20+ Simple and Speedy Sheet Pan Chicken Recipes

Removing a chicken's backbone—a technique called spatchcocking (or butterflying)—ensures juicy meat and golden crisp skin in less time than roasting a whole bird. Although it does require some simple knife skills, it's the best and fastest way to roast a chicken. Plus, you can save the backbone to make a great chicken stock. This is the kind of sheet pan dinner you'll want to make all fall and winter long. 

With a little sheet pan savvy, flavor-packed chicken tikka masala has never been more accessible. While we suggest marinating the chicken for at least four hours, if you didn’t plan ahead, you can simply marinate the inherently tender chicken thighs for as long as you have time for. 

Even if you have made oven-fried chicken countless times before, this might become your new favorite recipe. The chicken is dredged in a flavorful mixture of melted butter and Dijon mustard before being coated in crushed cornflakes and panko, for maximum crunch. When paired with caramelized roasted broccoli and a smooth parmesan cream sauce. We upgraded a classic béchamel sauce (or white sauce) with the addition of Parmesan cheese and a touch of lemon juice for brightness. Any grated Parmesan cheese will work in this sauce, but the salty-sweet flavor of Parmigiano-Reggiano will really take it over the top. Try serving the sauce with the roasted broccoli for a fancy take on the usual steamed broccoli with cheese sauce. Have some fresh herbs on hand? Add a tablespoon of minced fresh herbs to the sauce along with the salt and pepper. Basil, thyme, parsley, or sage would be delicious additions. This is a winning dinner recipe for any night of the week.

Comforting, savory, and satisfying, this sheet pan chicken dinner is perfect for weeknights. The chicken has a crispy, slightly salty skin with a juicy, tender interior. Meanwhile, the vegetables get lightly bathed in the chicken’s buttery juices. Feel free to cut up and use any leftover veggies you have—this recipe is all about technique. Line the baking sheet with foil for the fastest after-dinner cleanup ever. 

Topping a cheesy slice of pizza with a loaded handful of salad is the perfect compromise when you’re trying to eat healthier, but still need a hearty dose of flavor in your life. In this epic carb and veggie union, your traditional cobb salad joins forces with a garlicky slice of cheese pizza.

You can marinate the chicken in the buttermilk mixture up to 24 hours so the seasoning penetrates the meat more deeply, though even a two-hour soak will help if you’re time-pressed. Two teaspoons of hot sauce in the marinade gives the chicken zesty flavor without seeming spicy. Depending on your heat preference, you can double or triple the amount of hot sauce. For best results, shop for air-chilled (not water-chilled) chicken so it’s easier for the brine to penetrate. Grate the cheese with a Microplane or other very fine grater so it spreads evenly into the coating.

"Fab, fuss-free dinners are my holy grail,” says Michelle Tam (nomnompaleo.com,@nomnompaleo) about sheet pan meals. This one is adapted from her and husband Henry Fong’s latest Nom Nom Paleo cookbook, Ready or Not! “Sheet pan suppers allow me to maximize the amount of veggies for dinner," she says. "And cleanup is a breeze."

Make Orange Chicken that's cheaper, fresher, and more delicious than Chinese take-out. Believe it or not, all you need is sheet pan to make sticky, orange-glazed chicken and crisp green beans. If you can't find French green beans, blanch regular green beans for 2 minutes, dry them, and proceed with the chili sauce. Don't skip broiling the dish at the end-- that's what quickly glazes the chicken and gives the green beans that irresistable crunchy-yet-tender texture. 

In addition to getting the food into the oven in stages, you should also prep the food in stages to make most efficient use of your time. As the oven preheats, skin and bread the chicken; when the chicken goes in, prepare the sweet potatoes. Once those go in, get the broccoli ready. To easily skin the drumsticks, use a paper towel to grab an edge of the skin on the fat end, then pull down. Keep in mind that drumsticks can vary in size, and the cook time is calculated for 31/2-ounce ones; we had good luck buying organic drumsticks, which tended to be smaller than conventional.

Gina Homolka is the founder of skinnytaste.com and @skinnytaste.

A very hot oven quickly roasts the potatoes and finishes the chicken without overcooking. You can substitute fingerling potatoes, halved lengthwise, for the small Yukon gold potatoes.

Crusty, toasty chunks of cornbread team up with juicy chicken thighs and tender roasted fennel, apples, celery, and carrots in this wonderful sheet pan supper. Whether your cornbread is store-bought or homemade, make sure that it is not overly sweet. Cut the apple and vegetables as directed so that they all cook in the same amount of time.

Cutting down on the fat doesn’t mean cutting out any flavor with this oven “fried” chicken, featuring a savory spice rub and a sweet, tangy peach barbecue sauce. Cooking your chicken at a high temperature in the oven means you won’t need additional oil in order to get super-crispy skin. Alternatively, you could also do this with an air fryer. With high, dry heat, the chicken crisps and browns with just the fat naturally present in the skin, just as it would if you were to sear it in a pan of hot oil on the stove. The combination of bold ancho chili pepper and paprika spices adds a peppery heat and aids in developing a dark caramel color as the chicken cooks. The sweet peach barbecue sauce starts with ketchup as the base and makes a great match for the chicken as it sweet tanginess cuts dry rub’s the spice. The use of a fresh peach and peach preserves gives the sauce intense peachy flavor and a substantial thickness once all the ingredients are blended together. We call for Mirin here, but if you have trouble finding it, you can use rice wine vinegar instead. The soy sauce provides the perfect kick of salinity, while the Worcestershire sauce adds another layer of acidic and umami flavors. And finally, the brown sugar rounds out the sauce for a well-balanced mix of sweet, savory, bright and bitter

This fantastic sheet pan chicken supper is simple to throw together and packed with robust fall flavor. While it’s a great dish to add into your weeknight dinner rotation, this roasted chicken dinner is impressive enough for casual entertaining. Feel free to swap out the butternut squash for sweet potatoes if you’d prefer. And to find even more inspired sheet pan meals, you’ll definitely want to pick up a copy of One Sheet Eats: 100+ Delicious Recipes All Made on a Baking Sheet.

Making crispy, golden-brown chicken is ­possible on a weeknight if you use the oven instead of the stove-top. Enjoy the contrast between the hot cooked chicken and the tangy caper-and-lemon vinaigrette.

Looking for a sheet pan meal that’s just as delicious as it is seamless? These tender, juicy sheet pan chicken thighs have just enough bbq sauce glaze to make them super tasty and beautiful. The potatoes get cooked until they’re tender in the middle, but crispy on the outside, and the green beans cook while the glaze achieves perfection. Everything comes together in an hour, and cleanup is a breeze. Be sure to section off the sheet pan and make enough room for each ingredient so you won’t have to waste time or oven heat. 

The seasoning blend called Chinese five-spice adds a warm note without pushing the apples into pie territory, and the apples are tart enough to balance the flavor too. Cooked fennel bulbs add a warm, aromatic note that makes this sheet pan dinner smell like a cozy, Autumn night. Roasting ingredients together on a sheet pan saves time and reduces cleanup. Make sure to head to your farmer's market between August and November for the freshest, ripest apples that will yield the most flavorful, sweet results.

Two spice rack staples—cinnamon and nutmeg—give this chicken a wonderful depth of flavor, and fresh tomatoes, lemons, and herbs add zest. Buy bone-in chicken breasts that are about the same size so that they cook evenly.

For an easy, autumnal dinner, this whole roasted chicken is the way to go. Perched on a bed of root veggies, fennel, apples, and mushrooms, this chicken becomes irresistibly crispy on the outside and succulent on the inside. Apples and mushrooms absorb the savory chicken fat and slowly break down throughout the slow-roasting process, making them almost melt-in-your-mouth delicious. The sheet pan will be crowded upon assembly, but don't fret, roasting will shrink the veggie and apple mixture's size.

A metal cooling rack set in a rimmed baking sheet makes bi-level cooking possible--squash below, chicken above--so the meat's glaze stays nicely charred, while the juices drip into and moisten the squash.

For a show-stopping appetizer, these unlikely nachos are just what you need. If you have a local market that butchers their own meat, they will likely be able to sell you chicken skins for cheap. You can use either the thigh skins or the breast skins here, both will work great. Drying the chicken skins with paper towels and sandwiching them between two pans is the key to getting them flat and crispy (without the second pan weighing them down, youe skins would shrivel up). Do note, after step 1 in the recipe below (i.e. cooking the skins for 35-40 minutes, they may very well be crisped and ready to go) which allows you to skip step 2 entirely. Continue to cook the skins uncovered only if they aren't quite browned and crisp, but keep a close eye on them so they do not burn. You can cook these in mulitple batches if you don’t have enough pans to make them in a single batch, but watch the second round of chicken skins closely because it will probably cook faster. 

Roman also uses this paprika rub to smear on pork roasts or to marinate chicken.