This cilantro lime chicken simmers in a creamy flavor-packed sauce and comes together in just one pan and in around 40 minutes from start to finish. This easy chicken dinner recipe is a favorite in my home—and many readers’ homes too—all year round!
I originally published this recipe in 2015 and have since added new photos and more helpful success tips. And based on reader feedback, increased the amount of creamy sauce! 😉
While I enjoy baking desserts the most, dinner is an everyday adventure. And if you’re like me, you’re constantly searching for quick and easy dinner recipes. Well, you’ve come to the right place! This is my one-pan creamy cilantro lime chicken, a consistent crowd favorite.
One reader, Marci, commented: “Thank you for this recipe. My family has been obsessed for months; we have it at least once a week and I recommend it to everyone. ★★★★★“
Another reader, Rose, commented: “Omg what a flavor bomb!!! This was absolutely delicious!! … Wish I made a double batch, but will be making again and again!! ★★★★★“
And another reader, Allison, commented: “STAPLE DINNER in our house and a GREAT thing to serve to guests! Everyone LOVES this ★★★★★“
Today I’m going to show you that one skillet is all it takes to transform chicken into something you and your family will love. The process is a lot like my skillet apple cider chicken and this creamy lemon thyme chicken. Pan-sear the chicken on the stove, make a flavorful cilantro lime pan sauce, then bake the chicken in the sauce to finish.
Here’s Why You’ll Love This Cilantro Lime Chicken
- Quick and easy 1-pan meal
- Extra tender, juicy chicken
- Creamy, buttery, zesty sauce tastes amazing on rice and vegetables, too!
- Undeniably crowd pleasing, so you’ll want to make it again and again
Grab These Ingredients
- Chicken: I use boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Pound them down to even thickness. You could use boneless, skinless chicken thighs instead if desired.
- Salt & Pepper
- Olive Oil
- Chicken Broth
- Fresh Lime Juice
- Onion: Yellow, white, or red—chef’s choice!
- Cilantro
- Red Pepper Flakes: Adds a bit of heat, but feel free to reduce or increase the amount to your liking.
- Heavy Cream: Just enough to make the sauce taste creamy and rich. See below for a dairy-free alternative.
- Butter: Adds so much delicious flavor!
Start the Chicken, Then Make the Pan Sauce
The process is the same as my lemon thyme chicken and creamy garlic chicken and vegetables, so if you’ve made either of those before you know how easy it is!
Cook the chicken in a large oven-proof skillet until both sides are browned—the chicken will cook again in the oven so if the centers aren’t cooked all the way through yet, that’s fine. Remove the chicken temporarily and set it aside.
If you’re in the market for a new skillet, I own and love this one.
Now, using the same skillet, make the pan sauce. The juices left behind by the chicken are key for flavor, so don’t clean the skillet before making the sauce!
Simmer the pan sauce until it has reduced and thickened.
Add the chicken back to the skillet:
Bake in the oven until the chicken is cooked through. Garnish the saucy chicken with extra cilantro (flavor! flavor!) and a squeeze of lime. Serve with rice and veggies, and smother them with the sauce, too!
Yes! Use full-fat canned coconut cream instead of heavy cream and coconut oil instead of butter for a dairy-free version with a delicious coconut-y twist.
No problem! After you cook the chicken and sauce on the stove, you can transfer both to a baking dish.
Yes, you can use chicken thighs instead if you prefer. No changes necessary!
Yes! The recipe below reflects an almost-doubled portion of the sauce. Before 2025, it made only about half as much, but now there’s plenty to generously coat the chicken and spoon over any sides you’re serving.
Yes, and this 10.25-inch cast iron skillet is a good size. This particular skillet is a workhorse and I use it for nearly everything from bruschetta chicken and walnut crusted chicken to honey skillet cornbread, too.
What to Serve With Cilantro Lime Chicken
We enjoy this chicken with a side of rice and a green vegetable like roasted broccoli (and the cilantro lime sauce poured over everything, of course!), but here are a few more suggestions for tasty pairings:
- Cornbread or cornbread muffins
- Soft dinner rolls or honey whole wheat dinner rolls
- Roasted or steamed asparagus, green beans, or Brussels sprouts
- Mashed or roasted potatoes
- Zucchini fritters or corn fritters
Creamy Cilantro Lime Chicken
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 40 minutes
- Yield: serves 4
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Cooking
- Cuisine: American
Description
This cilantro lime chicken simmers in a creamy flavor-packed sauce and comes together in only 1 pan!
Ingredients
- 1.5 pounds (24 ounces/680g) boneless, skinless chicken breasts
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil
- 1 and 1/2 cups (360ml) chicken broth (I recommend reduced sodium)
- 3 Tablespoons (45ml) fresh lime juice
- 1/2 cup (60g) chopped red onion
- 2 Tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
- 1/2–1 teaspoon red pepper flakes*
- 1/3 cup (5 Tablespoons/80ml) heavy cream*
- 1/4 cup (4 Tablespoons/56g) unsalted butter
- optional: lime wedges and more cilantro for garnish
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°F (190°C).
- If the chicken breasts are uneven in thickness, pound them down so they’re all even. This way all the breasts will cook through simultaneously. Sprinkle both sides with salt and pepper.
- In a large ovenproof skillet, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the chicken and cook for 6–7 minutes, turning once. You want the chicken nice and browned on the outside. (It doesn’t have to be cooked all the way through yet.) Transfer chicken to a plate and cover with foil until step 5.
- Remove skillet from heat and add the broth, lime juice, onion, cilantro, and red pepper flakes. Return to heat. Cook and stir to scrape up the browned bits from the bottom of the skillet. Bring to a boil. Allow to boil, uncovered, for 10-12 minutes or until the liquid is reduced to 1/2 cup. Reduce heat to medium-low, then add the cream and butter. Stir until butter has melted, then remove from heat.
- Add the chicken back to the skillet, turning once to coat both sides in the sauce. Transfer the skillet to the preheated oven. Bake uncovered until the chicken is completely cooked through, about 5–10 minutes (internal temperature should be at least 165°F (74°C)).
- Serve chicken with sauce spooned on top, and garnish with lime wedges and cilantro, if desired.
- Leftovers keep well in the refrigerator for a few days. You can reheat on the stove over medium heat, in the microwave, or in the oven.
Notes
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Meat Tenderizer | Large Oven-Proof Skillet (I own and love this one) | Tongs | Citrus Juicer | Instant-Read Thermometer
- Red Pepper Flakes: Adjust the amount of red pepper flakes to your liking. This amount made the chicken mildly spicy. The cream in the sauce mellows out the spice.
- Heavy Cream: You can use whole milk or half-and-half instead, but for the thickest, richest sauce I highly recommend heavy cream. If using whole milk, make sure it is at room temperature to help prevent curdling.
- Dairy-Free: Use coconut cream instead of heavy cream and coconut oil instead of butter.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 chicken breast + 1/4 of the sauce
- Calories: 396
- Sugar: 1.5 g
- Sodium: 254.4 mg
- Fat: 23.7 g
- Carbohydrates: 4.3 g
- Protein: 40.8 g
- Cholesterol: 165.9 mg
Reader Comments and Reviews
I can’t even explain how delicious this is! Just fantastic.. whole family loves it! Thank you!
Left out the cilantro….that vile tasting weed. Used parsley instead.
STAPLE DINNER in our house and a GREAT thing to serve to guests! Everyone LOVES this, and yes the sauce is like crack! Here’s what we do differently: for 2-4 people, use 2 chicken breasts (because we chop it up at the end, and it goes far). We skip the pounding out part because…lazy, and it’s never been a problem. Half a red onion, half or whole bunch of cilantro – either works, 1/2 cup cream (tripling the receipt means 9 tbsp, which is 1/2 cup). We’ve used milk for this often because it’s on hand and it works great. We use 1.5 tsp red pepper or more for extra spiciness. We love to chop up the chicken and mix in 1/2 lb pasta (or 1 lb for 6 people) and serve it all mixed together with the bite sized chicken. If I make a half pound of pasta, I use 2 cups chicken broth. For 1 lb pasta you can use 3 cups. Sauce was too soupy to mix up with 1/2 lb pasta when we used 3 cups broth. Just not enough pasta to go with all that sauce. Also great to serve this over cilantro lime rice! I would double the sauce recipe, beacuse again you might run into a soupiness issue if you are tripling recipe and using all that liquid.
This is one of my go to recipes!! I always double or triple the sauce so that we can put a little on our veggies or rice! Way better than restaurant food!!! Flavors are amazing. So good!!
Thank you for this recipe. My family has been obsessed for months we have it at least once a week and I recommend it to everyone. I do make some changes though. I triple sometimes quadruple the sauce recipe. Add twice the amount of lime, and instead of cream I use cream cheese(takes a bit to melt but so worth it). Serve over cilantro lime rice or mashed potato’s and it’s soooo good!
I made this for my family last week and everyone LOVED it! Thank you for the simple and delicious recipe.
This is delicious! The sauce is heavenly!
Made this for dinner tonight. Absolutely delicious! Thanks to the other commenters I knew to double the sauce and I’m happy I did! SOOO good! Thanks Sally!
Hi Sally,
I’m always looking for new ways to cook chicken and this sounds fantastic. One question though. We can’t eat spicy foods and I was wondering if adding some smoked paprika, cumin or turmeric would enhance the sauce in lieu of the red pepper flakes. Your baking recipes have become regulars in my kitchen and you have really turned me into a better baker. Thanks for helping me enhance my savory repertoire as well!
Hi Shelly, we haven’t tried that combination of spices here, but if you do, let us know how it turns out for you. You could also simply reduce the red pepper flakes — as written, the 1/2 teaspoon only made the chicken mildly spicy, as the cream in the sauce mellows it out a bit. Let us know what you try!
Mine came out too lemony – buttery. Is that the intention or did i misuse the quantities?
My liquid doesn’t boil down anywhere near that quickly, for some reason, and my cilantro can’t handle being put into the boiling mixture or else it just withers to a dark nothing. Otherwise I love this.
Amazing!!! This will definitely be in my recipe rotation! Thank you for this recipe Sally!
This recipe goes really well with your garlic focaccia (which I have made an uncountable number of times)! When I first made it, the sauce wasn’t as brown as I thought it would be, but when I made it again I made sure to caramelize the onions first and it worked out really well.
I want to make this for dinner tonight! It sounds so delicious, BUT I don’t have fresh cilantro, only dried (the cilantro spice jar. I’m wondering if I can use this instead and if so, how much would I use? PLEASE let me know! Thanks!
Hi Barbara, I haven’t tested this recipe with dried cilantro. You might find this article interesting: https://www.spiceography.com/dried-cilantro-vs-fresh/
You might also enjoy my Skillet Chicken with Garlic Sauce for a different option.
I love this recipe. The flavors are delicious and it’s easy. I always make cilantro lime rice to go with it since they use several of the same ingredients.
Great recipe and yes to doubling the sauce! I also added garlic : )
This is 1000% mine and my boyfriend’s favorite dinner. I make it a few times a month and it never gets old. I can’t describe the flavor, this sauce is like crack. I always double the sauce recipe so we have extra to pour all over our rice and vegetable. 10/10!
Family favorite! We triple the sauce and make extra chicken because it is soooo good, my teens go crazy for this. Sometimes there are fights over the last piece!
Fantastic Sauce! We pour this over rice but honestly we quadruple the sauce (only 2x the onion). It’s that good
I have been making this recipe for several years. You are right, the sauce is what makes it so good. I always triple the sauce and serve this with bow tie pasta. My family loves this.
LOVED THIS RECIPE! I added some more lime and spice just per my taste and it was so good. Super creamy, unique tasting, refreshing, and just fab. My husband loved it. The asparagus on the side paired perfectly.
I have a histamine allergy and was able to sub the cream for coconut cream, having this allergy has made having different flavorful foods hard but not this! This is melt in your mouth goodness. I am so pleased! Thank you for an amazing recipe!
Ive made this several times now! I substitute the like for lemon and add a little extra (limes are very hard to find in Pakistan) and i make extra sauce to serve it with pasta or rice. (I up the red chilli levels since we like our food spicy here) Its such a hit amongst my friends and family!
This is awesome! I think that next time I’ll double everything but the chicken to have more of that amazing sauce.
I made this recipe as is and loved it, but then it inspired me to make my own variation. I make a little extra of the sauce, I chop up the chicken and add it in, skip the oven part, and toss in some cooked spaghetti or linguini to make it yummy pasta dish 🙂
What is the purpose for preheating the oven?
Hi Cherish, preheating the oven ensures that it is at the correct temperature when we’re ready to add the chicken to the oven in Step 5. Hope this helps!
My family LOVES this recipe. It is absolutely delicious!
This recipe is perfect!!! I cooked everything on the stovetop and it came out great!! My husband said he could eat 5 servings!! Lol! I’m obsessed with your sweet recipes but now I’ll have to try all your savory ones too! You the best, Sally!
Hi Sally,
Can I use lemons instead of lime? I have a ton of those.
Sure, I don’t see why not! You might also like this one: https://route-span.live/skillet-chicken-with-creamy-lemon-thyme-sauce/%3C/p%3E
This is fantastic—I’d give it 6 stars if I could! I will make double sauce next time!
The flavors are great!!! I over cooked mine – following the cooking time. But, that is the case when you pound out chicken, it cooks faster. Just a little tweaking needed on my part. Will make again.