This pan-fried chicken breast is delicious, but the real star of the show is the cranberry relish, which I made from frozen cranberries, walnuts, and fruit juice.
Pan-Fried Chicken with Cranberry Relish
Course: DinnerCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: Easy4
servingsIngredients
- For the orange cranberry sauce:
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
Zest and juice of 1 orange
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup crystalized ginger
Orange juice
6 Tbs chopped walnuts
3 cups fresh cranberries, divided
- For the chicken:
4 chicken breasts
Salt and pepper
2 Tbs olive oil
Directions
- Make the cranberry orange relish.
- Use a vegetable peeler to remove the peel from the lemon and orange. Place the peels into a food processor. Squeeze the fruits, keeping their juices separate. Measure the orange juice; add extra orange juice as needed, to bring the amount to 3/4 cup. Set all the juice aside.
- Add the sugar to the processor. Use 2-second pulses until the peels are finely minced. Add the ginger and continue pulsing until it’s minced. Transfer processor contents to a saucepan. Add reserved orange juice. Bring the contents of the saucepan to a simmer over medium heat (3 minutes on setting 4), stirring infrequently; cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, reducing the heat to its lowest setting as you go to keep the mixture simmering, rather than at a full boil.
- Add 2 cups of the cranberries to the saucepan and raise heat to medium (setting 4); cook, stirring infrequently, 12 minutes. Continue to cook, stirring constantly and somwhat vigorously, to break the cranberries down, 1 minute. The mixture should be quite thick. Off heat. Stir in the remaining cranberries. Pour in lemon juice, through a fine-mesh sieve. Stir. Transfer to a tightly sealable container. Allow to cool completely.
- Pass the walnuts through a fine-mesh sieve to get rid of any nut dust. Discard or repurpose the dust. Stir the chopped walnuts into the cranberry relish. Cover and refrigerate.
- Make the chicken.
- Pre-heat the oven to 350°F. Dry the chicken with paper towels, and heat a cast-iron skillet over a high flame (setting 6) on an ultra-high burner for 3 minutes. Open the windows, turn on the hood fan. Season top side of breasts generously with salt and pepper. Add 2 Tbs oil to the pan. Lay in the chicken, seasoned-side-down. Cover with a spatter screen. Let it brown for 4 minutes. Season the tops, flip them, then bake to 160°F. Allow to rest for 3-5 minutes before serving.
Notes
- Substitutions: 8 oz. chopped dried figs for the ginger and orange zest. Another flavorful juice, like cran-mango, for the extra orange juice. Hazelnuts for the walnuts.
Intro
Cranberry is one of the last remaining seasonal fruits. You can only find them fresh during the holidays. Even then, you sometimes find they’re already gone by Christmas. And once they’re gone, they’re gone for the year. So I always buy a few extra bags and toss them into the freezer, so that I can whip up something like this in the spring and have it seem so refreshingly anacronistic.
This is a different kind of cranberry relish. It has no Thanksgiving vibe at all. The flavor is more cranberry-adjacent than cranberry. It’s fruity, complex, and has floral notes. It’s sweet and tart. I love it with chicken or with cheese, but it also pairs very well with salty or bitter things.
Social Learning
This cranberry relish is so, so good. It doesn’t need walnuts, but I love it with the walnuts! My husband doesn’t like walnuts, so I’m accustomed to subbing in a different nut, or leaving them out. But here, I had to draw the line. I divided the relish and added walnuts to my half. I’m telling you, I could hardly stop eating it.
I stumbled onto an interesting web tool for cooking.
I discovered it on Instagram of all places. If you open up a site from your favorite food blog, then go to the address bar on your web browser and prepend the address (to the left of the http) with cooked.wiki/, it will give you a page with nothing but the recipe, with the ingredients and directions in two vertical columns. So, for instance, this page:
Instant Pot Greek Chicken
becomes this:
cooked.wiki/https://www.makeitlikeaman.com/2024/02/19/instant-pot-greek-chicken/
Some of its nicer features: as you click on each cooking direction, the related ingredients light up. When you click on the next direction, the previous one fades, so you can easily keep track of where you are. You can check off each ingredient as you add it, which will help ensure that you haven’t skipped anything. You can also ask it to produce a smaller or larger yield (although it gives you very mathy-looking results that are probably not practical, and it doesn’t alter cooking times). It will let you save the page, and it will also read the directions out loud for you.
I know it sounds like I’m doing an ad for that site. I have no connection to it whatsoever. I’m just kind of impressed with it. It’s not perfect, but it could be useful.
Outro
This recipe produces more relish than you need for the chicken, but fret not. Get yourself some gouda and some well-seasoned rice crackers. Top a cracker with the cheese and add a dollop of relish. You won’t be able to stop yourself until the whole box of crackers is gone.
Pan-Fried Chicken with Cranberry Relish
Credit for images on this page: Make It Like a Man! unless otherwise credited. This content was not solicited by anyone, nor was it written in exchange for anything. Thank you, Kesor. References: The Editors of Martha Stewart Living, “Cranberry-Orange Relish.” In Martha Stewart’s Cooking School: The Original Classics. (New York, NY: Clarkson Potter, 2007), 611. Make It Like a Man! is ranked by Feedspot as #14 in the Top 30 Men’s Cooking Blogs.
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We do the same with cranberries — although I learned the hard way to put the bags of cranberries in another bag. I hadn’t noticed the holes in the cranberry bags, and I lost them to freezer burn. The relish sounds absolutely perfect and, don’t hate me, I join your husband in this realm. I like my relishes and chocolate with no nuts. Go figure. However, Mark would be all over the walnuts! Of course, if you made it for me, I would happily eat it. 🙂 I love the alarms for chicken: open the windows and turn on the fan. Note taken. Thanks for another wonderful recipe.
I can’t fault him for the nut thing. He has so few food aversion that I’m free to cook just about anything.
C’est une assiette très appétissante
Merci
Thank you, Delphine!
This dish sounds and looks really good. I’m a big fan of cranberries. I think they tend to be underrated.
Thank you!
5lbs of chicken breast?? That sauce sounds fabulous and the chicken is perfectly seared.
Oh, thanks for catching that error!
The nice thing about cranberries is that their tart flavor enhances and complements so many meats. This is a meal I would really enjoy.
Thanks, Karen!
Hi Jeff,
Chicken breast, pan-fried, is a great all-around staple.
Thanks for sharing. 😊
You’re welcome, Gary!
Oh yes, I love cranberries, relish, and walnuts! The texture must be fabulous! I love dried figs with cheese, but I’ve learned that when I cook with them, it feels like I’m chewing on sand! Do I don’t do that any more! I would sub cherries, apricots, peaches, etc. That’s just me!
Thanks, Mimi!
The chicken looks so good with the cranberry relish. Great recipe!
Thank you so much, Javier!
Personalmente prefiero el pollo asado en el horno o la plancha, pero esa salsa de acompañamiento la disfrutaría tal cual la has preparado porque debe ser una delicia su sabor fresco y afrutado.
Un saludo
I have to say that I would also prefer a grill, but during most of the year, I don’t have the outdoor space to use one.
Delicious! I like it very much! Besitos.
Many thanks, Mari!
Beautifully cooked chicken and such a lovely luscious relish; loving the addition of walnuts!
Thank you, Ben!
Recipe looks delicious, of course, I love chicken and cranberries. Thank you for the tip for getting directly to the recipe. Who knew? 🙂
You’re welcome, Judy!
What a great idea to buy extra cranberries when they are in season. Fortunately, PC carries frozen cranberries all year round. And, I happen to have a bag in my freezer! The frozen ones are ridiculously expensive ($5 for 500 g). I will definitely give this a go, a nice change from traditional cranberry sauce.
Thanks, Eva!
I also buy a few extra bags of cranberries as we like to eat them year round. It really is so good with chicken! I haven’t made a recipe like this one before, but I’ll be pulling out some of my freezer cranberries to make this asap!
I usually use them in muffins, and didn’t think that frozen ones would be good in a relish (even though they’re great in a sauce), but they were excellent.
That relish looks good with that chicken, I bet they pair really well.
They really do! Thanks!
Hi Jeff, love the combination of cranberries and walnuts. I am guilty of enjoying cranberries during the holidays-obviously that’s a bad idea! I should buy my fresh cranberries during the holidays, freeze them properly and enjoy them throughout the year.
Your recipe looks scrumptious. I love what the cranberry relish adds to this chicken.
Velva
Haha! You should!
Cranberry relish is so versatile and can be used for so many dishes. The flavors of lemon, orange, ginger, and cranberry sounds amazing.
Thank you!
I always buy a couple extra bags of cranberries around the holidays – you never know when the craving will hit, and good luck finding cranberries in July! (Unless you come shopping in my freezer…) This relish sounds delicious, and I think I will pair it with grilled chicken rather soon!
Hey, if you’re saying that shopping in your freezer is a thing, sign me up!
Make, your recipe for Pan-Fried Chicken with Cranberry Relish sounds absolutely delicious! I appreciate how you’ve paired the savory chicken with the tangy relish, creating a perfect balance of flavors. Your clear instructions make it easy to follow, and I can’t wait to try this dish at home. Thank you for sharing such a wonderful recipe!
You’re welcome, Lori. No one’s ever called me “Make” before, and I like it! I really do love this recipe for all the reasons that you mention.
I want that cranberry relish with a warm bread slice you baked please, love jam, spread, relish, jelly, compotes
Thanks!
The cranberry relish looks such lovely
Thank you, Soma!