Juiciest, spicy, super moist oven Baked Chipotle Chicken – perfect for salads, burritos, tacos, enchiladas and more!
If you love easy delicious chicken recipes try my Easy Coconut Curry Chicken, Chipotle Chicken, Grilled Pineapple Teriyaki Chicken Wraps, Crispy Pan Fried Chicken Breast, and Chicken Alfredo with Broccoli.
I am in l.o.v.e. with this chicken. So much so that I made a second batch of it immediately after consuming the first. Speaking of which… I think it’s about time for yet another round of it because seriously? It’s spicy heaven on earth.
I adapted from several sources to create this incredible chipotle chicken recipe. Most of those sources were recipes claiming to be a copycat of the Chipotle restaurant’s grilled chicken. My obsession (OBSESSION) with Chipotle is a discussion for another day, but I’ll just say this… having this chicken taste-alike in my recipe book is a dream come true.
Also? I will probably never be able to live farther than 10 miles from a Chipotle restaurant.
What this recipe is not: labor intensive.
What this recipe is: time intensive. Except really intensive is too strong of a word because really it’s just an overnight marinade. Or an 8-hour marinade if you want to whip it up in the morning and let the fridge do the work while you’re at work if you know what I mean. But the marinade itself takes all of 5 minutes to throw together. Then you just toss that in a bag with some chicken, let it do it’s thing for a while, and then bake the chicken to juicy, tender, spicy chipotle perfection.
And I’m not kidding when I say I could eat this chicken one hundred different ways, not the least of which is straight up!
What people are saying about this Baked Chipotle Chicken
“I just made this very tasty baked chipotle chicken. It’s got a bite! It’s very flavorful. When it came out of the oven, the kitchen smelled like a Mexican restaurant and my husband said “mmm, something smells good!”
It’s a little hot, which I love, but some folks should take note of the fact that the chipotles in adobo sauce and the amount of chili powder will do that. It’s just perfect for my taste. Congrats on a simple and very good recipe. I wouldn’t change a thing for myself. I marinaded it for about 18 hours. Very very good!” – Mary
“I halved the batch and wish I wouldn’t have done that. I ate what was supposed to be two servings as one meal. The flavor was excellent, and the meat was moist. Another plus was the minimal prep time. I’ve added this recipe to my dinner rotation.” – Jennifer
Baked Chipotle Chicken
Ingredients
- 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts - pounded to about ¾ inch thickness
Marinade
- 1 7-ounce can chipotles packed in adobo sauce - (sauce only)
- 3 tablespoons chipotle chili powder
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 3 tablespoons oil
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- 1 teaspoon minced garlic
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
Instructions
- Stir together all ingredients for marinade.
- Add chicken and marinade to a large plastic bag and seal. Chill overnight or up to 24 hours.
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Remove chicken from plastic bag and discard excess marinade. Place chicken side by side in a large, greased baking dish. Cover with foil.
- Bake for 25-35 minutes until chicken is cooked through. Uncover and bake 5-10 minutes longer. Serve chicken as-is or in any of your favorite Mexican dishes like tacos, enchiladas, salads, and more.
I made this recipe and cooked the chicken in a pan on the stove, it was delicious! It was quite messy with the oil spattering, so the clean up is not my favorite part of it haha! I don’t have a grill but I’m wondering can the chicken be baked in the oven, or will it not be as good without the searing?
I’m glad you enjoyed this recipe! But it’s actually written for the oven and you bake it covered so you don’t need to worry about the mess or having a grill 🙂
Oops I apologize, I posted this on the wrong recipe! But I’m going to try this one since it’s oven baked – it sounds delicious and like it’s much less mess than the other recipe I tried 🙂
Hello, I wanna make it soon . Could you tell me what kinda oil to use for the marinade ? (olive oil, peanut oil, vegetable oil … which one ?)
I used vegetable oil but you can use whichever one you prefer 🙂
Can u make this recipe with boneless chicken thighs instead of breasts?
Yeah, I think that could work!
Not a big fan of heat..can I substitute paprika for the chili powder?
Sure! It will change the flavor a bit, but I think you’ll still enjoy it. Or you could lessen the amount of chili powder used.
If I am using adobo sauce out Of a jar instead of from a caN of chipotle peppers, what quantity do I use?
Made this to top a quinoa salad. It added just enough flavor to bring it all together. My chicken came out a little dry. Adjust cook time based on your oven. I would check it at 20 min mark to see if ready for foil to be popped off
I didn’t follow the recipe exactly – we found this recipe because we were trying to use up some adobo chipotle peppers that we had already opened. It was really easy to follow, and I was happy with the results. I might try again, but pan-fry the chicken instead.
Happy to hear yours turned out well 🙂
DESPITE marinating it OVERNIGHT, the flaVor was lackluster.
Bummed to hear that- that is not a typical complaint for this recipe!