The trick to this recipe is slicing the chicken breast length wise and pounding it a little with a meat mallet to make sure the chicken cooks evenly. Sure it takes an extra couple minutes to mess with this step, but the result is totally worth it – evenly cooked chicken that doesn’t get dried out on one end while being undercooked inside the middle of the other end! You can change up the spices any way you like but my super simple go to spices are just sea salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder.
The other trick is preheating the pan. You want the chicken to cook quickly and evenly so it stays tender and juicy on the inside. I preheat my pan on medium-high heat for a few minutes while I’m prepping the chicken. Add in a tiny morsel of butter, if it melts immediately and sizzles just a little, but stays yellow, the pan is ready. Drizzle about a tbsp of olive oil around the butter and swirl the pan around to distribute. Toss on the chicken and cook side 1 for 3-4 minutes, or just until you see that the top side is ringed with white, leaving only a small circle of pink encased by cooked chicken. Flip then cook just 2 minutes or so. Remove the pan from the heat and toss a lid on the pan to “finish” the chicken for 5 minutes. It’s very important not to disturb the chicken during this 5 minute finish. This last step really helps seal the juices in and allows the chicken to “rest” and redistribute the juices. Keeping it barricaded inside this humid environment of the sealed pan leaves no other choice but for the chicken to come out tender and moist!
