Southwest Chicken Marinade and Baked Chicken
Delicious baked chicken dish made with bell peppers, red onions, and southwest chicken marinade. This is the best southwest chicken marinade I’ve ever made and it goes great with any kind of chicken.
MARINATED BAKED CHICKEN
I can still smell this delicious marinade and it’s making me instantly hungry. I swear, if someone could bottle up this scent and sell it as an air freshener, I’d buy it in a heartbeat. The aroma that filled my house while chicken was baking was unbelievably tasty.
The great part about this whole dish is of course, the ease of preparing it. It takes 5 minutes to marinade the chicken and then 5 minutes to cut the vegetable and place everything in the baking dish. The longest part is waiting for the chicken to marinade.
I marinaded this chicken for about 24 hours actually but overnight is all it needs. It was a busy few days for me and I didn’t realize that hubby had to work through dinner, so my chicken marinated a little extra. Nothing wrong with that, the more flavor the better!
HOW CAN I USE THE MARINADE:
This southwest chicken marinade recipe will work on any kind of chicken you wish to prepare.
Use it on chicken breasts, chicken thighs, chicken drums, whole chicken, or any cut of chicken you have.
You can also marinade chicken wings in it and then roast them in the oven or cook them on the grill.
This marinade will also be nice on steak. You can use a flank steak and make fajitas or tacos.
HOW CAN I SERVE SOUTHWEST CHICKEN:
The best side for this chicken dish is rice. The sauce and vegges will be beautiful mixed with rice.
You can also use quinoa as a rice substitute. It’s another nice grain that will mix well with sauce.
If you don’t want to do a grain side, you can make it an all vegetable side dish. Save some marinade for cauliflower and broccoli, mix it with the veggies, and roast veggies in the oven.
If you feel like potatoes, try making Southwest Roasted Potatoes to go with the chicken.
You can also serve pasta with it if you want to go a more comforting way.
SOME MORE EASY CHICKEN RECIPES:
Creamy Chipotle Pepper Chicken Thighs
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Southwest Chicken Marinade and Baked Chicken
Ingredients
Southwest chicken marinade
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1/4 cup white wine vinegar
- 2 large limes (juice from limes)
- 1.5 tsp chili powder
- 1 tsp paprika
- 2 tsp garlic powder
- 2 tsp oregano
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1.5 tsp salt (more or less to taste)
Baked chicken:
- 10 chicken thighs, bone in
- 1 large green bell pepper
- 1 large red bell pepper
- 1 medium red onion
- Salt if needed
Instructions
Marinading chicken:
- For marinade, simply combine all ingredients in a bowl and whisk well.
- Place chicken thighs into a large (gallon) zip lock bag. Pour in the marinade. Try to get most of the air out of the bag before closing it. Lay the bag on it's side and make sure chicken and marinade are spread evenly. Place into a large pan to prevent leaks in the refrigerator and refrigerate overnight.
Baked chicken:
- Preheat oven to 350 and lightly grease a 9x13 casserole dish.
- Slice peppers and onion thinly and spread about 2/3 of the veggies in the bottom of the casserole dish.
- Take chicken thighs out of the marinade and place them on top of veggies, side by side.
- Spread the rest of the veggies around the chicken and pour marinade over the everything.
- Bake for 70-85 minutes, depending of thickness of thicken.
(Note: chicken breasts will take less time because there are no bones.)
Notes
Nutrition
All images and text ©Lyubov Brooke for ©Will Cook For Smiles. Please do not use my images without prior permission. If using my posts in collections and features, please link back to this post for the recipe.
Disclaimer: Nutrition information shown is not guaranteed to be 100% accurate as most ingredients and brands have variations.
Hello Lyuba,
I came across your recipe yesterday while searching for a chicken marinade. It marinated about 24 hours and I have it in the oven right now. It smelled good enough to eat raw but I abstained and will wait until it’s done.
So far it looks fantastic and I can’t wait to eat with some saffron yellow rice!
I will report back after I’ve had my dinner.
Hi John, I hope you enjoyed it!
Could this work in a crock pot?
I didn’t have wine vinegar so I used white vinegar is that alright
Yes, you can use white vinegar or even apple cider vinegar just not balsamic they have a stronger flavor.
Just wondering what the recommended amount of chicken breasts would be and if you could also provide a baking time as well. I would love to make this. Sounds delicious!
Hi Angelina,
I would use six chicken breasts and the time will depend highly on the thickness of them. I would estimate 20-30 min but use a meat thermometer to check for doneness. I hope you like them!