BBQ Cranberry Baked Chicken

This easy BBQ Cranberry Baked Chicken is the perfect blend of sweet and spicy, and can be made with just a few ingredients in your pantry.

Now that we’re firmly settled into the new year, I’m excited to be sharing recipes that are easy, yet elegant. Good down home cooking from my family to yours!

It’s true that a fancy dinner doesn’t have to be labor-intensive or difficult. It can be easy to throw together and still have an elegant look.

This recipe is a simple barbeque cranberry sauce over spiced chicken breast, and not only is it really easy to make, but it’s downright mouth-watering!  Effortless, painless and uncomplicated.  Who can’t wrap their head around a weeknight dinner dish like that? 🙂

To keep this recipe simple, the key is to use store-bought cranberry sauce and your favorite bottled barbeque sauce. I highly suggest that you use the whole berry cranberry sauce style, so that you get that fantastic burst of cranberry flavor when you bite into the berries!

For the adventurous (and laborious) cooks (you know who you are! =me), I’ve also given links to a fantastic homemade Grand Marnier Cranberry Sauce and a Smoky Habanero BBQ Sauce recipe at the bottom of this post. Both are incredible with this recipe.

The good news is, the only real prep needed in this recipe is dicing the onions and the celery. How easy is that? Personally, I like to give all of my vegetables a good, coarse chop, as I like the additional texture it adds. I like my food to have significance to it – don’t you?

What you’ll love about this recipe is, the chicken stays really moist! Not only that, but the sweet, sticky cranberry and hint of spicy from the BBQ sauce plays perfectly for amping up boring white rice!

I also served this with an arugula side salad, which added a pleasant bite-y bite and great color. Trust me, you won’t need dressing on your arugula! It’s absolutely perfect with the cranberry sauce and rice all mixed together. 🙂

This recipe calls for a cooking time of 1.5 hours, but I’ll share that mine was done in 1 hour. So, I highly suggest you check it so that you don’t overcook the chicken! I find that cooking times are highly variable depending on the size of the chicken breasts.

In this recipe, you can see that I used breast of chicken, but in my head, I can envision it being beautiful with thin-sliced chicken breast as well – layered elegantly, much like a chicken piccata!

If you want to make your own cranberry sauce (like I did), this Grand Marnier Cranberry Sauce is to die for! Be careful – you’ll want to eat just it alone! 🙂

Same goes for the BBQ Sauce. If you want to do it yourself, I highly recommend this Smoky Habanero BBQ Sauce. It will make your mouth-water!

Enjoy!

Print Recipe

BBQ Cranberry Baked Chicken

This BBQ Cranberry Baked Chicken is the perfect mix of sweet and spicy, with moist baked chicken, in a tangy, flavorful sauce.

Course: Main

Author: Kristi

Ingredients

• 2 - 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 cup celery diced
• 1/2 cup onion diced
• 1 cup BBQ sauce
• 1 cup cranberry sauce
• Salt
• Pepper

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Rinse chicken breast and pat dry.
• Melt butter in skillet, then add chicken breast and sear on all sides. Remove and place in a 9x13x2 baking dish.
• Add celery and onion to drippings and sauté until softened. Add BBQ sauce and cranberry sauce and mix thoroughly until warm. Pour over chicken breasts and place in oven for 1 to 1.5 hours.
• Remove and serve immediately.

BBQ Cranberry Baked Chicken

A Taste Of Home Recipe.