If you live in a hot country (with hot climate, I mean) then cooking is probably not one of your favourite activities.

And I don’t blame you. Turning on the oven during a hot summer day is the last thing you’d wanna do. That’s why I try to cook things in batches. In this way I have to keep the oven on for a few hours just one day per week and still have, healthy yummy food.

I don’t know about you, but to me, summer means citrus flavours. It can be a refreshing lemonade, a lemon salad dressing ooor… lemon chicken!

Related: Refreshing Mint Lemonade

So, since it’s hot and I don’t really feel like eating a lot of meat (it’s too hot to even think about digesting meat) I wanted to still enjoy chicken, but I wanted to make it feel fresher. So I came up with this lemon chicken recipe, that makes chicken tender, slightly sour and fresh!

Roasted Lemon Chicken Recipe

Servings: 4 | Prep. Time: 10 mins | Waiting Time: n/a | Cook Time: 40 mins | Difficulty: Medium

Ingredients:

• 4 medium-sized chicken breasts
• 50 ml of olive oil
• one medium lemon (you’ll need the juice and the zest)
• salt and pepper to taste

Method:

1. In a small sauce pan, pour the olive oil and warm it a little. Don’t boil it! You want it warm (around 50 degrees C) to help the lemon zest infuse.
2. In the warm olive oil, add the lemon zest and lemon juice. Let it sit for 10-15 min, for the lemon flavour to infuse with the oil.
3. Strain the mixture. You want to take the lemon zest out, because it can make the mixture bitter.
4. Season the chicken breast with salt and pepper and put it in an oven-safe tray.
5. Pour the lemon-olive oil mixture over the chicken. Optional, add a few slices of lemon over the chicken.
6. Cover the chicken with aluminium foil and roast it in the oven, for 30-40 mins (until tender) at 180 degrees C.

If you want the chicken sightly golden brown, remove the aluminium foil 10 minutes before taking the chicken out of the oven.

I know it looks like a lot of oil, but I use quite a small dish. The chicken was quite squeezed in it and the lemon olive oil covered it.

The aluminium foil will help create moisture and will lock it inside the dish, preventing it from evaporating. This will make the chicken tender and will infuse it with all the citrus flavour from the lemon.

You’ll have a lot of sauce left. It’s perfect to drizzle over the chicken or over roasted vegetables, or any other side dish. So don’t throw it away – drizzle it on top of your dish.

I love this lemon chicken recipe because it’s easy to make and so fresh!

Serve it with some roasted vegetables, drizzle some of the sauce over them and voila! You have a delish, fresh and tender recipe idea perfect for meal prep too!

If you want to use this for meal prep, it stores very well in an air-tight container for up to five days.

I really hope you give this recipe a try! If you do, please share how it turned out for you!

Download Printable Recipe