Oven Baked 3-Ingredient Chicken Plantation

This three-ingredient baked Chicken is the kind of weeknight dinner you’ll come back to again and again — tender, golden around the edges, and swimming in a tangy, savory sauce that tastes like you actually tried. It takes about five minutes to put together and the oven does the rest.

Why You’ll Love It

• Only 3 ingredients — Russian dressing, dry onion soup mix, and chicken. That’s it.
• Minimal prep — mix, pour, bake. No browning, no sautéing, no extra dishes.
• Deep, savory flavor — the sauce caramelizes as it bakes and soaks into the chicken all the way through.
• Family-approved — everyone eats it without complaint, every single time.
• Easy to customize — works with thighs, you can add Vegetables right in the pan, or stir in a can of cream of Mushroom for a creamier version.

A Few Notes on the Ingredients

Russian dressing is the one people sometimes look at sideways, like they’re not sure what it’s doing there. It’s tangy and a little sweet and it has a certain something that I honestly can’t fully explain — kind of like a Thousand Island cousin but with more backbone. You want a good bottled one, not watery. I usually go with whatever’s at the front of the shelf at my regular grocery store, which I realize is not a recommendation exactly. Just don’t get the generic store brand that tastes like thinned-out ketchup.

The dry onion soup mix is what gives this its real depth. It’s salty, so please do not add salt to this dish. I have done that exactly once and we do not speak of it. The packet gives you everything — the onion, the herbs, a little savory richness that kind of blooms as it bakes. I use Lipton’s most of the time.

And the chicken. Boneless skinless chicken breasts are what I always reach for here, though honestly the few times I’ve used thighs it was maybe even better. Thighs are more forgiving — they don’t dry out if you forget to check the oven, which I will not claim to have done repeatedly but I will not deny it either.

Ingredients

• 6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 1 cup Russian dressing (bottled — I eyeball it, sometimes it’s a little more)
• 1 packet dry onion soup mix

How to Make It

Heat your oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 9×13-inch baking dish — I use a little cooking spray, or sometimes I just rub the bottom with the butter wrapper from something else I made that day. Old habits.

Lay the chicken breasts out in a single layer. This matters. Don’t stack them or crowd them or they’ll steam instead of bake and the sauce won’t do what you want it to do.

In a small bowl, mix together the Russian dressing and the soup mix until they’re pretty well combined. It’ll be thick and brownish and kind of ugly-looking at this point, but don’t worry about it. Spoon it over the chicken and spread it around so everything gets coated. I flip each piece over once to make sure the underside gets some too, though I’ll admit I skip this step half the time and it doesn’t seem to matter much.

Slide it into the oven, uncovered. Bake for 45 to 55 minutes. You want the top of the chicken to be bronzed — not just pale and cooked-through, but actually caramelized around the edges where the sauce thickened up. That’s the good part. If you have a meat thermometer, pull it at 165°F in the thickest spot. If you don’t have one, just cut into the biggest piece and check that there’s no pink.

Let it rest for five minutes before you serve it. I know, I know. But the juices settle and it makes a difference.

Ways to Change It Up

Adding a can of cream of mushroom soup mixed in with the dressing makes the sauce heavier and creamier and gives it more of that vintage supper club feel. Really good if you want something a little richer.

If you want to make it a full meal in one dish, you can tuck thin-sliced Potatoes or carrots or some wedges of onion around the chicken before it goes in the oven. Just make sure everything is cut thin enough to actually cook through by the time the chicken is done — thick potato chunks won’t make it and you’ll end up eating crunchy potatoes for dinner, which is not the same thing.

Sometimes I throw a little black pepper over everything before it goes in. Not much, just enough.

Leftovers

This keeps well in the fridge for three or four days, sealed up. The sauce gets thicker as it sits and I think it tastes even better the next day, which is a thing I could say about most braised or saucy dishes but it’s especially true here. Reheat it gently in a low oven with a splash of water added to the dish, or microwave it covered — just don’t blast it on high or the chicken gets tough and strange. I’ve done it. It’s not terrible but it’s not good either.

I always serve this with buttered egg noodles. Rice works, mashed potatoes work. Anything that catches the sauce, really. A side of green beans or a simple tomato salad is enough to make it feel like a real dinner and not just a casserole.

Anyway. Three ingredients. Sometimes that’s all something needs.