Orange Sherry Chicken

  • 1/4 cup cooking sherry
  • 3/4 cup orange juice
  • 4 boneless chicken breasts (without rib meat), about 4 oz each
  • 1 small yellow onion, sliced into 1/8-inch thick rings
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 2 teaspoons dried basil
  • 1 dash lemon pepper (if you don’t want to buy a bottle of this, you can substitute seasoned salt like Tony Chachere’s or Old Bay Seasoning)

Spray skillet with Pam and brown onion rings for 5 minutes. Add chicken breasts and brown on both sides over high heat, about 3 minutes each side.

Add mix sherry, orange juice, and seasonings.

Decrease skillet heat to low and add sauce to to chicken. Cover skillet with a lid and simmer for 15-20 minutes (less if chicken pieces are thin). Chicken should be white all the way through when tested.  The alcohol in the sherry will have bubbled away, leaving a thin sauce. Remove skillet cover and increase heat to high. Stir slowly with a spatula until chicken has taken on a golden tone from the remnants of the sherry sauce. Serve warm with rice or pasta.

Note: you can hurry this along by cutting the chicken breasts into small chunks, which will cook faster than an entire breast.  If you use chicken tenders, one tender is usually equal to 2 oz, so 8 tenders equals about 4 small boneless skinless breasts without rib meat.

Carlyn Foshee Chatfield
1988, updated in 2010