Chicken with Creamy Sun Dried Tomato Sauce – an 80’s throwback! I like to pack in a lot of sun dried tomato flavour here by using the oil from the jar to cook the chicken. Why throw away free flavour??
Creamy Sun Dried Tomato Sauce for Chicken
Sun dried tomatoes don’t feature as much anymore as they should. Back in the 80’s they were ALL THE RAGE!
But they never went out of fashion in my world. Throw a small amount into almost any meal and you get a wonderful burst of extra flavour. I use them to make a super quick 12 Minutes Sun Dried Tomato Couscous Salad, in creamy chicken pasta, I stuff ’em inside chicken breast and Chicken Meatloaf and I use then for pasta salads.
The added bonus is the oil that the sun dried tomatoes are marinated in. Free flavour! Using the oil from the jar to cook the chicken really drives home the sun dried tomato flavour in the overall dish.
I never toss out the oil that olives and other antipasto things come in. I recycle them – either cook with it, or I use it to marinate cubes of feta or char grilled vegetables. Have to you ever tried that? Super thrifty – and extra flavour!
Creamy Sun Dried Tomato Sauce ingredients
Here’s what you need for the creamy sun dried tomato sauce. I’ve used chicken thighs here, but it’s just as great made with chicken breast.
Quick dinner – 15 Minutes!
If you have a skillet large enough to cook all the chicken in one batch, then you’ll get this on the table in around 15 minutes. Chicken thighs should take around 6 -7 minutes to cook, and the creamy sun dried tomato sauce takes about 5 minutes.
I usually prep the sauce ingredients which the chicken is browning, so there’s really not much extra prep time.
Serve this with mashed potato OR, to make this a sensational low carb meal, with Creamy Mashed Cauliflower. It’s also great with pasta, or even just some crusty bread, dinner rolls or even focaccia to mop up the sauce! – Nagi x
Watch how to make it
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Chicken with Creamy Sun Dried Tomato Sauce
Ingredients
- 750g / 1.5lb chicken thighs OR chicken breast , skinless and boneless
- 1/2 tsp salt
- Black pepper
- 1/2 cup sun dried tomatoes , strips, drained of oil (Note 1)
- 2 tbsp oil from sun dried tomatoes jar (Note 1)
- 2 garlic cloves , minced
- 1/2 cup (125 ml) white wine (sub chicken broth)
- 3/4 cup (185 ml) chicken broth/stock , low sodium
- 3/4 cup (185 ml) thickened / heavy cream
- 1/3 cup (30g) parmesan, very finely shredded (Note 2)
- 2 tsp Dijon mustard (Note 3)
- 1 cup basil leaves , packed (optional)
Instructions
- Breast: Cut chicken in half horiztonally to form 2 thin steaks.
- Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper. Heat oil from sun dried tomat jar in a large skillet over high heat.
- Add the chicken and cook until golden brown on both sides – 6 minutes total for thigh or 4 minutes for breast. Remove onto a plate, keep warm.
- Add the garlic and cook for 15 seconds until light golden.
- Add wine. Bring to simmer and scrape the bottom of the skillet to mix all the brown bits into the wine.
- Let the wine simmer for 1 minute or so until the smell of alcohol is gone which means it has evaporated.
- Mix in mustard, then add the chicken broth, cream, parmesan and sun dried tomatoes.
- Bring to simmer, then reduce heat to medium and simmer for 2 to 3 minutes until thickened. Stir regularly to dissolve parmesan cheese.
- Taste sauce and add more salt and pepper if needed.
- Stir through basil leaves, then return chicken into pan. Spoon sauce over and simmer 1 minute.
- Serve immediately! Great served over mashed potato, Creamy Mashed Cauliflower or pasta. Or serve with bread on the side to mop up sauce!
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
Originally published July 2015, updated July 2019 with new photos, new video, new process photos, new writing. And the recipe has been spruced up a wee bit too!
Life of Dozer
I went to the loo, came back and he’d made himself at home on MY cashmere blanket!
Hi. Can you invent an oven bake Marry Me Chicken??
This is delicious. And easy!
I used chicken breasts.
I am about to make this recipe with chicken thighs, for which not enough is said about how to prepare them. Six minutes of cooking time is surely not enough for whole thighs, so what is? Or should they be cut into smaller slices, as is suggested for breasts?
What pasta do you recommend? TIA
Made this last night for my family. It is so quick and tasty!
The taste is fantastic, but I always struggle with a watery sauce. Lesson learned for next time—use less stock!
AWESOME! I made this last night and doubled the sauce as suggested, and used spinach (with a little dried basil for flavour)…. and oh my, it’s just divine!! Going to be a regular in this house that’s for sure. Thank you Nagi!!! x
This is just want I was wanting to do and wandering if It would be okay to use the spinach and do the dry basil. I normally have lots of fresh basil in the house but this week I do not.
One of our favourites!
This is really good! I doubled the sauce as others have done and also added in some baby spinach leaves. Otherwise, recipe was as written.
Nagi
Loved this recipe. I cooked with chicken drumsticks and it was delicious. I didn’t have thickened cream so used standard cream but sauce was thick enough. I used a mix of spinach and basil, yum..
Absolutely delicious, thank you Nagi
Delicious recipe!! Thank you! We did not have fresh basil so we used dried. We served it over orzo pasta 🙂
this was an amazing recipe! i added spinach instead of basil, and changed up on the amounts of oil so i had a less creamy sauce. regardless, i followed everything else and it was very delicious. for mine, it was very cheesy. i recommend this recipe
This was delicious! I just made it for the second time but doubled all the ingredients to make a bigger batch. After browning the chicken, I put it in a casserole dish. I then made the sauce and poured it over the chicken in the casserole dish and finished it off in a 375 F oven (easier because of the large quantity I was cooking). Looking forward to the leftovers 😋
Made this with skin on, bone in chicken thighs (since thats what I had). Popped it in the oven at 390 degrees for 33m with salt, pepper & garlic powder. This ended up super crispy! Then I prepped the sauce and paired this with the Nagi’s creamy cauliflower mash.
Made the sauce in a pan with 10% cream instead, used corn starch to thicken. I guess the low % cream made it a bit more healthy. Added in a couple handfuls of spinach. It was delicious and it turned out really well. Thank you!
Loved it!!! Sun-dried tomatoes, basil, mustard and cream. Great combination making it a very tasty dish. Thank you for the recipe!
AWESOME!!!
(As always.)
I had to use dried basil so just sprinkled some on top and let it simmer for a couple minutes, but this is delish!!! Thanks Nagi!!!
Partner made this tonight. Wish they’d found it years ago – it’s amazing. Serve it with mash that she substituted cream in for the milk so the whole thing blended together seamlessly in a creamy rich serving.
Adding this into our regular recipe rotations now.
This was so delicious! I served it over pasta and used spinach instead of basil and it still turned out great. My husband and I both agreed it was one of the best meals we’ve ever made and we cook often. Will definitely be in our frequent rotation!
A-MA-ZING!
I’m not sure how I missed this recipe in the past but I made it tonight and it was a huge hit. We’re already planning on making it again and doubling the sauce, maybe adding spinach, and trying other meats (the chicken is fantastic though!)
This first time I sauteed sliced zucchini to go alongside and it was a good accompaniment.