Chicken Dishes
Marry Me Chicken
Golden, tender chicken in a creamy sauce of sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, Parmesan and herbs, finished with basil and a squeeze of lemon. Thin cutlets cook evenly and fast, and a spoonful of browned tomato purée keeps the rich sauce bright.
- Serves 4
- Ready in 40 min
- One pan
- Italian-American
Method
Slice each chicken breast in half horizontally to make 2 thin cutlets (chilling them for 20 minutes first makes this easier). Season well with salt and pepper and dust in the flour (30 g), shaking off the excess.
Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil from the sun-dried tomatoes with the butter (15 g) in a large frying pan over a medium-high heat. Fry the cutlets in batches for 3–4 minutes a side until golden. They do not need to be cooked through yet. Set aside on a plate.
Turn the heat down to medium-low. Add the shallots (2 shallots) to the pan, with a little more oil if needed, and cook for 4–5 minutes until soft. Add the garlic (3 cloves) and cook for 1 minute.
Stir in the tomato purée (1 tbsp) and cook for 2 minutes until it darkens. Add the oregano (½ tsp), thyme (2 g) and chilli flakes.
Pour in the stock (250 ml), scraping up the browned bits from the pan, and simmer for about 5 minutes until reduced by half.
Stir in the cream (150 ml), sun-dried tomatoes (100 g) and Parmesan (40 g), and simmer gently for 2 minutes until it thickens slightly. Taste for salt.
Return the chicken and any juices to the pan, spoon the sauce over and simmer gently for 4–6 minutes, turning once, until the chicken is cooked through (no pink inside and the juices run clear, or 75°C on a probe thermometer).
Scatter with the basil and serve with lemon wedges for squeezing over.
Tip: tap a step to tick it off as you cook.
Chef’s notes
- Serve with mashed potatoes, new potatoes, rice, pasta or crusty bread, plus green beans or a sharp green salad to cut the richness.
- Boneless chicken thighs also work: leave them whole and simmer them in the sauce for 10–12 minutes.
- For more sauce to toss through pasta, increase the stock by half and the cream by a third.
- Keeps for 2 days in the fridge. Reheat gently with a splash of water or stock.
How it got its name
Marry Me Chicken is a 21st-century recipe with a famously romantic name. It was created at the US food site Delish in 2016 as a creamy, Tuscan-style chicken skillet. A member of the video team tasted it and said they would marry someone for it, and the name stuck.
The dish spread across social media in the early 2020s. NYT Cooking’s version was its most popular recipe of 2023, BBC Good Food named its own version the top recipe of 2025, and it was one of the most-searched recipes in the world that year.
Its flavours of sun-dried tomato, garlic, cream and Parmesan are Italian-American rather than traditional Italian, close cousins of the “Tuscan chicken” and creamy sun-dried tomato pastas that were popular at the same time.
How this recipe was developed
None of the chefs on our list has published a Marry Me Chicken that we could find; it is a recent internet dish. This version is built from the most-rated versions on the web: BBC Good Food, NYT Cooking, Delish (the original) and Allrecipes. The technique choices follow the same principles the chefs use elsewhere.
- Thin cutlets. NYT Cooking slices breasts in half horizontally so they cook quickly and evenly. Whole breasts, as in BBC Good Food and Delish, overcook on the outside before the centre is done.
- Flour dusting and sear in oil plus butter. BBC Good Food and NYT Cooking both flour the chicken; NYT browns it in oil and butter, and BBC uses the sun-dried tomato oil, which we use too.
- Shallot or onion base. BBC Good Food softens red onion first; shallot gives the same sweetness more delicately.
- Browned tomato purée and a reduced stock. NYT Cooking cooks tomato paste until it darkens and reduces the stock by half before the cream goes in, which keeps the sauce from tasting flat.
- Cream and Parmesan amounts. 150 ml double cream (BBC Good Food) sits between the NYT and Delish amounts. Parmesan and sun-dried tomato amounts are similarly in the middle of the range.
- Thyme, oregano, chilli, basil and lemon. Delish uses thyme and chilli flakes; NYT uses oregano; all finish with basil, and BBC Good Food adds lemon wedges.
Sources we compared (ratings as shown on each site on 31 October 2026):
- BBC Good Food (Cassie Best): 'Marry me' chicken (4.8/5, 540 ratings)
- NYT Cooking (Naz Deravian): Marry Me Chicken (5/5, 21087 ratings)
- Delish (Lindsay Funston): The Original Marry Me Chicken
- Allrecipes: Marry Me Chicken (4.8/5, 149 ratings)
This is an original Cookeryonline recipe written in our own words. Ingredient choices and techniques are credited above; no source text has been copied.