Zesty Lemon Chicken Marinade

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This simple 3-ingredient zesty lemon chicken marinade yields perfectly juicy and flavorful grilled chicken every time. Serve it for dinner or use it for sandwiches, wraps, salads, and more!

Zesty Lemon Chicken Marinade Ingredients

The best chicken marinade is sometimes the simplest – that’s why we love this 3 ingredient zesty lemon chicken marinade! All you need to make it is:

• Vegetable oil
• Lemon juice
• Salt

For the best flavor, we recommend using freshly squeezed lemon juice. But if you’re looking for quick convenience, you can totally just use the stuff from the bottle! No judgment here – we often turn to the bottled lemon and lime juice when we forget to pick up fresh citrus from the store.

How To Make The Best Zesty Chicken Marinade

The 3 main components to a good marinade are fat, acid, and salt. Which is why this simple chicken marinade for grilling just uses vegetable oil (fat), lemon juice (acid), and salt! It’s seriously that easy to get delicious flavor out of your meat – and this golden rule is the secret to achieving juicy chicken every single time.

To make this quick chicken marinade, simply combine the ingredients in a bowl with chicken breast and let it marinate at room temperature for 20 to 30 minutes.

How To Grill Zesty Lemon Chicken

We recommend grilling this lemon marinated chicken for the best flavor. Preheat the grill (or a cast iron grill pan) to medium-high, then cook the chicken for about 12 to 15 minutes, flipping every 3 minutes. This method ensures an even cook and results in perfectly juicy chicken every time!

To make sure you’ve fully cooked the chicken and avoid over-cooking it (which will make it taste dry), we recommend having a digital meat thermometer handy. You can check the internal temperature of the chicken towards the end of cooking to make sure you take it off the grill just as it’s cooked through.

Storing & Reheating Zesty Lemon Chicken

Let the chicken cool before storing it in an air-tight container in the fridge. It will keep for up to 5 days. You can either store it whole, or slice the chicken into bite-size pieces before putting it away so it’s already prepped for sandwiches, wraps, burrito bowls, and more!

To reheat, warm through in a frying pan over medium heat for about 7 to 8 minutes.

Zesty Lemon Marinated Chicken Serving Suggestions

This chicken is perfect for your weekly meal prep since it’s so quick, easy, and versatile. Make a big batch and use it for:

• Sandwiches and wraps
• Paninis
• Salads (like our Panera-inspired southwest salad!)
• Rice bowls

Since this grilled chicken has a fairly simple flavor profile, you can easily dress it up any which way you like. We love putting it on a sandwich with goat cheese, calabrian chili and tomato spread, and fresh arugula. Mmm 🙂

Zesty lemon chicken also makes a great dinner served with rice, hummus, and vegetables! Or with a side of roasted potatoes and parmesan green beans or summer squash & tomatoes. You really can’t go wrong with this quick and easy chicken marinade.