Easy, Healthy Chicken Dinner Ideas

These recipes are light and nourishing and bring some weeknight dinner excitement to the table.

Martha Rose Shulman’s lemon and garlic chicken with cherry tomatoes.Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.

Published April 28, 2025Updated April 28, 2025

It’s easy to hear the word “chicken” around dinnertime and feel immediately bored. But what if, instead, we chose to see chicken in a more positive light? It’s a nutritious main that can be transformed into thousands of healthy meals. Of course, healthy can look like different things to different people, but the recipes below are both light and nourishing, and prove that relying on an old standby doesn’t have to mean meals that lack variety or excitement.

A beige bowl holds a salad of shredded chicken, sliced cucumbers and green herbs, sprinkled with crushed red pepper.

Transform store-bought rotisserie chicken into something truly special with this Zainab Shah recipe. Smashing cucumbers, then salting them and letting them rest for 20 minutes, draws out their moisture, ensuring that they’re crisp and well seasoned. This salad is even better after a couple days in the fridge, especially after soaking up the savory soy sauce, nutty sesame oil and spicy crushed red pepper.

Recipe: Smashed Cucumber and Chicken Salad

Three whole chicken breasts and one sliced chicken breast, coated in a vibrant orange-red sauce, arranged on a round plate.

Store-bought sazón, a popular spice mix in Puerto Rico and throughout Latin America, can vary in flavor, but you can also make your own, with this recipe from Von Diaz. Use it as a marinade for chicken, and enjoy fragrant, well-seasoned breasts or thighs that can top salads or nutty grains like brown rice.

Recipe: Sazón Chicken Breasts

Two bowls of creamy, pale porridge topped with shredded chicken, greens and slivered scallions on a textured gray surface.

Here, Kay Chun makes use of the electric pressure cooker and boneless, skinless chicken thighs to speed up a normally long-simmering recipe. What emerges after a half an hour is tender, falling apart chicken in a creamy, savory rice porridge. Topping this with a fresh ginger and scallion sauce adds a fun zippiness.

Recipe: Instant Pot Chicken Juk With Scallion Sauce

A tall stack of two chicken salad sandwiches made with toasted bread on a wooden board.

Lidey Heuck uses avocado, rather than mayonnaise, as the base of this creamy green goddess dressing, run through with scallions, capers and garlic. Mix the dressing with shredded rotisserie chicken or leftover chicken breasts.

Recipe: Green Goddess Chicken Salad Sandwiches

Oven-roasted chicken shawarma with red onions and parsley on a blue platter, accompanied by olives, pita bread and a side salad.

This Sam Sifton recipe means you can have shawarma at home — no rotisserie required. The chicken is marinated for as little as an hour, but if you’re really thinking ahead, make it in the morning and let the chicken marinate while you’re at work, then serve with plenty of condiments: tahini sauce, chopped cucumbers and olives, and plenty of fresh herbs.

Recipe: Oven-Roasted Chicken Shawarma

Grilled chicken thighs with visible grill marks are arranged on a white plate and topped with chopped scallions.

This simple recipe from Christian Reynoso is a perfect way to celebrate warm weather. A spicy marinade of brown mustard seed, soy sauce, garlic and ginger penetrates the meat and imbues it with flavor. Then, that sauce takes on charred depth after it’s fired on the grill. Serve this with seasonal grilled vegetables or a punchy salad.

Recipe: Hot-Mustard Grilled Chicken

A white plate holds grilled chicken pieces over white rice, topped with pineapple, red onion and cilantro. A fork rests on the plate.

The secret to making breast meat as tender and flavorful as dark meat, you’ll see in this Eric Kim recipe, is pineapple. Fresh pineapple contains a group of enzymes called bromelain, which can break down the fibrous tissues. Make sure you marinate the meat for just the recommended 15 minutes. Much longer, and the meat will take on a gluey texture.

Recipe: Pineapple-Marinated Chicken Breasts

Golden-brown air fryer chicken tenders are arranged on a white plate next to a small bowl of red dipping sauce.

When you’re looking for a childhood comfort — or feeding an actual child — but want something lighter, go for these air-fryer chicken tenders. Eleanore Park’s recipe has you start with a simple base of panko, paprika, and salt and pepper for the breading, but experiment with adding whatever herbs and spices you like.

Recipe: Air-Fryer Chicken Tenders

A cast iron skillet holds spicy honey chicken with broccoli, crumbled white cheese and sliced jalapeños.

Yasmin Fahr’s chicken thighs are tangy, spicy, creamy and sweet all at once thanks to honey, pickled jalapeño (both the brine and the pepper), and feta. Just make sure to cut the broccoli small, so it’s ready at the same time as the chicken.

Recipe: Spicy Honey Chicken With Broccoli

A colorful salad with chickpeas, shredded chicken, halved cherry tomatoes, olives and fresh parsley in a round bowl.

Nargisse Benkabbou takes a popular Moroccan street food, tayb o’hari, and turns it into a salad. Canned chickpeas are warmed in olive oil, cumin, paprika, salt and pepper, and served over greens and herbs. Use canned green chiles or even mix in green salsa or hot sauce to streamline the dressing.

Recipe: Chickpea-Chicken Salad With Green Harissa Dressing

Four pieces of lemon and garlic chicken topped with red and yellow cherry tomatoes and herbs on a white plate.

The countdown to tomato season starts as soon as the weather warms up, but you can pregame with this Martha Rose Shulman recipe, which makes use of readily available cherry tomatoes. They get jammy and saucy when you cook them, bursting over the chicken breasts.

Recipe: Lemon and Garlic Chicken With Cherry Tomatoes

Two plates of chicken and celery salad with a wasabi-tahini dressing, garnished with black sesame seeds and lime wedges, are arranged on a dark surface.

It’s rare to find salads that can hold up after being dressed, but the celery in Sue Li’s recipe stays satisfyingly crisp for a few days under the tahini and wasabi based dressing. Feel free to dial it up or down — and to tuck any leftovers into a sandwich for lunch.

Recipe: Chicken and Celery Salad With Wasabi-Tahini Dressing

Grilled chicken thighs on a white platter, drizzled with a pale beige sauce and garnished with fresh cilantro.

Here’s another one for grilling season (though it can also be made on the skillet or in the oven). A combination of tahini, honey and olive oil takes on a gorgeous caramelized flavor, thanks to the sugar in the honey. Round them out, as the recipe’s creator Yasmin Fahr suggests, with a side salad or roasted vegetables.

Recipe: Grilled Tahini-Honey Chicken Thighs

Two white bowls of a ruddy chicken soup with greens sit on white plates, each with a piece of toasted bread leaning against the bowl and a spoon resting inside.

This Ali Slagle soup has enough tang to feel welcome even as the weather warms up. Boneless chicken thighs and greens get a bright punch from hot pickled peppers and their brine. Onion, tomato paste and cumin give the dish rich savoriness.

Recipe: Quick-Braised Chicken With Greens

A platter holds crisp lettuce leaves, a bowl of white rice with a spoon and a small bowl of a reddish-orange mixture; two lettuce wraps filled with the mixture sit on a separate plate.

In this Alexa Weibel recipe, two big-league ingredients — punchy kimchi and sweet-savory hoisin sauce — team up beautifully to lend flavor to simple ground chicken, rice and lettuce. The kimchi has two jobs, getting cooked with the chicken and then serving as a garnish, while the hoisin sauce tames the tang and spice.

Recipe: Kimchi Chicken Lettuce Wraps

A creamy soup with browned meatballs and vibrant green spinach leaves in a light-colored pot.

The coconut broth in Ali Slagle’s recipe takes its cues from Thai tom kha gai and adds gingery chicken meatballs, which can be made in the pot. Many commenters suggest instead using a sheet pan so you don’t have to work in batches to brown them or worry about oil splatter. Lots of spinach tossed in at the end lends a vibrant green color.

Recipe: Thai-Inspired Chicken Meatball Soup

A sheet pan filled with roasted chicken pieces and colorful vegetables, garnished with scallions and radish slices.

This Yewande Komolafe dish proves that if you use powerful ingredients, you can get away with a short grocery list. Here, gochujang lends not just spice, but umami. Again, you can substitute whichever vegetables are seasonal or currently lingering in your refrigerator.

Recipe: Sheet-Pan Gochujang Chicken and Roasted Vegetables

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