Greek marinade for chicken with yogurt

All you need to take your chicken to the next level is a simple but full of Mediterranean flavors marinade! And I have the perfect Greek chicken marinade for you to try!

It only takes a few minutes to create and adds tons of flavor to any type of chicken. You can easily use it to add flavor to chicken for a meal or to deliciously delicious roast chicken for your next barbecue.

Greek Marinade for Chicken

Greek Chicken Marinade is a simple marinade to make your chicken more flavorful without a lot of extra work.

Marinades are used on all types of meat and this could be adapted to other meats, but it is definitely a star when added with chicken.

• Easy to make: The marinade only takes a few minutes to prepare.
• Use with any type of chicken: You can add any piece of chicken to the marinade.

Greek marinade for chicken with yogurt

It is definitely better to use it Greek yogurt for this recipe if you have it, because the yogurt tenderizes the chicken. However, if you don’t have Greek yogurt, you can use plain natural yogurt and it will work similarly.

If you don’t have any kind of yogurt, you can use it lemon juice as indicated in the recipe below.

Tip: Depending on what you’re serving with the chicken, you can add a teaspoon of smoked paprika to the marinade for extra flavor.

Basic Ingredients Greek Marinade for Chicken

Marinade: The marinade consists of olive oil, lemon, garlic cloves, yogurt and red wine vinegar with dried oregano and liquid honey in the mix.

Chicken: You can use any kind of chicken for the cut, thighs, breasts or chicken pieces. It’s also optional if you want to have the skin on or off. You’ll want about 1 pound or 1 ½ ounces for this recipe.

Basic preparation tips for Greek chicken marinade

Take a large bowl or ziplock bag and add the oil, lemon zest, minced and peeled garlic and Greek yogurt. Mix with the oregano, honey and red wine vinegar and season with salt and pepper. Use a wire to connect them.

We take the chicken and add it to the marinade bowl or bag then refrigerate for at least two hours, ideally overnight.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees (390 F) and roast the marinated chicken for 20-30 minutes depending on the size. You might need about 40 minutes for something like bone-in chicken thighs.

Tip: If you used skin-on chicken, transfer to a grill and heat until the skin is crispy with a good level of caramelization.

How to cook marinated chicken in the pan or on the barbecue

If you want to grill the chicken, use direct heat to caramelize the meat before moving it to the edge of the pan for indirect cooking.

I don’t recommend the pan-searing method, only barbecuing skin-on or bone-in chicken pieces, although bone-in skin-on chicken thighs can be browned in the pan before being transferred to the oven to cook.

Variations

There are two main variations on this Greek marinade for chicken. The first is with yogurt and the second with lemon juice.

While I always use olive oil for marinades, you can vary the type of oil you use depending on the style of dish you want to use the chicken in. So you can use sesame oil for Asian style dishes or canola or vegetable oil for Mexican or American dishes.

Making time and saving

You can store cooked chicken for up to 2-3 days in the refrigerator in an airtight container and reheat it to use in various recipes.

Can you reuse leftover marinade?

You should not reuse a marinade that contains uncooked chicken unless it has been cooked in some way. This is because there are harmful bacteria that can come from the raw chicken and pass through the marinade.

As a best practice, if you want to use your marinade more than once, just set aside a portion of the marinade in the refrigerator before adding the raw chicken. This leftover marinade can be safely used later for 2-3 days.

Serving suggestions

You can serve the chicken as is or you can serve it alongside other Greek favorites such as salads:

1. Greek Orzo Salad (Orzo Feta Salad)
2. Traditional Greek Salad (Xoriatiki)
3. Delicious Greek Lentil Salad with Feta Recipe (Fakes Salata)
4. Refreshing recipe for watermelon salad with feta cheese
5. Recipe for halloumi salad and grilled vegetables
6. Greek pasta salad recipe
7. Greek chickpea salad

You can also serve it with some easy lemon rice, lemon Greek fries, or your favorite vegetable dishes.

Other delicious chicken recipes

Learn how to make Greek yogurt from scratch with my super easy recipe!

Print