambodian cuisine history and cookbook on Patreon, which you can do for as little as the price of a coffee. Or you could buy us a coffee and we’ll use our coffee money to buy cooking ingredients for recipe testing.

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Lastly, you could browse our Grantourismo store for gifts for food lovers, including food themed reusable cloth face masks designed with Terence’s images. Now let me tell you all about our best recipes with chicken breast.

Chicken Breast Recipes – Chicken Schnitzel, Chicken Stroganoff, Chicken Kiev and More

Chicken Kiev Recipe

An iconic dish of chicken breasts stuffed with parsley butter, coated in egg and bread crumbs and fried, chicken Kiev was another dish on my grandparents’ dining table for family meals, and it’s one of our best chicken breast recipes.

One of our best chicken breast recipes, this chicken Kiev recipe makes an incredibly succulent and extra crunchy version of the crumbed chicken breast fillets stuffed with parsley butter. We brine the chicken before cooking. The salt, sugar and garlic add flavour and the chicken breasts stay super moist even if you might overcook the breasts a little.

Choose chicken breasts that are as thick as possible so you can create a good sized ‘pocket’ in the breast and cut the thicker side to get a better ‘seal’ with your toothpicks. Don’t forget to take the toothpicks out before serving! The best way to do this is to note how many toothpicks are in each breast and space them evenly apart.

While most recipes just say to use ‘dry breadcrumbs’, we use Japanese panko breadcrumbs because they are super dry and have shapes that give you a lovely textured surface to the cooked chicken breasts, as well as adding extra crunch. Just don’t tell your baboushka!

Depending on the thickness of the chicken breasts and your cooking temperature, you might be able to cook the breasts all the way through in the pan. We like to use a large flat-bottom cooking pan. Make sure to use a meat thermometer to check that the chicken breasts have cooked through. You want it to read at 74˚C.

We serve our chicken Kiev with creamy mashed potato and vegetables such as baby carrots and Brussels sprouts sautéed in crispy bacon.

Succulent Chicken Kiev Recipe for a Retro Russian Classic Cooked For Russia’s Tsars

Chicken Stroganoff Recipe

This chicken Stroganoff recipe is one of the best chicken breast recipes there is. Like my beef Stroganoff recipe and mushroom Stroganoff recipe, it makes a dish that looks and tastes like a rich slow-cooked stew, but it actually doesn’t take long to cook at all. 

My chicken Stroganoff recipe also happens to make one of the best chicken Stroganoff recipes you’ll taste. Inspired by the old Shanghai-style of Stroganoff, it’s incredibly rich, and redolent of spices.

It’s also slightly delightfully tangy due to the addition of Worcestershire sauce, which was added to beef Stroganoff in the Russian restaurants in Shanghai and Harbin in China in the early 20th century.

I know this is a compilation of our best chicken breast recipes, but if you’re a Stroganoff lover, I also recommend bookmarking my authentic beef Stroganoff recipe and my creamy mushroom Stroganoff for vegetarians.

I also have more family recipes here, which would work well with the chicken Strog if you’re feeding a family, such as this classic garden salad, my grandma’s borscht and traditional cabbage rolls, and for dessert, we have pancake recipes. 

Chicken Stroganoff Recipe for a Rich, Spicy, Tangy Old Shanghai Style Stroganoff

Chicken Schnitzel Recipe

Chicken schnitzel is another of the best chicken breast recipes and it’s a quick and easy dish to prepare. Our chicken schnitzel recipe makes moist, tender chicken fillets with a super crunchy panko breadcrumb coating elevated with lemon zest and parmesan.

These old-fashioned Australian style chicken schnitties will take you right back to the 1970s. For a complete nostalgia trip, squeeze some lemon wedges over the schnitzels and serve them with potato salad.

Try my Mediterranean-style warm potato salad recipe with capers, anchovies, chives, and celery leaves (it’s also delicious cold) or browse this collection of potato salad recipes. I adore this Japanese potato salad.

You could make extra chicken schnitzel fillets and make Terence’s chicken schnitzel burger the next day. That recipe will make you our crunchy chicken schnitzel spread with a creamy pickle mayo (made with our homemade dill pickles) and topped with bacon, cabbage and tomato between soft burger buns. Serve the burger with our spicy potato wedges.

Chicken Schnitzel Recipe with Crunchy Panko Breadcrumb Coating with Parmesan and Lemon Zest

 

Mexican Chilaquiles with Shredded Chicken Recipe

This easy Mexican chilaquiles recipe with fried eggs, shredded chicken and green salsa makes chilaquiles verdes, and it’s another one of our best chicken breast recipes.

A pre-Hispanic Aztec dish, chilaquiles – pronounced chee-lah-KEE-lehs, which comes from a Nahuatl word that meant ‘chillies and greens’ – has long been a popular Mexican breakfast dish, but one that is eaten at any time of day.

Filling and comforting, it makes for a fantastic lunch or dinner, while my Mexican friends used to tuck into late-night bowls after an evening spent bar-hopping and clubbing, swearing it was the best hangover cure.

To make your shredded chicken for chilaquiles, you could really use any part of the chicken, but I think whole chicken breasts are best, and best poached, and if you poach them until they are just-done, they should stay moist.

Check the temperature at 8 minutes to ensure they don’t over-cook and it’s essential to use a kitchen meat thermometer and poke it into the thickest part of the breast. When the chicken reaches 70°C/158°F remove it.

Set the chicken aside and then when it’s cool enough to touch, just use your fingers to pull it apart. That’s why it’s sometimes called pulled chicken, as well as shredded chicken. Make sure to keep the poaching liquid for the salsa.

Mexican Chilaquiles Recipe with Fried Eggs, Shredded Chicken and Green Salsa for Chilaquiles Verdes

Shredded Chicken Tacos Recipe with Avocado and Vegan Chilli 

Our shredded chicken tacos recipe with smashed avocado, vegan chilli and Mexican pickled onions and pickled cabbage makes a fantastic filling lunch or light dinner that’s a cinch to make and can be assembled quickly. It’s another one of our best chicken breast recipes.

Plan ahead and prepare the shredded chicken and chilli in advance and it means no cooking – aside from warming up the tortillas in a pan. Pop a fried egg on top for a breakfast taco and make extra shredded chicken from poached chicken and keep in the fridge for salads and sandwiches and you have delicious leftovers.

It’s not unusual to find a container of poached chicken breasts or shredded chicken in our fridge. Terence makes perfect poached chicken, which we use for our Mexican chicken tinga tacos and shredded chicken breakfast burritos.

We usually prefer brown chicken meat to white chicken meat, which can quickly dry out if you’re not careful. Yet this is one of the best recipes with chicken breast meat.

Shredded Chicken Tacos Recipe with Avocado, Vegan Chilli and Mexican Pickles

 

Mexican Chicken Tinga Taco Recipe

Another of our best chicken breast recipes, our easy Mexican chicken tinga taco recipe makes warm soft flour tortillas with delicious Mexican chicken tinga – or tinga de pollo – grilled corn charred on a griddle pan, zingy pickled purple shallots and pickled purple cabbage, sprinkled with crumbly Mexican cotija and aromatic coriander.

Chicken tinga, which is essentially comprised of shredded chicken breast, has a soft texture and avocado is soft, so we felt our chicken tinga recipe needed a little crunch, hence we use corn. 

The Mexican chicken tinga is easy to make and it makes fantastic leftovers, just take care not to over-cook the chicken breasts and follow our tips for cooking chicken breasts above.

Divide the chicken tinga and corn between the tacos, then garnish with the quick pickles, Mexican cotija (or another similarly white cheese) and fresh coriander, and serve with dishes of pickles, cotija cheese, lime quarters, coriander, and hot sauces.

Mexican Chicken Tinga Taco Recipe with Grilled Corn, Pickled Shallots and Purple Cabbage

Best Breakfast Burrito Recipe with Shredded Chicken

Our best breakfast burrito recipe makes a burrito with scrambled eggs, shredded chicken, melted cheese, charred corn, and pico de gallo and it’s another of our best recipes with chicken breast.

While that might seem like a loaded breakfast burrito, it’s actually a light healthy breakfast burrito compared to most takeout breakfast burritos, which is why you need to make your breakfast burritos at home.

This is a simple recipe, as long as you know how to scramble eggs, however, one of the hardest things to get right with this recipe is the cooking of the chicken.

As we’ve said above, chicken breasts are easily overcooked, so it’s best to use a meat thermometer that we covered in our post on the best meat thermometers to check on the chicken as it slowly cooks.

Note that you don’t have to add the chicken stock to the water, but for us it gives the chicken more flavour. More tips in the post below.

Best Breakfast Burrito Recipe with Scrambled Eggs, Shredded Chicken, Cheese and Pico de Gallo

Classic Cambodian Kuy Teav Recipe with Shredded Chicken Breast

This classic Cambodian kuy teav recipe makes Cambodia’s popular breakfast chicken noodle soup, kuy teav sach moan, in the restrained style you’d typically find in a simple local eatery or market or street food stall in Cambodia.

A good clear flavourful stock is the hallmark of this soup rather than a bowl abundant with ingredients. You’ll need to blanch your chicken in some chicken stock and water in a separate smaller pot. A lot of recipes say to blanch the chicken in water, but trust us, it’s going to be even more delicious poached in some stock.

Ensure the chicken is completely covered and then simmer it, don’t let it boil. As we said with the recipes above, do take care not to over-do the chicken. Use a thermometer.

Pull the biggest chicken piece out and pop it on a chopping board and poke your thermometer into the centre. You want it to register to at least 70˚C, aiming for a final internal resting temperature of 74˚C because you want the meat to be white and soft, not brown and hard.

When you’re there, remove the breasts and allow the pieces to cool a little and then use your hands to shred the chicken, pulling them apart with your hands. Much better than chopping them up with a knife. 

When you’re serving the soup, provide plenty of condiments on the table, especially if you’re feeding four people or more. Set out dishes of lime quarters, fresh fragrant herbs such as basil, coriander, mint, fish leaf, etc, extra blanched bean sprouts, finely sliced birds-eye chillies, and perhaps some homemade chilli oil.

Classic Cambodian Kuy Teav Recipe for Cambodia’s Favourite Chicken Noodle Soup

Cambodian Chicken Rice Porridge Recipe for Borbor Sach Moan

This Cambodian chicken rice porridge recipe makes borbor sach moan, Cambodian congee, and it’s another of our best chicken breast recipes, and a comfort food favourite of all Cambodians.

Because we make our Cambodian chicken rice porridge for four people – or rather, two people (in reality, Terence will eat a bowl the first time we make it, and I will polish off the remaining three portions, as I’m addicted to the stuff) – we use chicken breasts and cook them until they are just cooked, around 74˚C.

Another important piece of advice is to use a good quality chicken stock, whether it’s homemade or store-bought, as this is the flavour base of the dish. A bland chicken stock or, alternatively, a salty commercial chicken stock is not going to do the dish any favours – or flavours (sorry).

Our favourite way to make a chicken stock with Southeast Asian leanings is to start with a base of chicken bones that have been blanched, then add some carrots and coriander roots to a pot filled with cold water.

Add lemongrass (a whole stick of lemongrass tied in a knot), star anise, a cinnamon stick, slices of ginger and galangal, and a kaffir lime leaf or two, and bring it to the boil, then simmer for about an hour.

You’ll need to skim any impurities from the surface of the simmering stock every now and again. A bonus: your abode will smell heavenly – like a cross between a Cambodian grandma’s kitchen and a luxurious spa.

Cambodian Chicken Rice Porridge Recipe for Borbor Sach Moan, Cambodia’s Congee

Please do let us know if you’ve made any of our chicken breast recipes in the comments below as we’d love to get your feedback and hear how our recipes turned out for you.