Chili Lime Chicken. This easy to make Chili Lime Chicken Marinade creates the most tender, juicy, and flavorful chicken. Perfect for tacos, salads, or any kind of bowl or meal prep dish.
Chili Lime Chicken Marinade
Getting flavorful and tender chicken all comes down to the marinade.
A combination of citrus lime juice to tenderize the meat, chili powder to season, salt to make the chicken juicy, garlic, lime zest, and cilantro for flavor, honey to sweeten, and olive oil to hold it all together.
Let the chicken soak in the mixture for at least 2 hours, preferably overnight to ensure that you get the most flavor.
Make sure you’re using fresh lime juice, using bottled lime juice can give a too sweet, artificial taste.
Uses for Chili Lime Chicken
This chicken is perfect in a salad. Like this Chili Lime Chicken Salad. (Everyone commented how much they loved the chicken I figured I should just share the recipe on it’s own!)
Shred or slice it up and use in tacos.
OR use it in some enchiladas, nachos, basically any mexican dish you can think of.
Sandwiches. On top of pizza. In a bowl with some rice and maybe some Creamy Avocado Salsa.
The possibilities are endless.

Chili Lime Chicken
-
Prep Time: 5 mins
-
Cook Time: 15 mins
-
Total Time: 20 minutes
-
Yield: 6
Description
Chili Lime Chicken. This easy to make Chili Lime Chicken Marinade creates the most tender, juicy, and flavorful chicken. Perfect for tacos, salads, or any kind of bowl or meal prep dish.
Ingredients
- 2 lbs chicken breasts
- 1/2 cup lime juice (use fresh)
- zest of 2 limes
- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 1/4 cup cilantro roughly chopped
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
Instructions
- Clean the chicken by removing fat, slice the chicken breasts in half lengthwise to make them thinner and easier to cook.
- In a bowl combine the lime juice, lime zest, olive oil, cilantro, minced garlic, honey, salt, and chili powder. Stir to mix.
- Add the chicken to the bowl and coat in the marinade. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours to overnight.
- Heat a large pan over medium heat. Remove the chicken from the marinade. Place in heated pan and allow to cook about 5-7 minutes on each side or until chicken is fully cooked through. Leave in the pan extra time to blacken if desired.
- Remove the cooked chicken from the pan and set on cutting board to let rest for a couple of minutes before slicing.
Nutrition
- Calories: 225
- Sugar: 4 g
- Fat: 6 g
- Carbohydrates: 5 g
- Protein: 35 g
Deb says
This Chili Lime Chicken looks so delicious! I know your marinade will make the chicken so moist and flavorful! Yum!! Thank you for sharing the recipe, Serene!