The Cozy Cookbook is here! 
This Bruschetta Chicken is an easy and healthy dinner recipe with juicy chicken breasts baked in a balsamic sauce with mozzarella, parmesan, tomatoes, and basil. A buttery panko topping adds the perfect crunch to this delicious dish!
Be sure to serve this with a side of greens and beans!
Bruschetta Chicken
This is quite possibly the most refreshing and flavorful way to enjoy chicken, my family goes crazy for this recipe!
First, the chicken is marinated in Italian Dressing and then seared to create a golden crust on the outside. It’s then smothered in the most flavorful Balsamic sauce and topped with mozzarella and parmesan cheese. Fresh tomatoes are sprinkled over the top, along with an optional addition of buttery panko breadcrumbs to complete the Bruschetta theme! 🥖🍅🌿
Top it off with fresh basil, and you’ve got yourself a meal with the most amazing flavor profile!
How to Make It
See recipe card below this post for ingredient quantities and full instructions.
Marinate the chicken in Italian salad dressing for 20 minutes. Sear in olive oil until golden on each side, set aside.
Deglaze the pan with white wine (or chicken broth), let it reduce by half. Add butter and garlic. Add the sauce ingredients and let it simmer for 5 minutes.
Bring the sauce to a boil and stir in a cornstarch slurry until thickened, remove from heat. Add the chicken back and spoon some sauce over it.
Top with shredded mozzarella, parmesan, and diced tomatoes. Bake at 400° for 10 minutes. Garnish with basil and serve!
Optional: Melt butter in a skillet over medium heat and add panko breadcrumbs. Stir continuously until toasted, 2-3 minutes. Remove from hot skillet and sprinkle over serving plates for added flair!
What to Serve With Bruschetta Chicken
- Greens and Beans
- Roasted asparagus, green beans, or broccoli.
- Vegetable Casserole
- Roasted Potatoes or Grilled Potatoes
- Buttered Noodles
- More Side Dish Recipes
Pro Tips
- Wine: Pinot Grigio is the best wine to use in this recipe, followed by Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc. Chicken broth can be used if you don’t cook with wine.
- Whole milk/low moisture mozzarella melts best in this recipe.
- Shred the cheese from a block, it will melt and taste much better than pre-shredded. I use Dragone mozzarella and Belgioioso parmesan.
- The mustard powder and Worcestershire sauce are flavor enhancers that you can’t taste outright.
- I use Olive Garden Italian Salad Dressing for the chicken marinade. (I have a homemade version of this dressing as well!)
- I use Pompeian Gourmet Balsamic Vinegar for the sauce.
- Finely diced red onions make a great addition to the baking dish as well.
Storage
- Store in an airtight container and refrigerate for up to 3 days or freeze for up to 3 months. Leftover chicken can be frozen with the sauce. The tomatoes can be included but don’t hold up quite as well upon reheating.
Tools For This Recipe
(Amazon affiliate links)- Check out all of my kitchen essentials here.
- 3.5 quart Braiser– This is the skillet I used that’s pictured in this recipe. It’s the perfect size for this and is what I use for many of my casseroles, pastas, and chicken dishes.
- Meat Tenderizer– This makes the meat much more tender.
- Box Cheese Grater– Freshly shredded cheese melts and tastes much better than packaged shredded cheese.
- Rubbermaid Containers with lids– I always use these to combine my corn starch + cold water.
- Better Than Bouillon– This is what I always use for broth in my recipes. It takes very little space and makes it easy to measure out customized amounts of broth.
Try These Next
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- Stuffed Bell Peppers
-
- Garlic Butter Shrimp
-
- Caprese Pasta
-
- Peach Chicken
-
- Chicken Parmesan
-
- Pepper Steak
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Tried This Recipe?
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Bruschetta Chicken
Ingredients
Chicken
- 2 large boneless skinless chicken breasts
- Salt/Pepper
- ½ cup Italian salad dressing, see notes
- 1-2 tablespoons olive oil
- ½ cup dry white wine, can sub chicken broth. See notes.
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tablespoons butter
- ¾ cup mozzarella cheese, shredded
- ½ cup parmesan cheese, shredded
- 1 ½ cups cherry tomatoes, halved or quartered
- Fresh basil leaves
Sauce
- 2/3 cup chicken broth
- ½ cup balsamic vinegar
- ¼ cup honey
- 1 teaspoon mustard powder
- 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1 teaspoon dried basil
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch + 2 tablespoons cold water
Optional Topping
- 1/3 cup panko breadcrumbs
- 1 tablespoon butter
Instructions
Prep Work
- Slice the chicken in half lengthwise to create 2-3 thinner slices. Place in a gallon freezer bag (or in between saran wrap) and use the textured side of a meat mallet to pound it to ½ inch thick. Pat dry.
- Sprinkle lightly with salt/pepper. Place the Italian dressing in a gallon freezer bag and add the chicken. Remove excess air from the bag and seal. Let it marinade at room temperature for 20 minutes.
- While the chicken marinates, combine all sauce ingredients EXCEPT for the cornstarch/water and set aside. Measure out remaining ingredients.
- Preheat oven to 400°F.
Sear the Chicken
- Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Remove the chicken from the marinade and sear it in batches for 3-4 minutes per side, until a golden crust has developed. Set aside.
Make the Sauce
- Clean any black spots from the skillet but leave the brown “fond” as this adds flavor to the sauce. Add the wine to the skillet over medium heat and use a silicone spatula to “clean” the bottom and sides of the skillet. Let it reduce by half, 3-4 minutes.
- Melt the butter, then add the garlic and cook for 1 minute.
- Add the combined sauce ingredients. Let it simmer over medium heat for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, combine the cornstarch + cold water in a small container with a lid and shake to combine.
- Bring the sauce to a boil and stir in the cornstarch mixture until thickened and combined, then remove from heat. (If it thickens more than you’d like, stir in a little chicken broth. You also don’t have to add all of the cornstarch mixture)
Assemble and Bake
- Transfer the sauce to a 9 x 13-inch baking dish if your skillet isn’t oven safe.
- Add the chicken to the sauce along with any juices from the plate. Spoon a little sauce over the chicken and top each piece with the mozzarella and Parmesan, then sprinkle with diced tomatoes.
- Bake for 10 minutes, or until the cheese is melted.
- Garnish with fresh basil. Additional garnish options include chopped parsley, finely shredded Parmesan cheese, and freshly cracked pepper.
- Optional: Melt butter in a skillet over medium heat and add panko breadcrumbs. Stir continuously until toasted, 2-3 minutes. Remove from hot skillet and sprinkle over serving plates for added flair!
Notes
- Wine: Pinot Grigio is the best wine to use in this recipe, followed by Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc. Chicken broth can be used if you don’t cook with wine.
- Whole milk/low moisture mozzarella melts best in this recipe.
- Shred the cheese from a block, it will melt and taste much better than pre-shredded. I use Dragone mozzarella and Belgioioso parmesan.
- The mustard powder and Worcestershire sauce are flavor enhancers that you can't taste outright.
- I use Olive Garden Italian Salad Dressing for the chicken marinade. (I have a homemade version of this dressing as well!)
- I use Pompeian Gourmet Balsamic Vinegar for the sauce.
- Finely diced red onions make a great addition to the baking dish as well.
- Pairing Suggestions: A variety of roasted vegetables and potato dishes go well with this recipe. Check out all of my side dish recipes!
Storage
- Store in an airtight container and refrigerate for up to 3 days or freeze for up to 3 months. Leftover chicken can be frozen with the sauce. The tomatoes can be included but don't hold up quite as well upon reheating.
The nutritional information provided is an estimate and is per serving. There are 4 servings in this recipe, the optional Panko breadcrumb topping is not included.
10 out of 10 will make again. This recipe was amazing!! Tomorrow Hot Honey Chicken. Do you have any ideas for the leftover balsamic glaze?
I’m soo happy that you loved it Julie!! Here are some recipes where some balsamic glaze on the top would be delicious: Caprese Chicken, Tortellini Pasta Salad, and Peach Chicken 🙂
Sounds and looks amazing! Would chicken thighs be a good substitute for the breasts?
Hi Yvette! Sure! They’ll likely do best with a little more baking time at the end. They take longer to cook through, and a higher internal temp is best for thighs as well! 🙂
If you love Bruschetta toast, you will *love* this recipe! I’ve tried several bruschetta chicken recipes, and this one is the BEST! It has the best sauce — so delicious! Also, searing the chicken keeps the dish from getting too soggy as compared to just putting it all in a casserole cooked 100% in oven while also being moist, unlike a grilled recipe I’ve tried. I also think having two cheeses makes it more flavorful.
I made some minor changes based on some other recipes I’ve done: I used canned diced tomatoes w/Italian seasonings, strained, and added about 1/4 cup of diced red onions to the tomatoes. My teenage son and I loved the meal, and the other two members said it was very good and agreed it should be in our dinner rotation. I made it with caeser salad and linguine buttered noodles seasoned with garlic salt and parmesan cheese.
Thank you for your another banger of a recipe, Stephanie! I have so many of yours in our rotation list (steak bites, chicken pot pie & biscuits, ranch pork chops, etc.)
I’m so happy that you love the Bruschetta Chicken Brenda, it’s so refreshing this time of year! 🙂 I’m glad that your son and other dinner guests enjoyed it as well, thank you so much for the review! I’m so glad that you have so many of my recipes in your rotation, thank you!
This was absolutely AMAZING!! The three men in my house each went back for seconds. There’s not a bigger kudos for the dish than that.
I’m so happy it was such a success, nice work! Thanks so much for taking the time to leave a review!😃