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Why You’ll Love My Recipe

This is an incredibly delicious meal served alone, over a bed of rice, or alongside roasted vegetables. It’s also a great way to use up leftover cranberry sauce from the holidays!

Looking for another way to add depth? Try a dash of Worcestershire sauce in this recipe! Or if you’re looking for another saucy dish to serve over rice or mashed potatoes, why not make some Chicken Fricassee?

A cooked chicken breast topped with a reddish sauce sits on a bed of white rice on a white plate, with a fork resting on the side.

Karlynn’s Recipe Notes

Skill Level: This recipe is easy to make; perfect for a prep-ahead midweek meal!
Total Time: Marinate your chicken for 8 hours or overnight for the best flavour, and bake for 40-60 minutes for fall-apart tenderness!
Variations: This recipe calls for chicken breasts because they cook quickly and absorb marinades easily, but you can switch it up and use chicken thighs or drumsticks if you’re not a fan of chicken breast!
Tools For This Recipe: You’ll need a 9×13 baking dish and a can opener (for the cranberry sauce) for this recipe.

A fork holds a piece of baked chicken with rice and sauce, above a plate of white rice topped with more saucy chicken. The background shows additional servings and a white, bright kitchen setting.

What You’ll Need for Ingredients

Whole Berry Cranberry Sauce: Using whole berry cranberry sauce instead of the jellied kind adds a little extra texture to the marinade that translates into a better mouthfeel for the final sauce!

Catalina Salad Dressing: Catalina dressing uses vinegar, oil, and tomato paste—it’s a fantastic and convenient way to add a ton of flavour with very little effort!

Onion Soup Mix: You can either use a packet from your local grocery store, or if you want more control over the amount of sodium you and your family are making, you can check out my Onion Soup Mix recipe!

Four raw chicken breasts on parchment paper, next to bowls containing cranberry sauce, powdered seasoning, and an orange-brown sauce, all arranged on a white marble surface.

How to Make Cranberry Chicken

This is a quick overview of the recipe. The full list of ingredients & complete step-by-step instructions are in the recipe card below.

A glass bowl containing orange sauce, whole cranberries, and a mound of flour sits on a white marble surface. Nearby are a metal spoon, raw chicken pieces on parchment, and a white towel with blue stripes.

Four raw chicken breasts are placed side by side in a white rectangular baking dish on a marble countertop, with a striped towel and a bowl of red sauce partially visible.

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Combine the cranberry sauce, Catalina dressing, and onion soup mix in a bowl until completely incorporated.
Place the chicken in a 9×13 baking dish.
Pour the sauce over the chicken, covering completely.
Bake in the oven until the internal temperature of the chicken registers at least 165°F with an instant read thermometer (35-40 minutes).

Four baked chicken breasts in a white casserole dish, covered in a thick, glossy, dark red sauce. The dish is set on a white marble surface with a white towel visible at the edge.

Karlynn’s Tips and Tricks for the Perfect Cranberry Chicken

Prep Ahead: Although you can bang everything into the oven right away and have a delicious dish ready to go, you can also prepare the sauce and marinate your chicken in a zip-top bag in the fridge overnight for extra flavor! If you’re using chicken thighs or drumsticks, you can score them to help the marinade get into the meat more easily.
How Slow Can You Go: The best thing is to shoot for an hour’s cooking time, but you should keep going if your chicken hasn’t reached an internal temperature of at least 165°F. Turn your chicken pieces occasionally will help keep the marinade from burning, and shoot for an internal temperature of 185°F if you want the chicken to be fall-apart tender!

A spoon pours thick, reddish-brown sauce over a piece of chicken served on a bed of white rice. In the background, bowls and a casserole dish are slightly out of focus.

Storage Instructions

Refrigerator: Store leftover cranberry chicken in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days.
Freezer: You can store leftovers in the freezer in an airtight, freezer-safe container or zip-top bag for up to 2 months. Thaw in the refrigerator overnight and reheat in the microwave or oven to serve.

More Delicious Chicken Recipes

Looking for another perfect midweek meal? Give my Lemon Garlic Chicken a try!
Try my Buttery Garlic & Herb Chicken and Potatoes for a meal that gives the vibes of a weekend roast without the fuss!
For a spicy, summery bite, give my Jerk Chicken a try! It’s excellent on the barbecue or grill!

This recipe is an excellent example of how to get big flavour from simple, easy to use pantry ingredients! I love dishes like this because they prove that you don’t need to spend all your time in the kitchen to get delicious, complex dishes on the table!

Try out this recipe and let me know how it turns out in the comments below!

Happy Cooking!

Karlynn