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Keto Baked Caesar Chicken is full of flavor and baked perfectly for tender, juicy chicken. The easy homemade Caesar sauce is SO delicious and creamy, beautifully suited for a chicken dinner. This is a bake-and-go recipe: just place the chicken in the dish, pour over the sauce, bake … and dinner will make itself! 15 minutes of prep time is all!
Keto Baked Caesar Chicken is also Primal, Ancestral and Gluten-free.
Only 2 grams net carbs in this awesome dinner, so eat up and enjoy!
Ingredients in Keto Baked Caesar Chicken
- boneless, skinless chicken thighs or breasts — You may actually use both, if you like. In our family, we have some who prefer one cut and some who prefer another. To accommodate, I show you how to slice the breasts, so the cooking times are the same.
The rest of the ingredients go into making a very easy Caesar sauce:
- sour cream
- olive oil
- Parmesan cheese
- lemon juice
- Dijon mustard
- fish sauce — I use this common Thai ingredient (find it here) in place of anchovies. It’s easier and does a great job.
- garlic
- black pepper
- optional: xanthan gum, to thicken the sauce easily after cooking
How to make Keto Baked Caesar Chicken
The only prep required for this recipe is to whisk together the sauce ingredients. And then pour the sauce over the chicken and bake.
It might even make you feel excited, just how easy this recipe is! 😉
- Grease a casserole dish, and preheat the oven.
- Place chicken pieces in casserole dish.
- Whisk together sauce ingredients, and pour over the chicken. Sprinkle Parmesan over all, and garnish with freshly ground black pepper.
- Bake!
Leftovers, storage and reheating
To store, cover and refrigerate for up to 4 days.
Leftovers of Keto Baked Caesar Chicken are actually really good cold. That’s because the sauce is really a salad dressing.
So my favorite way to eat these leftovers is to slice the leftover chicken, and serve it on top of a green romaine lettuce salad.
If you want to reheat, do it over low heat in a pan, with a lid, to keep the meat moist.
Keto Baked Caesar Chicken
Equipment
- casserole dish
- pyrex or other mixing bowl
- oven
Ingredients
- 8 to 10 chicken thighs boneless, skinless; or 4 to 5 chicken breasts, each one cut in half crosswise at an angle (see photo in Step 1 below) -- or a combination of both -- about 3 pounds total
- 1 full recipe Easy Caesar Salad Dressing see just below
Easy Caesar Salad Dressing
- ½ cup sour cream
- ½ cup olive oil extra-virgin
- ¼ cup Parmesan cheese grated; or you may use ground Romano as well
- 1-½ Tablespoons lemon juice freshly squeezed
- 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
- 1 teaspoon fish sauce
- 1 large or 2 small cloves garlic minced or crushed
- black pepper freshly ground
- 1 smidgen xanthan gum optional (if you want the dressing to stay evenly mixed and not separate) - A smidgen is 1/32 of a teaspoon.
Instructions
- Heat oven to 350°F. Grease a 9″ x 13″ baking dish or similar size. Place chicken in casserole dish, thighs or cut breasts, or a combination of both. For cooking times to be accurate, be sure to cut the breasts in half first, crosswise (not lengthwise or width-wise, see photo below).
- Whisk together Easy Caesar Salad Dressing (except the Parmesan!) in a 4-cup Pyrex with pour spout or a medium bowl. Ideally use an electric beater or hand blender to combine, but you can hand whisk if you don't have one (the ingredients just won't come together in as creamy a way; they'll stay un-homogenized). At first, the dressing ingredients will stay separate: Keep blending, and the ingredients will come together to look creamier. Pour the dressing over thighs and/or breast pieces, spreading it evenly. Sprinkle Parmesan over the top.
- Place in the oven. Bake for 25 minutes. If you want them more browned on top, Broil (on low if it's an option) for 2 to 4 minutes (but watch closely to prevent burning).
- If you'd like to test for doneness, just cut into one. Or, when done, a meat thermometer will read 165°F when put into the thickest part of the chicken. However, it is better to stop cooking chicken a little early, at 150°F, as it will keep cooking when removed from the oven, and it gets dried out if allowed to stay in the oven until it's fully cooked.
- OPTIONAL for best presentation: Transfer chicken to warmed plate or to attractive warmed baking dish. Pour all baking juices into a deep mixing bowl or Pyrex. Using electric beater, start on Low speed (because the pan juices are hot). While blending sprinkle in the smidgen of xanthan, and blend another 15 to 20 seconds, until creamy, smooth and fully homogenized. Pour some of the sauce around the chicken pieces in your serving dish. Save extra on the side to pass at the table. Or, stir some into already cooked cauliflower rice to serve as a side dish or under the plated chicken (which is what I did in the photos). The reason we thicken the sauce after cooking is that the chicken creates its own pan juices. These will thin the sauce. By thickening after cooking, all of the pan juices are mixed with the dressing, and thickened as one.
- Serve with extra spoonfuls of sauce from the pan. Enjoy with a green salad and cauli rice or roasted cauliflower.
Nutrition
You can Pin Keto Baked Caesar Chicken here:
Similar super easy fast Keto dinner recipes:
- Beef Short Ribs (4 ingredients, dump and bake)
- Thai Beef Drunken Noodles
- Coconut Ground Beef Curry with Turmeric
- Pork Tenderloin with Blueberry Sauce
- Mexican Pan Pizza with Cheddar Crust
- Easiest Keto Hot Pockets
- Tom Kha Gai (Thai Coconut Chicken Soup)
Hélène says
I think this would be fine w/bone in chicken too. Then the unami from the bones would add to the sauce. Might be something nice for a breast actually, they’re so dry and tasteless. I don’t even buy them lol
Have to adjust poundage tho so the piece amount and size matched that in ur pan. I generally double weight for bones in. Here with the number I have, we need 6# bone-in just to get one chicken meal- with plenty of sides! But I love living in community ?
Megan says
Great thoughts! I love bone-in thighs; they’re my favorite. Thanks for the figuring on weight! I’ll have to try it and still get the crispy skin on top. 🙂 Yes, this would be a fun community meal with lots of sides, well said. Sounds lovely!
Gloria says
What a delicious chicken recipe. I know this will be a hit with the family for dinner one night this week.
Megan says
Great, Gloria! Thank you, and I hope you all enjoy it!
Shelby says
Absolutely LOVE how easy this comes together! It makes for a simple weeknight dinner which is crucial to my sanity haha. Easy and flavorful, dump and bake is my new favorite thing!
Megan says
Great, Shelby, so glad you enjoyed! Thanks for sharing, yay! Agreed about simple dump and bake being so good for one’s sanity! 😉
Stacey says
This is so simple to make, and I love the flavor of the Caesar dressing baked into the chicken. I adore these quick, one-pan meals. Thanks 🙂
Megan says
You’re welcome, Stacey. So glad you enjoyed the recipe, and thanks for sharing your results! 🙂 Yes, yay for one-pan meals!
jennifer says
Delicious! Thanks for the tip about thickening the pan juices, I would have just probably poured everything off and miss out on so much flavor
Megan says
Yay, Jennifer! So glad you enjoyed, and thanks for sharing!! 🙂
Janessa says
So delicious and easy! Great idea to use fish sauce in place of anchovies in the Caesar sauce.
Megan says
Great, Janessa! Thanks for your comment and rating, and so happy you enjoyed the recipe and easy ingredient swap! ♡
Don says
I love anchovies but don’t always have them on hand so I followed the recipe and used fish sauce and it was so good! Definitely something I’d make again.
Megan says
Great to hear, Don. 🙂 Thanks for sharing and so glad you enjoyed the Caesar Chicken!
nancy says
wow what a juicy caesar chicken recipe. I love the use of fish sauce, and it’s perfect all around. I always struggle with new ways to use up chicken
Megan says
Great to hear, Nancy, so happy you enjoyed!
Dorothy says
This looks like a delicious way to incorporate baked chicken. I hope to try this for a easy to prepare recipe with plenty of flavor.
Megan says
Great, Dorothy, I hope you enjoy! Thank you!
Dorothy says
Already enjoyed!! You’re welcome I’m sure, thank you! I went to the store last night and bought the needed ingredients and we had it for supper with mashed cauliflower. I used coconut oil and avocado oil in place of olive oil. It was a wonderful savory dish and one I hope to repeat. We used it as it was in the baking dish, spooning some of the accumulated juice over it. Dh enjoyed leftovers already today.
Megan says
Great to hear, Dorothy!! Thank you for sharing, xx! 🙂