This Easy Baked Apricot Chicken is a perfect recipe for busy weeknights. With a jar of apricot preserves and a few other pantry staples, you just blend up a simple apricot-soy-lime-garlic sauce, pour it over the chicken, and bake your way to a sweet, salty, and flavorful chicken dinner that everyone will love.
If you follow Panning The Globe, you probably know about my love for this apricot glazing sauce. It’s the same one I use for my Broiled Glazed Salmon and my Soy Lime Apricot Wings, made from apricot preserves, soy sauce, lime juice, garlic, sugar, and red pepper flakes.
When you pour it over chicken and cook it in a hot oven, the sauce thickens, the flavors intensify and the chicken gets golden brown and lacquered in a wonderful sticky glaze with lots of exciting, contrasting flavors - it's the kind of sauce that makes you want to lick your plate clean.
What I love about this recipe:
- Everyday Ingredients: You can keep all the sauce ingredients for this dish on hand so all you have to buy is the chicken.
- 10-Minute Prep: A ridiculously easy recipe. Just whizz the 5 glaze ingredients in your blender, pour them over the chicken, and bake.
- Wow-Worthy Flavors: This isn't your average apricot chicken. With the addition of lime juice, soy sauce, garlic and red pepper flakes, this apricot chicken has a zingy array of sweet, tangy, spicy and savory flavors.
How To Make It
Note: this is an overview. Scroll down to the recipe card for full details.
Gather the sauce ingredients and add all but the red pepper flakes to a blender or food processor. I use a NutriBullet.
- Apricot Preserves - the star of the show
- Soy Sauce - for savory saltiness
- Lime juice - fresh is great but for convenience I often use Santa Cruz Lime Juice
- Garlic - lots!
- Granulated Sugar - for flavor but also to ensure caramelization
- Crushed Red Pepper Flakes - for a good spicy kick
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Puree the 5 sauce ingredients and then stir in the red pepper flakes.
Arrange the chicken pieces in a single layer on a foil-lined rimmed baking sheet, and pour the sauce mixture over them. Using tongs, turn the chicken pieces to coat them with glaze.
Bake the chicken, turning the pieces over and basting them halfway through and continuing to bake until the skin is deep golden brown with the apricot sauce lacquered on.
Serving Suggestions
Serve apricot chicken with steamed rice or fluffy couscous. The sweet and savory Asian-inspired flavors of the glaze are perfect with a simple side like roasted or steamed broccoli or green beans. For a final flourish, be sure to add the toppings—a sprinkle of sliced scallions and toasted sesame seeds adds a fantastic pop of color and texture. A little fresh cilantro would also be delicious.
If you try this apricot chicken recipe, I hope you'll come back to leave a star rating and a comment. I'd love to know what you think!
PrintRecipe
Easy Baked Apricot Chicken Recipe
- Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes
- Yield: 6-8 servings 1x
Description
This Easy Baked Apricot Chicken Recipe is great for busy weeknights. It’s incredibly simple, made with a jar of apricot preserves and other pantry staples. You just blend up a simple apricot-soy-lime-garlic sauce, pour it over the chicken and bake up a flavorful chicken dinner.
Ingredients
- ½ cup apricot preserves
- ½ cup soy sauce
- ½ cup lime juice
- ⅓ cup granulated sugar
- 4 large garlic cloves, peeled and roughly chopped
- 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
- 4 pounds bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs or a combination of thighs and drumsticks (10-12 pieces)
- 4 thinly sliced scallions, optional garnish
- 1 or 2 teaspoons toasted sesame seeds, optional garnish
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Instructions
Preheat oven to 400ºF and, for easier clean-up, line a baking sheet with a double layer of tinfoil.
- Add apricot preserves, soy sauce, lime juice, sugar and garlic to the bowl of a blender or food processor and puree until smooth. Then stir in red pepper flakes.
- Add chicken to prepared baking sheet skin-side up and pour apricot mixture evenly over chicken. Turn each piece over once or twice, to completely coat it with sauce, leaving pieces skin side down.
- Bake chicken skin side down for 20 minutes. Remove pan from oven and turn heat up to 425ºF. Flip chicken pieces so they're skin-side up, spoon sauce from the pan over them and bake for 25 -30 minutes longer, until the chicken skin is beautifully browned. If you want the skin even more browned and crispy, turn the heat up and cook under the high heat of the broiler for for 2-3 minutes, watching carefully to avoid burning. (see notes)
- Serve hot, topped with scallions and sesame seeds, if desired. Steamed rice and broccoli, or another green vegetable, are perfect accompaniments. Spoon remaining pan sauce over the chicken and rice.
Notes
- Cooking times can vary slightly, depending on your oven and the size of your chicken pieces. The best way to ensure a great result is to check occasionally to make sure the chicken is browning and not burning.
- Nutrition Disclaimer: We do our best to provide accurate nutrition values using an online nutrition calculator however our nutrition information should only be used as an approximation.
- Prep Time: 10 min
- Cook Time: 55 min
- Category: Chicken Dinner
- Method: Bake
Leah
can we use chicken breasts for this and can we bake it at 375 and not such a high temperature. thanks
Lisa Goldfinger
Hi Leah, yes you certainly can. When the chicken is cooked through, which may be a bit less time than for thighs, take it out of the pan and turn the heat up high. Let the sauce bubble for a few minutes until it thickens, taking care not to let it burn. Then spoon some of that thickened sauce over the chicken breasts. That will get you the same effect as cooking thighs at a higher temp for longer. I hope you enjoy - keep me posted!
Leah Goldman
thanks lisa if you cook the bottoms for 50 min how long would you cook the breasts and would you start skin down and then flip as you do with the bottoms
Lisa Goldfinger
I would cook the breasts for 25 - 30 minutes. Test for doneness by slicing and seeing if the juices run clear or when they reach an internal temp of 165F.
Leah Goldman
with the breasts would you start skin side down too and then flip them. thanks
Elle G.
This is my kind of dish. I love how easy this recipe is. Plus all of the ingredients are things I usually have on hand. And best of all, the chicken is tender and the flavors in that sauce are SO good - My whole family loved it.