This Cranberry Chicken is an easy dish with a sweet-tangy, bright, and cozy glaze. Perfect for a chicken alternative for Thanksgiving dinner!

Delicious Cranberry Chicken is the ultimate sweet and tangy Chicken Dinner. Serve it up with Roasted Green Beans and Creamy Garlic Mashed Potatoes for the perfect comforting meal.

Sabrina’s Cranberry Chicken Recipe

The sweet cranberry sauce ingredients give the chicken breast a wonderful flavor, similar to what you’d have on Thanksgiving from Homemade Cranberry Sauce. Just like my classic cranberry sauce recipe, the chicken is cooked in fresh cranberries, brown sugar, and orange juice. The bold flavors soak into the chicken for a juicy and irresistible dish.

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Ingredients

▢ 12 ounces fresh cranberries , frozen is okay too
▢ 3/4 cup orange juice
▢ 1/4 cup brown sugar , packed
▢ 4 chicken breasts , boneless and skinless
▢ 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
▢ 1/4 teaspoon pepper
▢ 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
▢ 2 tablespoons maple syrup

Instructions

Add cranberries, orange juice, and brown sugar in a small saucepan on medium heat.
Cook for 15-18 minutes until cranberries pop open then turn off the heat.
Using a kitchen mallet pound the chicken breasts until they are an even thickness.
Season chicken with salt and pepper.
Add butter to a large skillet on medium-high heat.
Sear the chicken on both sides until the chicken is cooked through, about 8-10 minutes total.
Stir maple syrup into cranberry sauce and pour the sauce over the chicken.

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About this Recipe

Along with how delicious this recipe is, it’s also quick to make with a super-easy cooking method. After combining the sauce on the stovetop, you just add the chicken pieces to a skillet and let them simmer until cooked through. It’s a less than 40-minute stovetop recipe to get the perfect chicken for dinner.

Chef’s Note

If you have any leftover chicken, it’s perfect to keep in the fridge and then repurpose it as a cranberry chicken salad. Just slice the cold chicken into bite-sized chicken pieces, and toss it with your favorite salad veggies. The burst of flavor from the cranberries would taste great with dark leafy greens like spinach, arugula, and Swiss chard. Toss that together with some dried cranberries and chopped nuts, drizzle any remaining cranberry sauce over the top, and enjoy!

Key Ingredients

Meat: Boneless, skinless chicken breasts are the perfect kind of meat for this recipe because they’re easy to prep, and they easily soak up the flavors from the cranberry sauce that they’re cooked in.
Cranberries: Whether you use fresh cranberries or frozen cranberries in this recipe they bring a tart, bold fruity flavor to the recipe.
Sweeteners: The maple syrup and brown sugar balance out the tartness of the berries with a rich, sweet flavor.
Orange juice: Orange juice acts as an excellent cooking liquid, adds a little more sweetness, and gives the sauce an amazing tangy flavor.

How to Store

Serve: You never want to leave meat out for more than 2 hours after cooking.
Store: Transfer the Cranberry Chicken to an airtight container to store in the fridge for up to 4 days.
Freeze: You can also seal and keep chicken in the freezer for 3-4 months.

Variations

Lemon: You can add some extra tangy flavor to the recipe by mixing in a tablespoon or two of fresh lemon juice. If you add lemon to the recipe, you can also garnish the dish with lemon wedges.
Seasonings: Another easy way to add some different flavors to the recipe is with seasonings like fresh rosemary, fresh thyme, red pepper flakes, basil, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, or fresh garlic cloves.
Onions: You could also sauté some sweet onion along with the chicken in the skillet, or top the whole dish off with minced green onion.