8 Best Grilled Chicken Recipes

While grilled chicken is often touted as a healthy option for those looking to focus on nutrition, this characterization does the food a disservice. Sure, plain grilled chicken might get monotonous if you prepare it the same way day after day, but one of the ingredient's best qualities is its versatility. Here, we present a variety of different preparation options ranging from basic grilled chicken to a Cuban-inspired rendition to several different grilled chicken sandwiches.

Even if you're unable to grill outdoors, all of these recipes can easily be adapted for cooking in your kitchen. If you have a grill pan or griddle — the kind with the ridges — you'll even be able to get those oh-so-photogenic hatch marks on your meat. If aesthetics aren't your top concern, then a heavy frying pan, like one made from cast iron, will do the job just as well. You can also "grill" your chicken in an oven set to broil — just position the pan about 5 inches below the heating element and use a meat thermometer to ensure the inside of your chicken reaches 165 degrees Fahrenheit.

While the name of this recipe may lead you to expect plain grilled chicken, in reality, this dish is anything but basic. Before being grilled, these boneless, skinless chicken breasts are marinated in a mixture of orange juice, honey, and soy sauce flavored with herbs. If you don't want to discard the flavorful marinade after it's done tenderizing the meat, you can boil it for 5 minutes; once you've done so, it should be safe to use as a sauce.

Recipe: Grilled Chicken

The chicken in these sandwiches is marinated in a dressing flavored with cider vinegar and poultry seasoning before it's grilled and, finally, topped with melted provolone. Add some lettuce, tomatoes, pickled peppers, and a few buns, and you've got yourself some sandwiches. One note on the chicken: The recipe developer favors boneless, skinless thighs, but you can swap them out for breasts if you prefer white meat. While bone-in breasts usually take less time to cook than bone-in thighs, the boneless ones should still be cooked using the recommended 10-minute time frame.

Recipe: Marinated Grilled Chicken Sandwiches

Shawarma is traditionally cooked on a spit, but this dish isn't an attempt to recreate the dish. Instead, it's more of an homage using similar flavorings to lend some shawarma-esque flair to boneless, skinless chicken breasts. The spices in question are cayenne, coriander, cumin, garlic, and paprika, and there's also some lemon juice in the marinade to add a bit of zing. Once the chicken is cooked, it's plopped onto buns and topped with a typical chicken sandwich combo of lettuce and tomatoes, but a mixture of mashed avocado and plain yogurt is used in place of mayonnaise to better complement the shawarma seasonings.

Recipe: Shawarma-Spiced Grilled Chicken Sandwich

The Chick-fil-A Original, which is a sandwich made from breaded fried chicken, may have put this chicken chain on the map (not to mention launch half a zillion imitators), but the chain's grilled chicken sandwich gives the original a run for its money thanks to a tasty lemon-herb marinade. Our copycat recipe — while it may call for some unexpected ingredients like grape juice, orange juice, molasses, and cider vinegar — produces a grilled chicken fillet that the recipe developer swears is nearly identical to Chick-fil-A's. (Just add a bun, lettuce, and sliced tomato — you know the drill.)

Recipe: Copycat Chick-Fil-A Grilled Chicken Sandwich

Why is this dish called wedding chicken? Is it because it's so good, you'll want to marry it? Yeah, sure — let's go with that. The real explanation is that it's something you could serve at a wedding reception, but you won't need a spouse or a gaggle of formally-dressed guests to enjoy this simple dish of chicken breasts flavored with ginger, chiles, and soy sauce. It could be perfect in a rice or ramen bowl, but it would be equally tasty atop a salad.

Recipe: Grilled Wedding Chicken

Any time you're grilling chicken breasts, you might as well throw in a few more, since cooked chicken makes great leftovers and can last up to four days in the fridge. As for what to make with those leftovers, how about a Chick-fil-A-style wrap sandwich? Our copycat Cool Wrap requires just four ingredients: leftover grilled chicken breast, a flour tortilla, lettuce, and shredded cheese. Roll them all together, and your perfectly-portable lunch is ready to go.

Recipe: Copycat Chick-Fil-A Cool Wrap

With this simple sandwich recipe, you'll get maximum flavor with minimum effort. All you need to do is rub boneless, skinless chicken breasts with olive oil, Cajun seasoning, and salt (you might not even need this last ingredient depending on how salty the seasoning mix is), and then grill it. Once it's done, you know what to do: Stick it on a bun, then stuff some lettuce and sliced tomatoes in there, too — after all, it wouldn't be a chicken sandwich without them.

Recipe: Grilled Cajun Chicken Sandwich

Want to get your mojo working? Well, one way to start is to grill up some mojo chicken. This dish starts with chicken marinated in orange and lime juice seasoned with cilantro, cumin, garlic, and oregano. The chicken then goes on the grill before it's paired with black beans and rice. These last two ingredients make up a Cuban-style side that's commonly known as Moros y Cristianos. In English, this phrase translates to "Moors and Christians," referring to the diverse cultures of medieval Spain.

Recipe: Easy Grilled Mojo Chicken