My Apricot Onion Chicken is an easy to make vintage recipe with a delicious sweet and sour flavour. It’s perfect for a midweek treat or easy entertaining – and as is so often true of my recipes, there’s a story behind it. (If you prefer to skip straight to the recipe, hit the ‘jump to recipe’ button at the top of the page now.)
Once upon a time, when my husband and I were first together (that’s us in the photo below), he invited his parents round to dinner. I had only met them once or twice before and the idea of cooking for them made me very nervous indeed.
Dinner traditions are different in the UK and I had no idea where to start with the menu. Also, I was still getting used to the different stoves, ingredients and measurements (weights instead of measures). Having used a large Canadian electric stove I was struggling with the smaller and much fiercer British fan ovens.
Getting By With A Little Help From My Friends
I was working as a personal assistant in London at the time and I shared my anxiety with my junior secretary, a bubbly girl from Australia with gorgeous long red hair whose name I sadly can’t remember. She shared an Apricot Onion Chicken recipe that she promised was absolutely no fail.
The recipe involved chicken breasts, apricot jam and dried onion soup mix. I was a bit skeptical as the ingredients didn’t really sound like they went together but I was desperate, so I tried her recipe. Sure enough, it worked a treat. The in-laws raved – as did my husband. The evening was a real success.
Apricot Onion Chicken Recipe Evolution
Fast forward thirty plus years and the recipe is a family favourite. However, I’m a bit more concerned about healthy eating, so I’ve made a couple of changes to the original recipe.
I try not to use a lot of processed foods, so I became concerned about using dried onion soup mix in this recipe. Also, it is not easy to source the particular brand of soup mix that is recommended for this recipe in England.
So I decided to give the Apricot Onion Chicken recipe a bit of a makeover by using fresh onions and chicken stock instead of the soup mix.
The recipe does contain rather a large amount of jam so calling it a ‘healthy recipe’ might be a stretch. However, if you use a jam that is made with a high fruit content and ingredients you can pronounce, it does help. I used a homemade apricot jam that was gifted to me in this recipe recently and oh my goodness it was good!
A Quick, Easy and Delicious Recipe
Apricot Onion Chicken is super easy. The only real time it takes is sautéing the onions which you can do while the chicken cooks in the oven. The sweetness of the jam melds perfectly with the onions and makes a sauce that is delicious every time.
Whether you serve Apricot Onion Chicken as a midweek treat or save it for entertaining, it is sure to become a family favourite.
Apricot Onion Chicken – Printable Recipe
Apricot Onion Chicken
Ingredients
- 4 chicken breasts
- 2 tablespoons of olive oil, divided
- 1 red onion, peeled and finely chopped white or yellow onions work if red are not available
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
- ½ cup good high fruit apricot jam preferably with a high fruit content
- ¼ cup chicken stock
- 1 teaspoon dried basil
- ½ teaspoon dried oregano
- ¼ teaspoon dried thyme
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C).
- Place the chicken breasts in an ovenproof dish and brush with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil.
- Sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper and bake for 25 to 35 minutes or until no pink remains inside. (Internal temperature should be 165°F.)
- Meanwhile, heat the remaining tablespoon of olive oil in a large frying pan over medium heat.
- Gently sauté the onions for about fifteen minutes or until they begin to soften.
- Turn up the heat a bit and add the chicken stock, scraping any bits of onion up off the pan to mix thoroughly.
- Add the jam, breaking it up with a fork if necessary, and cook, stirring constantly until the sauce is thick and syrupy. Be careful the sauce doesn’t start to catch or burn; turn the heat down immediately and remove the pan from the heat if it is threatening to do that.
- Stir in the dried basil, oregano and thyme.
- Add the cooked chicken breasts to the pan and turn lightly in the sauce.
- Add salt and pepper to taste. Be careful not to burn your mouth. The sauce gets very hot because of the sugar content in the jam.
- Serve the chicken breasts with the sauce spooned over top alongside potatoes or rice and a green vegetable.
did you make this recipe?
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Comments & Reviews
We call it church chicken or Harvin chicken after friends who served it to our family. It was the first time my kids had it. Church chicken because it is an easy dish to make for large crowds. We like it with a baked potato. The sauce tastes great over the potato. Thanks for the healthier option! Visiting from Miz Helen’s Full Plate Thursday.
Hi Linda! It’s so cool to learn more about the history of this dish! I like that your family names it after the folks who served it to them. What a nice way to remember people! Thank you for sharing and for visiting 🙂
Awesome fun story!! We all had those first scary dinner parties!
So glad it turned out terrific!
Hugs
Thank you, Evelyn! Hugs 🙂
April, I recently posted a recipe using Apricot with chicken and I adore the flavors. I loved reading your story. Your life has been a journey and I am glad that I am getting to know you via social media. Recipe sounds superb and yes I love the updated and healthier version.
Thank you so much, Patty! I’m really glad to be getting to know you too 🙂
What a wonderful story, I loved it! Now my turn to try your chicken recipe 🙂
Thank you, Delphine. I hope you enjoy it!
I plan to make your Apricot Onion Chicken dish soon. Please tell me if it’s to be made with bone-in, skin-on chicken breast halves which I would prefer to the chicken with bones and skin removed. What would the oven temp. and cooking time for bone-in, skin-on breast halves?
Thank you for your advice.
I use boneless, skinless chicken breasts for this recipe, and that is the only way I have ever made it. However, if you prefer to use bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts it will need to be cooked for longer. Always cook chicken until it is no longer pink inside and reaches an internal temperature of 175°F.
I would be concerned that cooking the chicken with the skin on might make the sauce quite rich as the skin would add fat to the sauce. It’s definitely worth a try though if that is what you want to do.
However, my advice would be that if you want to use bone-in chicken breasts (also called chicken supremes) that you remove the skin first.
I hope you enjoy the recipe!