This lemon garlic chicken starts off with browning the chicken and then cooking it in a garlicky lemony gravy that is best served with buttery noodles.
There are some recipes that you just want to make at once. They make you forget about the list of chores that need to be completed, the TV shows that you could be watching, and instead you are standing in the kitchen with ingredients laid out on the counter.
This lemon garlic chicken by Emeril Lagasse was one such recipe for me. Instead of the Chinese styled lemon chicken, this is more of an Italian version where the chicken is first browned, then cooked with onions, garlic and lemon to create a gravy that is delicious served with spaghetti or noodles. His recipe uses chicken thighs with bone with about 30 cloves of garlic, however, I reduced the quantity of garlic and substituted with boneless chicken. The substitution also makes it possible for the chicken to be enjoyed with rice as well.
Would love it if you could try out and rate the recipe, and let me know how it was in the comments below!
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📖 Recipe
Lemon Garlic Chicken
This lemon garlic chicken starts off with browning the chicken and then cooking it in a garlicky lemony gravy that is best served with buttery noodles.
Servings: 5 people
Calories: 3141kcal
Ingredients
For the chicken
- 500 grams boneless chicken cubed
- 1 ½ teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- ¼ cup flour
- 4 tablespoon oil
- 1 cup onions finely chopped
- 12 cloves garlic
- ½ – 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes adjust to taste
- 3 to 4 black peppercorns
- ¼ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1 ¼ cup chicken stock 1 chicken cube dissolved in 1 ¼ cup of water
- 3-4 green chillies whole
For the noodles
- 450 grams egg noodles or spaghetti
- 3 tablespoons butter
- ½ tablespoon dried parsley
Instructions
- Place the chicken in a small bowl. Season with 1 teaspoon salt and black pepper. Add flour, and toss to mix together. Make sure the chicken is coated with the flour properly. Set aside.
- Take 10 cloves of garlic, and place them in a mortar and pestle. Pound them for a minute or so, till the garlic gets smashed up and releases it's flavor. The garlic should be smashed into small pieces, but not turned into garlic paste. Alternatively, place the garlic cloves in a clean plastic/ziploc bag, and then pound with a meat hammer or a rolling pin. Set aside.Finely slice the remaining 2 cloves of garlic, and set aside.
- In a large saute pan or wok, heat 2 tablespoon oil over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, add the chicken and cook till golden brown on both sides. Remove the chicken from the pan and keep aside.
- Keeping heat on low-medium, add chopped onions to the pan and cook till light brown. Add the smashed up garlic, red chilli flakes, remaining salt, black peppercorn and cook for about 2 minutes.
- Add the lemon juice, chicken stock and browned chicken back to the pan. Bring the mixture to boil, then turn heat to simmer. Cover the pan and cook for about 10 minutes. Once the chicken is cooked through, take off the cover and cook for a few minutes till gravy is as per desired consistency.
- Heat remaining oil in a small frying pan or tempering pan and deep-fry the sliced garlic cloves till light golden and crisp. Drain on paper towels. Cut the green chili's in half, or make a slit in them. Shallow fry the chili's in the same oil till blistered. Drain on paper towels.
For the noodles
- Cook the noodles till al dente (timing specified on packet). Drain well, and place in a large bowl.
- Add the butter and parsley. The butter will melt from the heat of the noodles. Keep the water to boil for the noodles when starting to brown the chicken. The noodles should be added when the chicken is on simmer so both chicken and noodles are ready at the same time for the optimal temperature.
- Top chicken with fried garlic & chili’s. Another option for garnish is to use sliced spring onions or coriander/dhaniya. Serve lemon garlic chicken with noodles on the side.
Farhat says
Delicious recipe.
Shehbaz Mulla says
Yummy LEMON GARLIC CHICKEN Loved IT. Keep Posting
Batool says
Definitely going to try this! Thnx!
Kiran Afzal says
Hey Nida!
That's great 🙂 .. The vegetable stock should not have made a big difference to the acid content, but I have had this habit of not adding the entire seasoning at once (whether acid or salt or spice) - that way I can do final adjustment as per my personal taste.
Sugar is a good idea to balance the sourness, and you can also add brown sugar or honey depending on the dish.
Another option is to dilute the dish by adding more stock.
Nida Faisal says
Hey came across your blog and have to say great and very easy recipes! I made this yesterday and turned out great. Only issue I had was that I added too much lemon juice and so became a little too tart. Will be careful next time, but in case this happens should I add some sugar or so? Also had to substitute with vegetable stock so wonder if that could have made a difference!