Treat yourself to this delicious chicken dinner of creamy quick caramelized onion cream sauce with spiced chicken breast. In this recipe, chicken breast cooks juicy and moist perfection, and cream sauce develops bold flavor as if it is cooked low and slow for hours!Sharing easy tips and pantry staple ingredients to make bold and delicious Chicken Dinner in just 35 minutes. Gluten free. Keto. Low Carb.
Serve with pasta and you have a restaurant quality dinner for 4 or go low carb and serve a salad on the side.
Let's get started!
Caramelized Onion Cream Sauce Chicken
This creamy chicken is our favorite comfy winter night dinner.The recipe is inspired from another family favorite, creamy mushroom sauce with chicken.
I first shared this recipe, on the blog, 8 years ago. (including old picture from the archive) Since then, this recipe and my style of cooking has come a long way. But we still enjoy this comforting chicken dinner during chili winter days.
So I decide to updated instructions, and add more photos to share this recipe with you again.
What Do You Need For Onion Cream Sauce Chicken?
The ingredients to make this recipe are easy to find in pantry-staples. I have also included few substitutes at the end of the post.
Here is what you need:
- Chicken Breast
- White Onion
- Garlic
- Olive Oil
- Chicken Stock
- Cumin
- Paprika
- Oregano
- Cream
- Worcestershire Sauce
- Salt and Pepper
Quick Caramelized Onion
The heart of this chicken dish is cream sauce prepared with quick Caramelized Onion. In this recipe, I have shared how to caramelize onions quickly (in just 8-10 minutes) and are still sweet loaded with flavor.
To quickly caramelize onions,
- I sauté inions in same pan in which I first cook the chicken. This way onions pick a caramelized color and flavor from the flavor bits of chicken release while pan searing it.
- I also use two little ingredients to help caramelize onions better. i.e. sugar, salt, and Worcestershire sauce. You will be surprised, how only a 1/4 of tsp sugar and salt helps onion sweat quickly and caramelize faster.
- I mix in Worcestershire sauce at the end to give onion a depth flavor as if these were slow cooked for an hour where it just takes 8-10 minutes to get caramelized onion perfectly sweet and delicious.
Onion onions are caramelized, heavy cream and chicken stock makes an onion creamy sauce for chicken that is simply irresistible. I only ask to use good quality and low sodium chicken stock. Since sodium in stocks can vary. Please always adjust salt once sauce is ready. Thank you for listing to me.
Marinade for Chicken Breast
For extra boost of flavor, I marinated the chicken in garlic and spices (instead of using just salt and pepper). Marinade will help chicken adsorb a lot of flavor and that really enhances the overall flavor.
While searing chicken, make sure to reserve the juices collected at the bottom of pan. These juices drizzled over cream sauce take dish to whole new level.
Every spoonful of the cream sauce with chicken is a flavor-party in mouth. You can alsomake onion cream sauce more substantial by adding additional veggies such as mushroom or spinach. I often add button or cremini mushrooms to the sauce. Sauté these after searing chicken, take out in plate with chicken. Add back in the same time when adding the chicken to cook with the sauce.
Picture from archive:
Here is a picture from 8 year old recipe. At that time, I cooked chicken thighs and garnished with chives. You can use chives, any fresh herbs or scallion for garnish.
Make A complete Meal
For a complete meal, serve sauce with chicken over pasta. For a low carb meal, pair with green salad or cauliflower rice.
Substitutes
- For lite sauce, replace heavy cream with half and half.
- Incase of not using chicken stock, use vegetable stock or use half bouillon cube mixed with 1 cup of hot water.
- You can also cook chicken thighs instead of chicken breast. Thighs cook even more moist and juicier.
Tips for Success
- If in hurry, loosely cover chicken breasts in parchment paper and then pound gently with back of a heavy bottom pan or meat pounder until breasts are about 1/4 inch thick. This tenderizes the chicken and also makes it super quick to cook. (just 2-3 minutes per side)
- You don’t need a lot of oil to sear chicken as there is oil in marinade as well. While cooking chicken, make sure not to press chicken with spatula because that will release all good juices and chicken will end up being dry.
- Don't wipe skillet after searing chicken. This is the flavor base for quick caramelized onions.
- Don't worry about the bits of chicken marinade stuck to the bottom of the skillet. These will come off once deglazed with white wine.
Friends, serve something different for the dinner tonight. This cozy delicious cream sauce with chicken is bursting with flavor. You will forget you are dinning-in! I know you will love the flavors as otherwise it wouldn't have been my family's favorite for years.
Happy Cooking! -Savita x
