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How to Meal Prep Chicken in the Oven

How to Meal Prep Chicken in the Oven is simple marinades and a quick bake in the oven, and your chicken comes out juicy and tender, ready for any meal during a busy week.

Meal Prep Chicken Recipe Ideas

Having healthy proteins ready to go in your fridge or freezer is SO helpful during busy weeks.

This is the best kind of meal prep chicken — 4 marinades that are SUPER easy and filled with flavor.

I’ll show you how to BAKE your chicken in the oven so it’s tender, juicy, and dare I say *moist!*

Meal Prep Chicken without a Grill

Side Note: These photos make one piece of chicken look undercooked — I promise it’s not! Shadows are a real thing… ?

How to Meal Prep Chicken in the Oven

First, let’s talk about marinades…

Meal Prep Chicken 4 Ways

For the best meal prep chicken, you need to use a marinade that will pack some punches and give a bland protein something to talk about.

We’re making four different marinades that take about 3 minutes to whisk up, and you probably have all the ingredients in your pantry.

How do you make meal prep chicken taste good?

You use *really* good seasoning or marinades!

Smokehouse Maple Marinaded Chicken

Smokehouse Maple Marinaded Meal Prep Chicken

We’ll start with my favorite of the four. It’s the one I make the most often, and pairs well for all kinds of dishes later.

Smokehouse Maple Seasoned Meal Prep Chicken

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In a container, mix 1 tablespoon Smokehouse Maple Seasoning and 2 tablespoons Worcestershire Sauce.

Smokehouse Maple Seasoning Chicken Marinade

Slide in your chicken breasts, and close the container. 

Give it a good shimmy shimmy shake shake, and sit in the fridge for an hour or up to 24 hours.

Italian Chicken Marinade

Meal Prep Italian Chicken

Italian Chicken Marinade uses pantry staples for an easy marinade idea.

Homemade Italian Seasoning

In a dish, add a teaspoon each of these spices:

  • Salt
  • Pepper
  • Oregano
  • Thyme
  • Parsley
  • Onion Powder
  • Garlic Powder

Homemade Italian Seasoning Marinade

Drizzle in a couple of tablespoons of Olive Oil and mix well to combine.

Italian Marinaded Chicken Breasts

Smoosh your chicken around in it, and allow to sit for an hour or overnight. The longer the better! 

Spicy Asian Chicken Marinade

Spicy Asian Baked Meal Prep Chicken

This spicy Asian chicken marinade is the perfect complement to roasted veggies for a quick sheet pan stir fry any night of the week!

Spicy Asian Chicken Marinade

In a dish add the following:

  • Soy Sauce
  • Rice Vinegar
  • Sesame Oil
  • Chili Garlic Paste

Chicken in a Spicy Asian Marinade

Smoosh your chicken around in this, and let it hang out for an hour. 

Montreal Steak Seasoned Chicken Rub

Meal Prep Montreal Chicken

Montreal Steak Seasoning is something that lives beside my stovetop.

It’s something I always have on hand and use it on pretty much everything.

Montreal Steak Crusted Chicken

Shake a good amount out onto a dish.

Montreal Steak Marinaded Chicken

Smoosh your chicken into the seasoning, and flip around a bunch to make sure it’s well coated. If you feel like you need to sprinkle some more on, go for it!

How to Make Juicy Chicken Breasts in the Oven

Preheat your oven to 425˚ — and make sure it’s *really* 425˚ by using an oven thermometer.

Oiling a Baking Sheet

On a foil-lined sheet pan, drizzle some olive oil on top and brush around.

For extra easy cleanup, I use this kind of foil!

Marinaded Chicken Ready to be Baked

Baked Meal Prep Chicken on a Sheet Pan

Place your chicken breasts on the sheet pan, allowing for adequate space between.

The closer you place them together, the more they will steam and not bake, and the yuckier they will be.

These are whole chicken breasts, that have not been cut down the middle — so each fit well on these quarter sheet pans.

I toyed with naming this “how to meal prep in a tiny kitchen without a grill” since that’s exactly what’s going on here… I’ve got a small oven/stove and a half sheet pan won’t fit inside. 

Depending on how thick/thin your chicken breasts are, this could take anywhere from 15-25 minutes.

Investing in an internal meat thermometer is also an absolutely *clutch* kitchen item.

Chicken needs to cook to 165˚, but that means that at about 160˚, take your chicken out of the oven, and ‘carry-over cooking’ will take it the five degrees needed. 

Chicken on a Sheet Pan

Chicken Breasts on a Sheet Pan

Two racks of chicken took 20 minutes to bake all the way through, and they turned out so juicy!

How do you meal prep chicken without drying it out?

If you are worried about your chicken drying out, during the last ten minutes, baste it with the juices on the pan.

Because you are cooking your chicken at a higher temperature for a shorter amount of time, it’s less likely to dry out.

How long does chicken last in the fridge and freezer?!

  • Cooked chicken in the fridge lasts 3-4 days.
  • Cooked chicken in the freezer lasts up to 6 months.

How do you store meal prep chicken?

Storing Meal Prep Chicken

I prefer to store in glass containers when I’m keeping things in the fridge. 

These Pyrex containers are my absolute GO TO!

Meal Prepped Chicken Storing

When I’m storing in the freezer, I’ll use BPA-free plastic containers.  I like the ones with suction lids, just so no extra air gets in. 

Now, you may need some recipes for using your meal prep chicken.
Well, here you go!

How to Use Meal Prep Chicken

Save this to your favorite meal prep board on Pinterest!

How to Meal Prep Chicken in the Oven

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Meal Prep Chicken without a Grill

How to Meal Prep Chicken in the Oven

5 from 10 reviews
  • Author: Sweetpea
  • Prep Time: 15
  • Cook Time: 20
  • Total Time: 35 minutes
  • Category: main dish, low carb lifestyle
  • Method: oven baked
  • Cuisine: american

Description

How to Meal Prep Chicken in the Oven is simple marinades and a quick bake in the oven, and your chicken comes out juicy and tender, ready for any meal during a busy week.


Ingredients

Scale

8 chicken breasts

Smokehouse Maple Marinade:

  • 1 tbs Smokehouse Maple Seasoning
  • 2 tbs Worcestershire sauce

Italian Marinade

  • 1 tsp Salt
  • 1 tsp Pepper
  • 1 tsp Oregano
  • 1 tsp Thyme
  • 1 tsp Parsley
  • 1 tsp Onion Powder
  • 1 tsp Garlic Powder
  • 2 tbs Olive oil

Spicy Asian Marinade

  • 2 tbs Soy Sauce
  • 2 tbs Rice Vinegar
  • 1 tsp Sesame Oil
  • 1 +/- tbs Chili Garlic Paste

Montreal Steak Rub

  • 12 tbs Montreal Steak Seasoning


Instructions

  1. Mix ingredients for marinades in individual containers.
  2. Add chicken to each, and coat well.
  3. Allow to marinate for an hour, or up to 24 hours.

Baking Chicken:

  1. Preheat oven to 425˚
  2. Cover rimmed baking dish with aluminum foil and slick down with olive oil.
  3. Place marinated chicken on sheet pans, being careful not to crowd.
  4. Bake at 425˚ for 15-25 minutes, depending on how thick/thin your chicken is.
  5. Cook chicken to 165˚ internal temperature.
  6. Serve with sides or over salad, or store in containers for later use.

 


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20 Comments

  1. Thank you for this awesome idea to meal-prep chicken. Your recipes are awesome, and I can already think of many other variations using the same approach. 🙂






  2. Oh my goodness are shadows a real thing in photography! So frustrating. These chicken breast look delicious, however. And I love MOntreal Steak seasoning. I never thought to make it myself! Guess what’s happening this week in our kitchen!






  3. I meal prep chicken in the oven every week. It makes healthy eating so much easier! But I don’t marinade it enough! That’s such a great idea that I’m going to start using!






    1. Yeah!! I was getting so tired of the same bland chicken — making a large amount of chicken with multiple marinades helps keep it exciting!

  4. While they all sound good, it is the spicy Asian marinade that has my mouth-watering. Sounds like it would be enough on its own, that I wouldn’t need one of the extra recipes. I can’t wait to give it a try.






  5. I love all the different ways to prepare chicken; it’s so versatile! Can’t wait to give these a try; looks too good to pass up!






  6. This is what I need right now! I am thinking of how I could meal prep chicken in the oven and this is such a great post. Thanks for sharing.






  7. Great to have a recipe specifically to keep the baked chicken moist! Sometimes it gets dried out. Thanks for this!






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