Best Grilled Chicken Breast (Flavorful Boneless Chicken Breasts!)

5 from 3 votes

This grilled chicken breast recipe has a delicious sweet and zesty marinade that the whole family will love!

Prep Time10

Cook Time12

Chill Time1

Total Time1 22

Course: Dinner

Cuisine: American

Servings: servings

Calories: 373kcal

4 boneless-skinless chicken breast thin cutlets (approximately 1 ½ - 2 pounds total weight) (I used Perdue brand pre-packaged cutlets)
⅓ cup fresh lemon juice
⅓ cup canola oil
¼ cup honey
3 tablespoon dijon mustard
¾ teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon black pepper

In a large, heavy duty, zip top bag place the boneless-skinless chicken breast cutlets. Set aside.
In a mixing bowl add the fresh lemon juice, canola oil, honey, dijon mustard, smoked paprika, dried thyme, salt and black pepper. Whisk together until fully combined.
Pour the marinade over the chicken that is inside the zip top bag. Seal the bag, squeezing out as much air as possible, and place the bag onto a plate and inside the refrigerator to marinate for 1-2 hours.
Preheat outdoor gas grill to 400* F. Place the marinated chicken breasts on the grill, close the lid, and cook for 6-8 minutes.
Flip the chicken over and cook for an additional 6-8 minutes or until cooked through to an internal temperature of 165* F.
Remove the grilled chicken to a plate and turn off your grill according to factory instructions.
Allow the grilled chicken to rest for 5 minutes before slicing and serving.

Tips:

When I use the packages of pre-portioned chicken breast cutlets it makes preparing this recipe very quick and easy. You can also buy your chicken in those large frozen bulk bags as well. Be mindful that sometimes those cutlets tend to be on the large size so you can carefully butterfly them, or pound them out to make them a more uniform thickness. This will allow them to cook at the same rate.
This marinade can easily be doubled, or cut in half, depending on the amount of chicken you will be grilling.
This is a great universal marinade that will yield moist and tender grilled chicken.
If you want to use the thicker chicken breast, or even bon-in chicken breasts you can leave the chicken in the marinade for up to 8 hours. The thinner cutlets do not need to marinate that long of a time. You will want to note that your grilling time will be longer if you are using the thicker, on bone-in, pieces of chicken breasts.
You can substitute olive oil, vegetable oil or avocado oil for the canola oil in this recipe.
I used dried thyme leaves for this marinade because I can keep it in my pantry and whip up this marinade for dinner any time. You can certainly use fresh thyme leaves as well but you may want to increase the amount to 2 teaspoons as fresh herbs are not as strong as the dried ones.