This brined chicken breast with garlic and crispy sage is one of our favorite easy meals for entertaining guests or a delicious night at home. You won’t believe how tasty these simple garlic and sage chicken flavors are until you try them all together. The garlic brine makes the chicken SO TENDER and JUICY!
How To Brine Chicken Breast with Garlic and Crispy Sage
This Brined Chicken Breast recipe features a flavorful garlic brine and crispy sage.
There’s nothing better than an easy and DELICIOUS chicken meal. It’s something we are always looking for in our family. I may just love a staple chicken dish even more than I love cheesy dips. MAYBE.
Some of my favorite easy weeknight recipes from the blog include:
- Melt in Your Mouth Caesar Chicken
- Creamy White Wine Dijon Chicken
- One Pan Honey Garlic Chicken & Veggies
- Sheet Pan Chicken Parmesan (recently featured in Taste of Home Magazine!)
But there’s always room for another amazing and easy chicken recipe on The Cookie Rookie, so I’m so excited to share this Garlic Brine Chicken Breast with Crispy Sage today! It’s SO DARN GOOD!
This Garlic Brine Chicken Breast with Crispy Sage will be added to your favorite dinner recipes in no time!
What is Brined Chicken Breast?
Brined Chicken Breast is super moist, tender, and flavorful–who wouldn’t want that?!
Brining is a method of seasoning the chicken breast, much like marinating. The great thing about brining is that it keeps the chicken moist in addition to adding flavor.
How to Brine Chicken Breast:
To make this brine, simply add salt to water plus any other seasonings you want. For this garlic and sage chicken breast recipe, we also add sage leaves and garlic to the brine.
Once you have your brine, let the chicken breast soak. Make sure it is fully emerged in the garlic brine solution.
How long does Brined Chicken Breast take?
How long to let your brined chicken breast soak depends on the recipe. For this recipe, let the chicken soak for about 15 minutes in the garlic and crispy sage brine.
A few things to note:
- If you leave your chicken breast in the brine solution for too long, the meat might become too salty
- In this case, you can rinse the chicken
- However, washing the chicken after soaking in brine is not necessary
15 minutes is a good amount of time to brine and leaves the brine chicken breast plenty flavorful and moist without being too salty.
Garlic Brined Chicken Breast Recipe with Crispy Sage
We adapted this recipe from one of my very favorite cookbooks, The New Easy from Donna Hay. I have loved Donna Hays website (click HERE to check it out) for a long time, but just recently fell in absolute love with her cookbooks. She is so approachable and makes the most delicious recipes.
PLEASE check her out! We didn’t change this much from the cookbook, but made little tweaks like frying the sage separately to make it extra crispy. The flavor combo of the garlic and sage chicken is something I would have never explored on my own, but it’s my new favorite. You MUST try it.
Pat had leftovers of this Garlic Brine Chicken Breast with Crispy Sage when he came home from work and was blown away. He’s usually quite understated with his critiques, but this one got a big stamp of approval. It’s just so juicy and flavorful. An instant EASY favorite. Winner winner, chicken dinner!
See the recipe card for details on how to Brine Chicken Breast with Garlic and Crispy Sage. Enjoy!
Clearly you love chicken recipes, so make sure to try these too:
- 40 Clove Garlic Chicken and Potatoes
- Easy Honey Garlic Baked Chicken
- Crockpot Whole Chicken
- Baked Chicken Tacos
- Oven Fried Chicken Breast
- Spinach Stuffed Chicken Breast
Garlic Brined Chicken with Crispy Sage
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Ingredients
- 4 cups cold water
- 1/3 cup table salt
- 20 sage leaves divided
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- 4 chicken breasts
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 3 tablespoons good olive oil divided
- Garnish: Fried sage leaves
Instructions
- Place the water and salt in a large bowl. Stir until salt is dissolved. Add 8 sage leaves, minced garlic and chicken; stir gently. Be sure liquid covers the chicken and allow to stand for 15 minutes.
- Transfer chicken to a paper towel-lined plate and pour the liquid over a mesh strainer to reserve the sage leaves and garlic. (No need to reserve the water brine.)
- Pat the chicken dry with a paper towel.
- Heat a large non-stick or well-seasoned skillet until warm. Add butter and 2 tablespoons oil and heat over medium heat.
- Add chicken and cook 5 minutes.
- After 5 minutes, add reserved sage and garlic (from the brine).
- Turn the chicken and cook another 3 minutes.
- Reduce heat to low, cover the pan with a lid and cook 2 minutes.
- Test the chicken with a meat thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the breast. Chicken breasts are done when the internal temperature is 160°F.
- If needed, replace the lid and cook just until chicken is done.
- Remove from the heat (keep lid on) and let rest for 2 minutes.
- While the chicken rests, fry the sage leaves: If necessary, add 1 tablespoon more oil to the pan. Heat oil over medium heat. Place the extra 12 sage leaves in the hot oil and cook for 3-5 seconds per side or until crispy. Turn off heat and transfer leaves to a paper towel to dry.
- To serve the chicken:
- Place chicken breasts on a serving dish and drizzle with the pan juices. Top with crispy sage leaves.
- Enjoy!
Last step! Don’t forget to show me a pic of what you made! Upload an image or tag me @thecookierookie on Instagram!
Nutrition Information
With fresh sage in the garden and fresh garlic to be harvested, I had to try this recipe. Oh my goodness! Who knew fried sage could be so wonderful or this combo so luscious. DH and I loved every bite!
Yay! I’m so glad you loved it and that you tried the fried sage. One of our favorites! Thanks for saying hi :)
Looking forward to trying this in a couple of days. are the chicken breasts skinless?
Yes we used boneless skinless for this recipe :)
This looks delicious. I like to eat chicken and this recipe is not DIFFICULT to do. Adding sage leaves is interesting.
Thank you! Hope you love it. I aim to make things easy :)